Scientology by OT

Scientology caught red-handed breaking government restrictions — and without penalty

ortegaunderground — Sun, 18 Jun 2017 11:00:22 +0000

Rod Keller continues to watch a strange situation with Scientology in Mexico City for us.

Scientology is still renovating the planned advanced org known as AOSH LATAM at the former Palmas Plaza mall in the Mexico City area. This despite “seals,” which are banners tied to the gates announcing to all that work on the site is prohibited. There are no valid permits to renovate the structure. Scientology’s solution is to work in secret, with only a few workers rather than over 100 as was the case before the site was shut down. In Mexican slang this is known as “trabajo hormiga,” or “ant work,” in which the work is done little at a time to avoid detection.

[Enrique Vargas del Villar]

News web site InfoZona published a statement from the municipal president, or mayor, Enrique Vargas del Villar. “The people the neighbors observed are not workers, they are security personnel, the work has not been resumed or will be resumed outside the context of the law.”

The neighbors of the work site know better than that. Above, dump trucks parked alongside the site idle as they wait to receive a load of refuse. The security guards Vargas del Villar mentions are there, in uniform, but there are others as well. In this remarkable series of photos, a uniformed security guard opens the gate for a worker, who steps over the seal. The guard then replaces the seal across the gate.

The neighbors are opposed to the proposed facility because they fear increased traffic in the area, and many believe the character of the “colonia,” or neighborhood will change with the influx of Scientologists. Some keep an eye on the gates as they pass, photographing workers waiting to be allowed inside. One neighbor this week was confronted at the gate by a non-uniformed worker as he was taking photographs.

The neighborhood association has approved the hiring of attorneys to represent their interests in the matter, but there is nothing for them to do at the moment. Scientology has not applied for new permits, or sued the local government to force them to allow the renovations. Local officials say the site is closed, and are not taking any action against Scientology. For now they are willing to ignore the ant work being done. For Scientology, this method of renovation will extend the project indefinitely. It’s a large building and the interior is being completely replaced to meet the standards of an Ideal Advanced Org and Continental Liaison Office. If they intend to open in the near future they will have to find a solution to the stand-off

— Rod Keller

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HowdyCon 2017

HowdyCon 2017: Denver, June 23-25 at the Residence Inn Denver City Center. Go here for details.

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Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley has not seen his daughter Stephanie in 4,785 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 2,542 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 1,888 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 2,382 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 1,422 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy in 1,134 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 660 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 4,749 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 1,889 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 2,209 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 2,184 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 540 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin in 4,842 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 949 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis for 1,351 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 1,224 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 805 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike in 1,310 days.
Mary Jane Sterne has not seen her daughter Samantha in 1,554 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 12,663 days.

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Posted by Tony Ortega on June 18, 2017 at 07:00

E-mail tips and story ideas to tonyo94 AT gmail DOT com or follow us on Twitter. We post behind-the-scenes updates at our Facebook author page. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.

Our book, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper, is on sale at Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook versions. We’ve posted photographs of Paulette and scenes from her life at a separate location. Reader Sookie put together a complete index. More information about the book, and our 2015 book tour, can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2016 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Undergound Bunker (2012-2016), The Village Voice (2008-2012), New Times Los Angeles (1999-2002) and the Phoenix New Times (1995-1999)

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS: We read Scientology’s founding text cover to cover with the help of L.A. attorney and former church member Vance Woodward
UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists
GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice
SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING: Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts

Other links: Shelly Miscavige, ten years gone | The Lisa McPherson story told in real time | The Cathriona White stories | The Leah Remini ‘Knowledge Reports’ | Hear audio of a Scientology excommunication | Scientology’s little day care of horrors | Whatever happened to Steve Fishman? | Felony charges for Scientology’s drug rehab scam | Why Scientology digs bomb-proof vaults in the desert | PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | Scientology boasts about assistance from Google | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Paul Haggis: Marty Rathbun is using private info I gave him against Lawrence Wright

ortegaunderground — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 10:00:03 +0000

In the latest video that Mark “Marty” Rathbun posted to his website as part of his general attack on Lawrence Wright and his 2013 book Going Clear, Rathbun calls Wright’s book a “phony narrative,” and accuses Wright of deceiving readers about the way that director Paul Haggis came to investigate and leave the Church of Scientology. Rathbun claims that he deserves credit for putting Haggis on that path, which is left out of the book.

Paul Haggis tells us that Rathbun is right about that, and Rathbun does deserve credit — but that it was Paul’s own decision to keep that from Wright.

Last night, we described to Haggis what Rathbun had said in his latest video (“Going Clear, Part 15”), about Wright omitting Rathbun’s role, and a claim about Haggis asking Rathbun to hold back something about his daughters.

Haggis then sent us this message, his first public statement about Rathbun’s accusations.

I am afraid I have been busy working on a new feature documentary and haven’t watched Marty’s videos, but from what you say, Marty is likely telling a truth. At the time of Larry’s article and book I withheld the fact that Marty had reached out to me by email. I had already started questioning a lot of things about Scientology — had my confrontation with Tommy Davis about Prop 8, the church’s hidden policy of encouraging homophobia, had found Tommy Davis lying online about the policy of disconnection, and was feeling I would have to resign. And at that time I received an anonymous email that directed me to take a look at the St. Petersburg Times article. I did, was horrified by what I read, and responded to the email — which turned out to have been sent by Marty, at the suggestion of Jason Beghe. I did not know Marty at the time, and to the best of my knowledge had never met him, but I knew and liked Jason, having worked with him a few years before. Shortly after that, I had breakfast with Jason and he directed me to someone else he thought I should meet.

I withheld that information from Larry Wright. I had already decided to speak my mind and take what came, but I did not want Marty or Jason to get into even more trouble for helping me. Marty was being followed by private detectives and Jason was already under fire from the Church; they’d sent PI’s to harass and bait him, and he was tied up in a criminal case and struggling to get work, and was worried about losing his house. I appreciated his help, and Marty’s, and did not wish to give Scientology any more fuel to attack them.

I should add that I had a number of really good and helpful conversations with Marty during the months I was researching and writing my 2009 letter of resignation. He was very supportive and I considered him a friend. I always felt that if he wanted his role in my resignation made public, if he wanted to take that heat, he would do it himself.

Since that time I have talked about this, assuming that the secret no longer need be kept, and thanked Marty and Jason for opening my eyes. In fact I sent Marty a note to this effect just a month ago, though did not receive a reply. I will be forever grateful to both of them, and anything Marty says now will not change my mind.

Before Marty published my resignation letter on his blog, I sent him an edited version, deleting about a page, which involved something personal that my daughters would not want to have shared with the world — not about them personally, but about a friend and Scientologist who said some cruel things about them. They wanted to protect their former friend, despite her despicable behavior: that’s my daughters and I’m very proud of them. Marty agreed. And later I called him and asked him not to reveal the deleted portion to Larry Wright, to honor my daughters’ wishes for privacy. Perhaps that’s what he is referring to now; it’s all I can think of.

I similarly did not tell Larry Wright the names of five other people with whom I spoke as I did my research, people who helped me see the cruel truths about this organization and how it functions. These people were all afraid of the Church’s wrath should their role be disclosed. Some would have faced disconnection, one would lose a father, one would have lost a job, and all of them would certainly have been harassed. Three of those people I even kept secret from Marty and Jason. While my request to keep my daughters out of it was certainly personal, to the rest I felt I owed my silence. When threatened by the phalanx of officials from the church who came to my office, I similarly did not reveal Marty and Jason’s name, or any of the names of others who had been so helpful.

I am concerned about Marty. I have no idea why he would seek to discredit people he respected — like Mike Rinder, yourself, or Larry Wright — or in my case, someone he helped. I won’t speculate as to his motives. I wish him well. He has my eternal gratitude.

— Paul

Previously, we had shown that Rathbun has accused Wright of inventing material or lying about facts in his book, when it was easy to find the original source material that Wright was relying on. In this case, Rathbun again accuses Wright of dishonesty, and it turns out that Wright had left something out of his book because Paul Haggis had not told him about it. Lawrence Wright is a Pulitzer Prize winning author and investigative reporter, but he’s not a mind reader.

Thank you, Paul, for speaking up. Like you, we’re puzzled as to why Rathbun is trying so hard (and so ineffectively) to discredit people like you and Lawrence Wright.

UPDATE: Rathbun has posted another video (“Going Clear, Part 16”), and it continues the accusation that Wright, describing Beghe’s involvement, is being deceptive about what Haggis knew of Beghe’s status as a defector. As Haggis pointed out in his statement above, he held back that knowledge from Wright because he feared that Scientology would use it to further harass Beghe. Instead of focusing on that — the very real bullying going on by the church — Rathbun continues to accuse Wright of being deceptive about matters he was unaware of. [End of update.]

Meanwhile, in another video (“Going Clear, Part 14”), Rathbun attempted to smear two more people that we’ve written about in the past, attorney Graham Berry and his one-time client, former Scientologist Michael Pattinson.

We asked Graham Berry if he had any comment about Rathbun’s video, and boy, did he…

I have listened to Marty Rathbun’s “Going Clear, Part 14” with utter bemusement, and some disappointment. Bemusement because Marty mistakes and conflates different events. Disappointment because I had considered Marty to be a good acquaintance. In 2011 I had spent five very enjoyable days in Hamburg, Germany with Marty, his lovely wife Monique, Ursula Caberta, and others. Over one meal I asked Marty to talk about circumstances of the IRS’s sudden U-turn and granting of tax exempt status to Scientology in 1993; only a few years after the IRS had totally defeated the church in Hernandez v. Commissioner (1989), where the US Supreme Court had held that “payments made to the [Churches of Scientology] for auditing and training services are not deductible charitable contributions” for income tax purposes. The subsequent IRS tax settlement agreement with Scientology reversed that holding. Marty declined to discuss the matter at all. He said, “Watch Primary Colors. That answers the question.” Anyone care to explain? [Well, we have a guess, Graham. — Ed.]

Marty has singled out Michael Pattinson’s case for seemingly homophobic ridicule and attack in an OSA-like attack. In fact, the Pattinson v. Scientology case was filed in mid-1998 at a time when OSA’s “Fair Game” activities against me were reaching their zenith. Some of those operations were run through Karen de la Carriere, who has since left the church and become a very kind, generous and dear friend. However, Marty Rathbun has declined to provide me information as to his knowledge of the church’s activities against me even though he was David Miscavige’s deputy. “Ask Mike Rinder,” he wrote most recently. In an article entitled “Double Crossed,” Tony Ortega detailed in 1999 what he described as “one of the most hellacious cases of fair game in recent years, the smearing of attorney Graham Berry.”

Before filing the Pattinson case, I had been litigating against the Church of Scientology in a number of matters. For example, the Joseph A. Yanny cases (against the church’s former lead trial attorney), the Fishman & Geertz case (in connection with the 1991 TIME magazine cover story), the Henson I and II cases, the Factnet case, the Jason Scott case, the motion to reopen the L. Ron Hubbard Probate case, and other matters. I was extremely empathetic to the plight of former Scientologists under attack from their former church and had chosen to resign as a capital partner from Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard & Smith, and then Musick, Peeler & Garrett, in order to continue this work after each of those firms were finally spooked by unrelenting harassment and intimidation by OSA. I was under 24/7 surveillance and stalking by OSA operatives wherever I was or went in the world. The church, through its attorneys and other stooges, had filed at least nine unsuccessful state bar complaints against me. “Dead Agent Packs” were being distributed around the world.

In early 1998 I had finally located the most scurrilous defamer, Robert Cipriano, and I filed suit in an effort to obtain a retraction from him, which he ultimately gave me after he finally broke free from the church’s corrupt clutches. Two months later Michael Pattinson came to me with a horrifying story of abuse and betrayal that is detailed in the first and third amended complaints. A number of lawyers had given the thumbs up to this lawsuit being right on the money with its allegations and causes of action.

The church responded by escalating their Fair Game activities against both Pattinson and myself, and bringing in lawyers from two New York law firms, a Washington DC law firm, and a number of Los Angeles law firms. In particular, attorney Moxon (who had also been named as a defendant) located a Scientology Sea Organization member in Copenhagen. Moxon then filed the case of Michel Reveillere v. Michael Pattinson alleging no-payment of a promissory note for a loan made when both were church members in Paris. Pattinson was unable to effectively deny liability and Moxon took a quick judgment against Pattinson which he then proceeded to execute upon. Pattinson was forced to declare bankruptcy in an effort to avoid Reveillere and Moxon, as a judgment creditor, interfering in Pattinson’s case against his former church.

Simultaneously, the church was endeavoring to dismiss the Pattinson case and was seeking sanctions against me for having named Moxon as a defendant (which did not prevent him from serving as an attorney in the case). Eventually the church’s efforts were successful. New York attorney Samuel D. Rosen, Esq. of the giant Paul Hasting’s law firm obtained sanctions against me for Moxon’s attorneys fees (which were paid of course by the church) in the amount of nearly $30,000 (including the cost of his frequent first class airfares and five star hotel accommodations which the court deemed “reasonable”). It was one of the factors that drove me into a bankruptcy.

Marty Rathbun is wrong about the vexatious litigant ruling. The church accomplished this in the Berry v. Cipriano case where the church’s vexatious litigant motion was not only lacking in factual and legal merit (which the judge conceded) but was a proceeding described by a number of observers as a “kangaroo court.” That saga is another tale.

Marty is also wrong about President Clinton being a defendant in the Pattinson case where an injunction was sought to restrain the government from engaging in constitutional and other violations in connection with the Scientology-IRS secret tax settlement agreement (e.g. assisting the church in obtaining tax exempt status in other nations, avoiding Interpol action, and granting tax relief for commercial activities, etc.). The Clinton administration was named solely as a “relief defendant” in connection with the request for an injunction. Curiously, a little later, when engaged in a short conversation with then First Lady Clinton about my work against Scientology, she commented “I’m pleased you are on our side!”

In 2011 and subsequently, I thought Marty was well on the road to recovery from his Scientology experience and abuse. However, in making the attacks and comments in his series of videos on Lawrence Wright and Going Clear, Marty appears to be reverting to the cult’s agenda, talking points, and revisionism. It’s sad but if true he would not be the first person that the cult has managed to flip, sometimes as part of a confidential settlement.

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Smile, Clay Irwin, you’re on creepy camera!

Clearwater, Florida tavernkeeper Clay Irwin messaged us a couple of photos yesterday, asking us if he should be concerned.

He explained that Bruno, his Miniature Pinscher, had been barking at something in the bushes on the property of his neighbor. Clay went over to see what it might be, and found this item, with a short metal rod stuck into the ground. He says it was well hidden, but he could see that it was pointed at his house.

We asked Clay if the lens of the Brinno camera had been aimed at his driveway.

“Yep. Totally,” he said.

A similar camera, you will remember, was mounted on a tree facing the driveway at Marty and Monique Rathbun’s house in Texas when they were under intense surveillance by Church of Scientology operatives. Rathbun, who used to run such operations before he left the church in 2004, said that the purpose of such a camera was to capture images of license plates so private investigators could determine who was visiting the house.

“No flipping way,” Irwin said when we explained this to him.

We’ve written about Irwin several times. He’s the owner of the Lucky Anchor pub on Cleveland Street in Clearwater, which he opened at the beginning of this year, right in the middle of Scientology’s “Flag Land Base” campus. He told us he was determined to get along with his church neighbors when he opened for business, but since then he’s had some run-ins with the organization that have complicated that relationship. A construction worker drinking at his bar took Clay on an impromptu tour of Tom Cruise’s unfinished condo down the street, for example, and seemingly because of that Clay was not invited to a presentation about downtown development that Scientology leader David Miscavige gave local business owners which included John Travolta, Kelly Preston, and Kirstie Alley. Clay later ran into Preston, however, and she seemed friendly.

Most recently, he’s been giving network television interviews about the latest controversies in town regarding Scientology. Since then, he says he’s been feeling like he’s being watched.

“I’ve been feeling like I have been followed,” he says. “I took the camera inside and opened it up. I searched the serial number online, but I didn’t find anything. I took the card out and my laptop is downloading files from it right now. They’re huge files.”

He found that the camera used four AA batteries, which lasted for 80 hours before needing to be changed, according to its specs. The camera looked like it had been there for numerous days, and so the batteries would have been changed several times, he estimates.

We told him we’d be interested to learn what he finds in the images recorded by the camera. He said he’d be happy to share that with us.

[Clay Irwin and Kelly Preston]

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Chris Shelton talks with Natalie Feinblatt

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HowdyCon 2017

HowdyCon 2017: Denver, June 23-25 at the Residence Inn Denver City Center. Go here for details.

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Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley has not seen his daughter Stephanie in 4,784 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 2,541 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 1,887 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 2,381 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 1,421 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy in 1,133 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 659 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 4,748 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 1,888 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 2,208 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 2,183 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 539 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin in 4,841 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 948 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis for 1,350 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 1,223 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 804 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike in 1,309 days.
Mary Jane Sterne has not seen her daughter Samantha in 1,553 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 12,662 days.

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Posted by Tony Ortega on June 17, 2017 at 07:00

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

Marty Rathbun’s project becomes clear: Someone’s worried about Scientology & the IRS

ortegaunderground — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 11:00:01 +0000

Well, the project is becoming clear. Someone is apparently worried about losing his precious tax exemption.

In Marty Rathbun’s most recent video segments in his remarkable turnaround from one of the Church of Scientology’s biggest defectors and critics of all time into an apologist who is aping church talking points, Rathbun tries to rewrite history regarding the church and its long battles with the IRS.

But Rathbun is going to have a difficult time refuting an earlier, detailed explanation of how that battle went down: His own.

The Church of Scientology has always maintained that it was entitled to the tax exemption it received from the IRS in 1993, and it was just a matter of passing through a rigorous two-year audit and had nothing to do with decades of harassment and thousands of lawsuits it had filed against the agency. Marty Rathbun was one of the key people who ran that harassment operation and who was involved with the ultimate victory over the IRS. And now, he’s parroting the church’s position, that this was simply a matter of the IRS granting the church what it deserved.

But that’s not what Rathbun said in the past — and under oath.

In 2010, Marty Rathbun provided a detailed court declaration about his involvement in Scientology for a lawsuit brought against the church by Claire Headley. We think it’s probably pretty useful to excerpt some key portions of it to remind everyone what a different tune Rathbun was singing just a few years ago.

As Inspector General Ethics I directed and coordinated a broad-based attack on the Internal Revenue Service. The purpose of the campaign was to put the IRS into a more amenable frame of mind so that they would relent in their own decades long refusal to grant tax exempt status to the churches. In late summer 1991, when sufficient pressure was accomplished, Miscavige and I directly approached then-IRS Commissioner Fred Goldberg to open settlement negotiations. Those negotiations were initiated and conducted over the next two years. Miscavige and I traveled across the country together to meet with the IRS regularly until October 1993 when the IRS granted tax exempt status to all churches of Scientology and related organizations.

Miscavige directed large bonuses be paid to Religious Technology Center executives during the first several years of his reign as COB RTC. He justified it based on policy within the church and the Sea Org by the founder L. Ron Hubbard which stated he wished to see the day when Scientology staff were well paid. Accordingly, the fact was not hidden that CSI and RTC executives were well paid in the late eighties and early nineties. Of course, Miscavige’s pay was consistently higher than anyone’s. In fact, he had to have other executives being paid something in the neighborhood of his own pay until tax exemption was attained as the IRS required detailed reports on the pay of RTC highest executives. The IRS record reflects that during the years 89-91 RTC executives received salaries ranging from the low tens of thousands to mid tens of thousands per years. Miscavige reported salaries from the mid tens of thousands to the high tens of thousands. When that issue seemed to be settled to the IRS’ satisfaction, Miscavige canceled bonuses for all RTC and CSI executives. At one point when the IRS wanted some more current information on executive salaries, Miscavige’s wife and Assistant Shelly severely rebuked me for having refused a bonus as I considered it unearned. Under pressure I relented and went ahead and received the bonus so as to “protect COB.” Once exemption was attained, high bonuses for CSI and RTC executives were virtually wiped out. With one glaring exception, David Miscavige and his wife continued to be paid a combined salary upwards of one hundred thousand dollars for years to come. Other RTC and CSI staff executives were for the most part paid fifty dollars per week.

Shortly after tax exemption was obtained and announced and the record of the negotiated settlement became public, reporters began focusing on David Miscavige’s and Shelly Miscavige’s combined six figure salary. I was fielding calls from the New York Times, LA Times, and St. Petersburg Times on that narrow subject. Miscavige began making insane demands that I spike the stories. He became abusive and violent toward me as if I could make the cold, hard facts go away. Because of that, combined with Miscavige’s increasingly lavish lifestyle, his unnatural obsession with actor Tom Cruise, and his increasingly abusive behavior toward staff and myself, I began to question whether the long, hard fight with the IRS was about protecting the religion or instead about protecting Miscavige’s personal power and lifestyle choices…

Between approximately 1993 when IRS tax exempt status was obtained and the present, David Miscavige has been executing a program of his own design that has transformed the church of Scientology from a recognized religious organization into a commercial operation devoted almost exclusively toward increasing his own wealth, entertainment, comfort, and power.

So, let’s go through the bullet points:

— Scientology battled the IRS until it was softened up enough to consider a settlement.
— Salaries were paid to Scientology executives just long enough to fool the IRS and complete the settlement.
— Scientology is actually a commercial enterprise aimed at benefiting one person, David Miscavige.

This is what Marty Rathbun testified to in 2010, and it’s consistent with decades of reporting on the Church of Scientology and the IRS by journalists, spelled out in documents, and said by other former insiders.

But now, Rathbun wants you to believe that journalists, including Larry Wright, have been inventing stories in order to make the Church of Scientology look bad. And that there’s a conspiracy to create a false impression about the church in order to convince the IRS to review its 1993 decision.

We think it would be just grand if the IRS took a new look at Scientology. Why? Because of what Marty Rathbun and others have said about it, that’s why.

Instead of attacking Wright and others, Rathbun is going to have to deal with the fact that it’s his own previous statements that he is contradicting.

We’ll leave you with a few memes that we hope make it crystal clear just how dishonest his project is. Feel free to disseminate them.

Here’s another example of Rathbun blaming Lawrence Wright for inventing something that was, in fact, pretty conclusively the actual situation…

And here’s Rathbun claiming that it was a conspiracy between Lawrence Wright (book Going Clear, 2013), Alex Gibney (film Going Clear, 2015), Mike Rinder (blog starting 2013), and Tony Ortega (blog starting 2012), to say that Scientology’s tax exempt status was now fraudulent and should be reviewed. Oh, what was it Rathbun said, under oath, in 2010?

And again, it’s not that Rathbun is simply saying he’s changed his mind. He’s accusing Lawrence Wright of dishonesty, when it’s easily shown that Wright was reporting what Rathbun himself had said…

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HOWDYCON ANNOUNCEMENT

Can you believe it? We’re just a week out from the start of HowdyCon 2017 in Denver. If you are planning to join us Saturday night for our main event, we need to have your RSVP and dinner payment as soon as possible. Make sure you have confirmed with Kim O’Brien, our coordinator, and visit our HowdyCon website where she has instructions for how you can pay for the dinner fee that night. You need to do that right away to make sure you’ll be included in the Saturday night festivities, which include:

— London-based Australian journalist Steve Cannane talking about his book Fair Game
— A spoken-word performance from former Sea Org official Claire Headley
— Cathy Schenkelberg performing for us scenes from her one-woman show, “Squeeze My Cans”

You don’t want to miss out, so please visit the convention page and get in contact with Kim.

HowdyCon 2017: Denver, June 23-25 at the Residence Inn Denver City Center. Go here to start making your plans.

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Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley has not seen his daughter Stephanie in 4,783 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 2,540 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 1,886 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 2,380 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 1,420 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy in 1,132 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 658 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 4,747 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 1,887 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 2,207 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 2,182 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 538 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin in 4,840 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 947 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis for 1,349 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 1,222 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 803 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike in 1,308 days.
Mary Jane Sterne has not seen her daughter Samantha in 1,552 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 12,661 days.

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Posted by Tony Ortega on June 16, 2017 at 07:00

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

Marty Rathbun, Victoria Britton has a question for you about Scientology and judges

ortegaunderground — Thu, 15 Jun 2017 11:00:26 +0000

We’re traveling again today and we don’t have time for a long story. And we also know that you’re probably sick of reading about Marty Rathbun. But we wanted to give Victoria Britton recognition for raising one of the best questions we’ve seen about Rathbun’s new tune.

Here’s what Victoria said at Facebook after watching Rathbun’s “Going Clear, Part 9” video:

I just finished watching the ninth video in Marty Rathbun’s series and I would appreciate any feedback to my query. In the video Rathbun claims that the harassment of Judge Ronald Swearinger who presided over the Wollersheim case did not occur. According to Marty this is because of the purging of the Guardians Office that occurred five years prior. He continues in saying (not verbatim) “measures were tight-you couldn’t get involved in a lawsuit without an okay from H.Q.-no one would do something as stupid as mess with a judge.” In November of 2012, Marty while “under oath” described in detail how he set up a meeting to influence a Hillsborough County judge in the Lisa McPherson case. If what Marty says in his video is truthful, did he commit perjury in 2012?

That’s an excellent question, Victoria. Let’s go to the tape.

First, here’s the relevant passage from Rathbun’s new video. After denying accusations that Scientology had harassed and tried to influence a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, Rathbun says…

This was five years after the purge of the Guardian’s Office. I mean, the prophylactic measures, and control measures that were put in on external activity were so tight, that you couldn’t cough if you were involved in anything having to do with an external situation like a lawsuit, without HQ OK. OK? The last thing in the world that anybody — I mean, people knew within an inch of their lives that they would be purged and expelled forever if they did something as stupid and corrupt as go mess with a judge.

Seems pretty categorical, and Marty is leaving himself very little wiggle room. He’s saying pretty plainly that after the early 1980s purge of the Guardian’s Office, the agency that replaced it, the Office of Special Affairs, knew that trying to mess with a judge was no longer what Scientology did.

But as Victoria points out, in 2012 Rathbun gave a deposition, under oath, and described things very differently. Rathbun’s deposition was taken by Tampa attorney Ken Dandar, who at that time was fighting some very bizarre litigation from the Church of Scientology. (Eventually, Dandar succeeded in having a million-dollar judgment against him wiped out, and his court fight with the church is over.)

What Dandar wanted to know, and what Rathbun was happy to testify to, was the amount of time and money that was spent by the church fighting against criminal and civil court cases growing out of the 1995 death of church member Lisa McPherson. Specifically, Dandar wanted to know if Scientology had tried to influence the judges handling the various cases.

“Absolutely,” Rathbun testified. Here, we’re going to post the entire exchange from the deposition so you can see it for yourself.

Gosh, that sure sounds like “messing with a judge,” Marty — and it was done at your direction.

So, Victoria Britton’s eagle eye sure has raised a question for Marty Rathbun: Is he lying now, or was he lying then?

And he should be really careful about how he answers that question. Because if he was lying then, he was under oath. And that’s actually a crime.

Meanwhile, as for changing his tune…

Marty, you’re making this too easy. Do you really have such little self-respect?

Oh, and one more question, Marty. Why did you give Dani Lemberger’s private email to the Church of Scientology to use against him in litigation? How about just answering that simple question?

——————–

Chris Shelton on the materials of Scientology

——————–

Bonus items from our tipsters

Come to the local org to watch video of David Miscavige talking for two hours to a bunch of wealthy big beings on a cruise ship somewhere! Isn’t Scientology fun?

——————–

HOWDYCON ANNOUNCEMENT

You don’t want to miss out, so please visit the convention page and get in contact with Kim.

HowdyCon 2017: Denver, June 23-25 at the Residence Inn Denver City Center. Go here to start making your plans.

——————–

Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley has not seen his daughter Stephanie in 4,782 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 2,539 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 1,885 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 2,379 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 1,419 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy in 1,131 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 657 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 4,746 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 1,886 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 2,206 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 2,181 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 537 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin in 4,839 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 946 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis for 1,348 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 1,221 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 802 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike in 1,307 days.
Mary Jane Sterne has not seen her daughter Samantha in 1,551 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 12,660 days.

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on June 15, 2017 at 07:00

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

Marty Rathbun tries to rewrite the record on Scientology spying. But we have the dox.

ortegaunderground — Wed, 14 Jun 2017 11:00:31 +0000

[Gary Morehead’s Bearcat 3000. In the biz, this is known as “dox.”]

We truly did not want to pay any more attention to Marty Rathbun’s lame swipes at Lawrence Wright’s book Going Clear, but in his latest video (“Going Clear, Part 9”) he is making some claims that are staggeringly dishonest. We felt we had to respond.

Let us tell you about Gary “Jackson” Morehead. He is a gentle giant, and one of the most pleasant and forthright former Scientologists we have ever met. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Gary had a remarkable job — head of security at Int Base, Scientology’s secretive 500-acre compound near Hemet, California. Gary has a lot of very fun stories about those days — including a great one that we not only got from Gary but confirmed in all its details with several other former church members.

What we found from that experience is that Gary Morehead is a solid source, even if his stories about Scientology are mindblowing. One of the things Gary was in charge of was the “blow drill.” When a Sea Org member “blew” — escaped — from the base, it was his job to use whatever means at his disposal to bring that person back.

In one memorable episode he told us about (which yes, has been confirmed by other people), a young woman named Jan Simms made a break for freedom in the late 1980s. She did so by getting a doctor’s appointment in town, and then bolting when she got there. Ever after, Gary tells us, this became known as “the Jan Simms method,” and it was one that was also used by Claire Headley to make her break for freedom in 2005.

When Simms ran, Morehead says he got to fly on an airplane for the first time. He went to Tallahassee, where Jan’s parents lived.

“I was set up in a Holiday Inn and provided equipment by Ben Shaw,” Gary told us last night by telephone. “I sat there all day. That’s all I did for a solid week.”

And what was he doing there? “I had scanners provided by OSA. I was listening for Jan Simms talking to her parents.”

And how would you do that, Gary?

“I knew the frequencies for cordless phones and cell phones,” he says. He sat there, listening in on phone conversations, for days and days.

Marty Rathbun, in his latest video, says this never happened. After calling Morehead “goofy,” he quotes from Lawrence Wright’s book about Gary spying on phone calls.

“He says in here that they were using scanners to listen to cell phone calls,” Marty says. “I got news. A scanner will not net you the content of a telephone call. Either Gary is into this embellishment for fame or Wright has invented this.”

“Marty doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Gary tells us. “First of all, OSA had a closet full of equipment for listening in on conversations. That’s where I learned how to do it. I saw the closet and I saw the equipment, and Ben Shaw and I learned how to do it. I was listening to cordless phones and cell phones. Just like we could call an airport and get information on a passenger, the technology had got ahead of the security.”

Gary explains that for a limited number of years, the scanners were more sophisticated than the phones they were eavesdropping on. And he says that Marty knew full well what they were capable of at that time, in the late 1980s.

“I’m surprised he would even say something like that. And he called me goofy? Wow. Well I guess that ain’t too bad, huh?” Gary says with a laugh. (We’ve never heard Gary Morehead sound angry about anything, ever.)

Gary explained that US scanners had restrictions in some frequencies, so as part of his job with Scientology, he purchased a Uniden Bearcat 3000 XLT in Canada, where those frequencies weren’t restricted.

“I still have it!” he said, and then photographed the scanner and sent it to us, as you can see above.

That, in the business, is what we call “dox,” for documented proof. And in his videos, Marty repeatedly proves that he has none.

Let’s take another example. Marty repeatedly says that Lawrence Wright invented things out of whole cloth for his book, which is a scurrilous accusation to make. Here’s one that Marty makes in the video, and let’s please keep in mind that he’s not speaking under oath:

“An undercover campaign was launched to discredit or blackmail Lawrence Wollersheim’s lawyer, Charles O’Reilly.” False. Didn’t happen. I was there. I was in charge of everything that had to do with all that. Did not happen. Wright writes, “His house was bugged and his office was infiltrated by a Scientology operative.” A complete and utter invention of Lawrence Wright.

An invention by Lawrence Wright, really? Why isn’t Rathbun at least acknowledging what is easily found in seconds through a web search, that Wright is working from material that previous journalists had also reported, such as Joel Sappel and Robert Welkos in the epic 1990 series about Scientology in the Los Angeles Times, which is where we found this reference to Joseph Yanny’s court testimony which, we’ll point out, was under oath:

In a recent lawsuit, former Scientology attorney Joseph Yanny alleged that the church and its agents had implemented or plotted a broad array of fair-game measures against him and other critics, including intensive surveillance and dirty tricks.

Earlier this year, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury awarded Yanny $154,000 in legal fees that he said the church had refused to pay.

Among other things, Yanny said in his lawsuit that he attended a 1987 meeting at which top church officials and three private detectives discussed blackmailing Los Angeles attorney Charles O’Reilly, who won the multimillion-dollar jury award for Wollersheim.

According to Yanny, the plan was to steal O’Reilly’s medical records from the Betty Ford Clinic near Palm Springs, then exchange them for a promise from O’Reilly that he would “ease off” during the appeal process.

Yanny, who later had a bitter break with Scientology, said he objected and the idea was dropped. The church denies such a discussion ever took place.

It’s one thing if Marty, who was there and was “in charge of everything that had to do with all that” were to, all these years later, raise questions about Yanny’s testimony. But what gives with the obviously false accusation that Lawrence Wright is making this stuff up?

And it gets worse.

Also in this segment, Rathbun makes this claim:

The paragraph is capped off with a quote: “A former Scientology executive, Vicki Aznaran, later testified that there was an effort to compromise the judge by setting up his son, who they heard was gay, with a minor boy.” It’s a complete invention of Vicki Aznaran. Now, if it is even an invention of Vicki Aznaran. It says she testified. I doubt that she testified. If she did testify, she lied. And she just made this stuff up. But I question whether you’ll find such testimony…He’s just inventing this stuff.

For Xenu’s sake, Marty. Before you accuse Lawrence Wright of inventing things, how hard is it to work the Google? Here, in fact, is what Vicki Aznaran testified to in a 1993 declaration:

During the 1984-87 period, Scientology operated a number of “dirty tricks” operations out of the office of Special Affairs (OSA), including one called MFTC (for “Mission Find The Crimes”) and the “WOLLY” unit (which targeted Lawrence Wollersheim, his attorneys, and his case). The orders for these operations would go directly from OSA to private investigators, although Scientology deceitfully tries to cloak such operations under “attorney-client privilege”.

MFTC and the WOLLY unit each had about 8-10 staff, and engaged in whatever dirty tricks were necessary to attack people and entities which were considered to be “enemies” of Scientology. The dirty tricks they used included destruction of evidence, theft of documents, illegal surveillance or bugging, blackmail, bribery, physical assault and other intimidation, securing perjured testimony. MFTC’s mission was to find or manufacture crimes for “enemies” of Scientology.

Before and during the trial in Wollersheim v Church of Scientology of California, MFTC and WOLLY ran a number of operations directed against Wollersheim, his counsel, and the Court. One of these operations was an attempt to put pressure on Bill Swearinger, the son of the trial judge in the Wollersheim case, based on his alleged homosexuality. The idea was to dig up, or manufacture (perhaps by setting the son up in a compromising sexual position with a minor boy), dirt on the son which could be used to pressure the Judge to rule favorably for Scientology, or else to get the Judge disqualified.

Attached as Exhibit A is a true copy of an internal Scientology memorandum, dated 6/21/86, which discusses this “Swearinger Investigation”. I received a hard copy of this document at about that time, and I believe I also received a copy of this document on my computer. The Linda referred to on the first page is Linda Hamil, who at the time ran the MFTC. The Marty referred to on the first page is Marty Rathbun, a top Scientology “intelligence” official, who ran this operation.

Oh, say what? A document that refers to Marty Rathbun not only knowing about this particular operation but being in on it?

Let’s take a look at it. Here’s that exhibit, dated 1986, which has some missing letters because of a poor scan of a court document. But we can see enough to get the picture…

21-Jun-1986 10:37

To: WOLLY INVEST I/C
From: MFTC I/C

Re: Swearinger Invest

for your info and whatever else you can do with this…

20-Jun-1986 20:56

Dear Linda,
What does JP want to do with Bill Swearinqer? What did Bowles say to him? Why would we want Bill S to have Royce confess? Confess to what? When will the rest of the 13 original targets be done?

ML Marty

20-Jun-1986 20:40

Dear Sir,

Compliance Report.

What was ordered:

I sent over a 18 step invest to revive the Swearinger Invest. In response you merc’d’

“‘Ilk, I’ll expect the results of all of this by Friday.’

(In this same comm you asked for the Mayer invest which is forwarded in a separate Merc.)

What was done:

The results of the Swearinger Invest are in the report below. The original targets are at the very end of this comm.

This is DK.

ML Linda

Swearinger Invest results:

resulted in a) two Swearinger neighbors recalling a White Cherokee by Bill’s house a few times in the last 6 months {that’s what Royce drives} and by Bill Swearinger calling up Tim Bowles wanting to end cycle of it all once and for all. Step by step results follow.

1. Learn[?] was not yet interviewed as she has not yet been located. However we did find out that she has left the employment of Varsity Communications and we found her last name, traced her through her parents and now have her unlisted phone number in Hollywood. She has not been in yet but should be able to be reached either tonight or Saturday. The good news is that she no longer works for the company so will not be under the thumb of Palmieri.

Perry and Embinder have not been at the office or at home over the last days so have not yet been confronted. Ambush interview of Steve Perry (a.k.a. Bubba}. He could confirm the relationship of Bill S. and Walker.

Photos were taken to Royce’s neighbors and none recalled having seen Bill, None of Bill’s distinctive cars in the vicinity.

5. Bill’s neighbors were shown Royce, Bubba and Embinder and did not recognize them. They were also shown the photo of Royce’s white Cherokee and two of his nearest neighbors independently recognized having seen such a car parked adjacent to the stairs leading up to Bill’s house a few times over the last six months. One of these neighbors, Mr. Franklee (a film editor said that Bill frequently had parties where young boys were observed at Bill’ s house but had no distinct memories of any faces.

6. We have not been able to confirm where Casey was 9-10-11 May due to terminals not being accessible.

7. The line to the secretary to get further data from the court reporter ran into a logistics snag and will need to be done Monday.

8. Though Royce has refused to speak at all with Francovich, a line to go in on to reestablish the comm has worked out which can be done early next week (Francovich will take over a check owed to Royce which will be coming in Monday or Tues,.

9. The young mexican we’d seen with Swearingor last month has not been identified. The neighbor checked with (Pranklee) recalled having seen him about a month ago walking away from the house, upset, originating to this neighbor “I can’t go on like this any more, I’m really upset. And this neighbor hasn’t seen him since. Checks were made at a local mexican restaurant the two had stopped at when under surveillance, no data, and a number in Guatemala possibly associated with this kid was checked but the only person at the number with contacts in LA was out of town for a week. So the kid could not be located to interview.

10. The spots where Bill was seen to stop on surveillance were checked for familiarity with Royce or his vehicle or friends and there was no recognition. The vicinity of an address where Royce had been seen dropping off two young men was checked and one neighbor, a foreigner, man (Mr. Behar) recognized having seen a car similar to Bill Swearinger’s in the neighborhood.

11. Stuart and Steve’s office was visited, they were not there but the current office manager related a story consistent with Royce Walker’s description of Swearinger and Walker only casually knowing each other.

12. Royce & friend’s photo was shown to the receptionist and security man at 69~ Hollywood (where Swearinger’s office is located, but ~ot d~a~in~ attention to Swearinger). No recognition. His old office across the street was also checked, no reads.

13. It was found that Caryl Warner does still practice law and works out of 69~ Hollywood – Suite 500 – a full schedule every day. However a check made on Thursday revealed that he was out until Monday so no pretext interview has yet been done.

A definite impingement was made from the actions taken Bill Swearinger phoned Tim Bowles at ~:15 today and said the following:

that Al Bei[?] of Ingram investigations was asking his neighbors ~ his clients questions about the veracity of Royce Walker, was very upsetting and said he wants it to stop immediately. He wants to end cycle on this escapade on his knowledge of the Judge’s prejudice “once and for all”. He said he is not willing to submit to a deposition (because the federal judge ruled that such a depo is irrelevant). However, he said he is willing to meet with us to tell us what he knows. He insists there is no prejudice from his father. He termed our efforts ‘shooting in a barrel with nonexistent fish”, something like that.

He said that if we can’t come to an immediate resolution on [missing words] is he going to take “self-help”. He specifically mentioned buying a gun or drafting and filing a motion for protective order in the federal case. He said he couldn’t wait until Monday, he decided to resolve it now.

It is of interest that Al Bei[?] did not interview any of the neighbors, that was done by Mark Marinc. Al Sr. went to the 6922 Hollywood building (Swearinger’s office and Al Bei Jr. went to Royce’s
office at 7715 Sunset. We don’t know who any of Bill’s clients are (though one of the women interviewed by Marino could have been a client}.

Next

a) Have the confrontation with Swearinger and get him to tell the truth about this matter. If he insists he is being truthful, have him drag in Royce to confess, and Francovich can be there too.

{the following steps to be done but called off if step (a) resolves it as continuing would be pointless.}

b) Interview Leann (per last call her ~o~ate said she’s expected to be there Saturday) who is no longer part of the Varsity office. She’ll be checked out whether the boys went to Palm Springs as well.

c) Ingram to call Casey to ask him Just one more question – the Palm Springs question he neglected to ask him during the interview.

~) P~.l ~ ~u~t reporter string via the secretary resource.

e) interviews of Embinder and Bubba.

f) Francovich to recontact Roy~ with check owed to him and get him in.

f) Pull down Caryl Warner string through pretext interview.

il Ambush interview on Leann, the secretary (she was the one other person mentioned in the depo of Walker as someone he talked to about Son. She will be gotten outside of the office as in the office someone could contact Palmieri and she’ll clam up.)

ambush interview of Steve Perry (aka Bubba). He could confirm ~i~g of Bill S. and Walker.

~q~ ~erv~e~ of Embinder as possible.

Photo of Bill and Ron taken to Royce’s neighbors to see whether ~~ seen them around.

5. Photos of Royce, Bubba, Embinder and Casey shown to Bill Swearinger’s neighbors.

6. Find out where Casey Klinger was the weekend 9 – 10 – 11 May, i.e. whether he was in Palm Springs or not. (pretext has been worked out to get this.) If in Palm Springs, get identity of the two fags they were with.

7. Use secretary resource who has a good line already to the court reporters to find out anything further on the cash payment cycle, i.e. was the Judge irritated, who else may have been there, etc.

8. Francovich to re-establish comm line with Royce over some business dealing, and see what further can be obtained from this line, get him to cop out to what occurred (witness present).

9. Use our Spanish speaking PI (Joe) to suitably interview the young mexican (P. Garcia may be name) guy who was seen with Bill Swearinger at least three mornings, who may live with Swearinger, and get the data on Bill’s relationship with Royce

18. Use the data we have on Bill’s contacts (places he was observed ~oi.nO ~n~en under surveillance and known comm lines he has) to interview the contacts with pictures of Royce and Bill re: their
relationship.

11. Stuart and Steve (Bill’s former employers and Royce’s friend) ~=en w/photos to establish how many times and for what reason Royce visited Bill.

12. Suitably inquire (with photos) at Bill’s current law office about Walker, does he show up there frequently etc.

13. Pull down strings on any possible relationship between Swearinger and Caryl Warner (work in same suite though different offices) – through pretext interview. the above to be done by Friday, then analyzed and retargetted.

Wow. So Marty Rathbun is now saying that Lawrence Wright invented a story of Vicki Aznaran testifying that there was a scummy Scientology operation to target the son of a judge hearing the Wollersheim matter, when it turns out that not only did Aznaran testify to it, but a Scientology document entered as evidence suggests that Rathbun himself was in on the operation.

Marty, did you seriously intend to open this can of worms?

Instead of casting any doubt on Wright’s book, all you’re doing is reminding us that you never came clean in any of your three books about the operations you were involved with as Scientology’s chief enforcer. You ran those scummy operations, Marty. And now you expect us to take your word over Larry Wright’s?

Amazing.

And once again, why did you give Dani Lemberger’s private email to the Church of Scientology to use against him in litigation? How about just answering that simple question?

——————–

Bonus items from our tipsters

Actual caption from an image posted on a public page by the Mace-Kingsley center in Clearwater: “These 2 girls just finished their current auditing program! They start really young these days. Children can do the Purif as early as 9-10 years old at Mace-Kingsley, then Objectives/SRD & then get their Grades (by the age 12) and go on to Clear! This is the usual here at Mace-Kingsley in Clearwater, FL. It is Great to see so many children going up the Bridge on a daily basis!”

Seriously, FBI? What the hell are you waiting for?

——————–

HOWDYCON ANNOUNCEMENT

Wow, we’re getting close to the start of HowdyCon 2017 in Denver. And we had a slight change in logistics from our caterer for our dinner on Saturday night, June 24. If you plan to go, make sure you have confirmed with Kim O’Brien, our coordinator, and visit our HowdyCon website where she has instructions for how you can pay for the dinner fee that night. You need to do that right away to make sure you’ll be included in the Saturday night festivities, which include:

You don’t want to miss out, so please visit the convention page and get in contact with Kim.

HowdyCon 2017: Denver, June 23-25 at the Residence Inn Denver City Center. Go here to start making your plans.

——————–

Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley has not seen his daughter Stephanie in 4,781 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 2,538 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 1,884 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 2,378 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 1,418 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy in 1,130 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 656 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 4,745 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 1,885 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 2,205 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 2,180 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 536 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin in 4,838 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 945 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis for 1,347 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 1,220 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 801 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike in 1,306 days.
Mary Jane Sterne has not seen her daughter Samantha in 1,550 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 12,659 days.

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on June 14, 2017 at 07:00

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

Photos shot by L. Ron Hubbard in 1975 capture how the founder wanted Scientology marketed

ortegaunderground — Tue, 13 Jun 2017 11:00:48 +0000

[When is the best time to spring ‘Dianetics’ during your date at Pizza Hut?]

Over at Facebook in a private group, former Scientologist Neil Sarfati posted some very fun images from a flyer dated 1975 which feature him in a number of images. What we especially like about them is that they were photos shot by L. Ron Hubbard himself, and give us a good idea of how Hubbard wanted to market Scientology.

Neil was in Scientology from 1968 to 1976, and during that time he had some pretty amazing experiences with Hubbard as a member of the Apollo Stars, a jazz ensemble that recorded a single album with Hubbard’s participation. Last year, Neil talked about the Apollo Stars experience for a very good piece about the band and its brief heyday.

We told Neil that we enjoyed the photos he posted. We particularly liked the one of him and his wild mane in a scene with him dancing…

To put that and the other images in more context, Neil sent us the entire 1975 flier that Hubbard had put together.

“I don’t remember where these were shot. Maybe Jamaica,” Neil tells us. “I was told to bring an assortment of clothes, which I did. This was one of the first photo shoots. If I remember correctly, at this time there wasn’t much direction from Hubbard, but that changed in time. He was a micromanager to the Nth degree. The shots went fast and furious. I think they had some story boards they were working from. We were put into position and Hubbard started shooting. I remember one shot we did with me in a coffin. Ugh.”

These shots and others ended up in an early version of the book “What is Scientology?” But this flier is just the best, isn’t it? Do any of our oldtimers remembers seeing it at the time? Will anyone admit that it, gulp, got them into Scientology?

Neil tells us that there were definite benefits to being selected to play for the Apollo Stars, which started around 1971. “For almost two years we would spend a couple of hours with Hubbard almost every day. He was relaxed with us. We were the flavor of the week. He would tell us all sorts of stories, which we of course ate up. He would tell us this and that is from the Whole Track,” Neil says, referring to Hubbard’s claim that he had explored his “Whole Track” of existence back quadrillions of years.

“When we added the Apollo Stars dancers Hubbard showed the head choreographer a step that he got from his space opera days. Everyone wanted to be a dancer as a way to get out of the RPF,” Neil says, in a reference to the Rehabilitation Project Force, the Sea Org’s prison detail. “Just about everyone you can imagine from from the executive strata came to us to be a dancer. Quentin Hubbard really want to be dancer, but Daddy said no. We had Greg Wilhere and his wife. I’m sorry I cant remember the others but there were dozens. We at that time had the clout to get just about anyone we wanted to. It was insane.

“Hubbard always dressed to the hilt. Ascots, capes, etc. Everyone on the ship loved us as we kept Hubbard away from them. We would practice many hours of the day, which the crew hated as we kept them up. We practiced right above the men’s and women’s dorms,” he says.

Thanks for that glimpse of life aboard the Apollo, Neil!

——————–

Marty Rathbun has a new video posted today

New day, new video. Same question: Why, Marty, did you give the Church of Scientology a private email from Dani Lemberger to use against him in litigation? Your defense of the RPF as simply “rehabilitation,” and trashing Jesse Prince is really winning you hearts and minds all over the place, but how about answering this simple question — how did you justify handing over a potentially damaging email to the Church of Scientology in its litigation against a former member?

——————–

HOWDYCON ANNOUNCEMENT

You don’t want to miss out, so please visit the convention page and get in contact with Kim.

HowdyCon 2017: Denver, June 23-25 at the Residence Inn Denver City Center. Go here to start making your plans.

——————–

Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley has not seen his daughter Stephanie in 4,780 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 2,537 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 1,883 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 2,377 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 1,417 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy in 1,129 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 655 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 4,744 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 1,884 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 2,204 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 2,179 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 535 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin in 4,837 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 944 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis for 1,346 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 1,219 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 800 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike in 1,305 days.
Mary Jane Sterne has not seen her daughter Samantha in 1,549 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 12,658 days.

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on June 13, 2017 at 07:00

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

Scientology and kids: L. Ron Hubbard talks about small children as ancient beings

ortegaunderground — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 11:00:21 +0000

On occasion here at the Underground Bunker we’ve brought you examples of L. Ron Hubbard’s lectures. We think it’s important to hear the source material for this thing called Scientology and not to rely only on published accounts or interviews about it.

Part of the reason we do that is that we’re told often by former members or even other journalists that Hubbard had so much success because he had supernatural skills as a speaker, and cast a spell with charisma that was off the charts. We find those descriptions interesting, because when we listen to his lectures, we agree with an ESMB wag who said that you’re more likely to hear a bad after-dinner speaker at the local Elks lodge, yukking it up for a small but entirely bought-in audience. But maybe that’s just us.

We were reminded of that assessment when Mark “Marty” Rathbun, former top Scientology official, in his most recent video criticized Going Clear author Lawrence Wright for playing fast and loose with Hubbard’s lectures, excerpting more than he printed from a particular passage in order to make the point that Hubbard’s lectures were generally a mess.

Here’s the Wright quote that Rathbun reads from Going Clear, describing what a Hubbard lecture was like: “He would just open his mouth and a mob of new thoughts would burst forth, elbowing each other in the race to make themselves known to the world. They were often trivial and disjointed but also full of obscure learned references.”

Rathbun says, “This didn’t sound like Hubbard to me.”

Well, we’ll let you decide.

We more or less chose a lecture from random, one he gave in 1957 entitled ‘Evil.’ It was part of something called the “16th American Advanced Clinical Courses,” and we chose from it a Fair Use segment specifically about children.

Hubbard wanted his followers to believe that each of us is a thetan, an immortal being that was 76 trillion years old, or quadrillions of years old (cosmologists tell us the universe itself is only about 13.8 billion years old, but whatever). After you die, you as a thetan then jump into a new baby and begin a new life, over and over again. So an infant, Hubbard decided, must also be an ancient being, with the memories of millions and billions of years of experiences. But that raises the question: If an infant is really an ancient being, why can’t he or she talk?

Hubbard deals with that problem, and makes a few more claims about kids — including his own — in this wonderful excerpt of tall-tale telling. Please give it a look and let us know if you think Larry Wright was really so far off.

We’re sure you can think of many more Hubbard lectures that fit with Larry Wright’s description. But more importantly we have to wonder, what, at this point, is Rathbun expecting that his criticisms are going to produce? In our comments, we’ve seen real experts — longtime former Scientology members — take apart Rathbun’s criticisms one by one.

And we’re reminded of a couple of things Rathbun posted on his blog in the past. In 2011, under siege from the Squirrel Busters, a Church of Scientology goon squad that was hounding him at his south Texas home, Rathbun wrote…

The cult has two weapons and two weapons only: a) harassment to a degree unprecedented in a civilized society, and b) money to buy the victim of “a” when he is put into an amenable frame of mind. Just so everybody knows, as Miscavige just won’t seem to get it through his head, I will never fold to any pressure no matter how intense, and I am not for sale – at any price.

And in February 2015, after years of trying to separate what was good and usable in Scientology from what was toxic, he decided that he’d wasted his time. He wrote that Hubbard had produced a “pop psychology and hypnotism” that ” never achieved even the scientifically recognized 20 to 30 percent placebo effect in terms of long-term satisfaction.” In order to hide that ineffectiveness, he says, the rest of Scientology’s superstructure was constructed, which church members were “led to believe” — Xenu, body thetans, that Earth was a prison planet, and that Hubbard was Earth’s only salvation.

Rathbun seemed pretty dismissive of Hubbard and his ideas at that point.

But now, what a turnaround.

While Rathbun throws weak jabs at a terrific book, he’s avoiding the only question that really matters. How about answering the question, Marty?

——————–

HOWDYCON ANNOUNCEMENT

You don’t want to miss out, so please visit the convention page and get in contact with Kim.

HowdyCon 2017: Denver, June 23-25 at the Residence Inn Denver City Center. Go here to start making your plans.

——————–

Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley has not seen his daughter Stephanie in 4,779 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 2,536 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 1,882 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 2,376 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 1,416 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy in 1,128 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 654 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 4,743 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 1,883 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 2,203 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 2,178 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 534 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin in 4,836 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 943 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis for 1,345 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 1,218 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 799 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike in 1,304 days.
Mary Jane Sterne has not seen her daughter Samantha in 1,548 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 12,657 days.

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on June 12, 2017 at 07:00

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

Neil Gaiman’s sis begs her fellow Scientologists to donate to an already funded building

ortegaunderground — Sun, 11 Jun 2017 11:00:35 +0000

Rod Keller keeps an eagle eye on Scientology’s building projects. He’s got a great “Ideal Org” update for us today.

In the past year Scientology has opened seven new Ideal Orgs. Budapest and Harlem opened in July 2016, San Diego in November, Auckland in January 2017, San Fernando Valley in March, Miami in April, and Copenhagen in May.

Scientology leader David Miscavige wants the Ideal Org openings to be interpreted as Scientology growing as a movement. But there’s no evidence that more buildings are producing more new members. After their grand openings, Ideal Orgs gradually become empty after the initial enthusiasm.

Empty Ideal Orgs, however, isn’t keeping Miscavige from planning new ones. We think six more Ideal Orgs could open in the next year. Let’s go around the globe to see which ones are nearing completion.

The historic Pitmaston House is currently under renovation to become the new Birmingham, England Ideal Org. Lizzy Calcioli announced that funding for the planned October opening is complete, but more donations are being solicited.

It’s typical in Scientology to raise money all the way up to opening day to be used for neighboring Ideal Org projects. Calcioli is the Executive Director of Wealdon House, a life improvement center near Saint Hill, and she is the sister of fantasy author Neil Gaiman.

Austin, Texas finished raising $15 million this week and will be renovating the existing org on one of the main party streets of the University of Texas campus, Guadalupe Street. Renovations will now be started to add two stories to the building to increase the floor space above the 50,000 square foot minimum for Ideal Orgs.

We previously reported Joburg North in South Africa is preparing to open. One of the key preparations is to distribute as many copies of The Way to Happiness as possible in the neighborhood. Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard called the process “safepointing” and directed that reaching opinion leaders in the area is critical for Scientology’s expansion.

We were able to get the Way To Happiness accepted by 6 different churches with the intent to use it for in educating their congregation. We approached a Dutch Reformed Church and after showing the pastor the Way to Happiness DVD, he was very impressed and said he definitely wanted to use it.

One of our teams approached the custodian of another church and she was very nervous at first. But our team spoke to her for over 20 minutes handling her questions and objections. She wouldn’t let them in the gate. But in the end, she happily took the Way To Happiness and was going to go watch it herself.

One of our teams went to an Anglican Church and we were very surprised to find there that the lady we met with saw the Way to Happiness and said she loves that book. We inquired as to how she knows about it. She said she got it a couple years ago and is doing a course online on it. She didn’t know there was a DVD and she was eager to watch it. This was great.

One church, Christian Science, the guy met with us. After quite a lot of conversation, he said he thought what we were doing was vital. He said he feels that we are actually working on something that is so important, it could save the world. He encouraged our team to keep helping other schools and churches as they do need this help. We were also welcomed in the Diplomats Assembly of God church and they took the DVD and went to go watch it right away.

With all this action taking place, we are in need help! The biggest cost is getting transport to each school so that we can show the Truth About Drugs DVDs and pass out the booklets. It’s only about R800 per week. Any help anyone can give to help support the transport to these schools would help a LOT!

We also need The Way To Happiness DVDs and booklets! This is because The Way To Happiness is done in each school after the Truth About Drugs!

800 Rand is about 62 US dollars.

Tiny Salt Lake City org purchased an office building in 2014 to become the new Ideal Org. They should start renovations and hold an opening fairly soon, since the building was never in disrepair.

A warehouse in Riverdale, Western Australia will become the new Perth Ideal Org. They are still raising funds for renovation, but we believe them that “Perth is Next” for the ANZO Scientology continent.

Mexico City already has an Ideal Org, but two more orgs plan to go ideal. Organización Desarrollo y Dianética A.C. is known as “ODD.” Organización Cultural Dianética de Polanco is known as “OCD,” so they are frequently confused for each other. ODD will be first, and is now under construction.

A sure sign that an Ideal Org is preparing to open is that some of the staff leave home to train at an Advanced Org. Executives always go to Los Angeles, while technical staff such as auditors and course supervisors can go to any AO.

We asked former Sea Org member Chris Shelton to describe the training in LA. Chris was the A/Tech Aide WUS, a position in continental management.

For decades executives have come to LA to study the Organization Executive Course (OEC) and the Flag Executive Briefing Course (FEBC) at the HGB building on Hollywood Boulevard. In 2000 we received a taped briefing from David Miscavige that changed that. He announced that these volumes were in the wrong order, and need to be re-arranged. He described how he had lined up all the admin policies in chronological order in a large room at the international base at Gold, and that policies should be studied in that order. The existing OEC is organized according to the Scientology org chart, by division. Miscavige introduced a new order – chronologically by “production line.”

The first production line was Central Files and Letter Registration, and the pack send to us included LRH’s policies on that subject from any of the old green volumes, in chronological order. That way you could see his first plan, and any policies where he changed his mind and decided to do things a different way. More production line packs were sent to us including Testing, Personnel Recruitment, Division 6 Intro Lines, and Tech Services.

At the time I left in 2012 Miscavige hadn’t re-issued all of the previous OEC and FEBC according to the new chronological order by production line, but these packs are being studied by executives when they come to LA, and that study happens at the LA Org, which LRH called the “model org.”

— Rod Keller

——————–

Jeffrey Augustine chats with Jon Atack

——————–

Official Pronouncements from the Underground Bunker

We’re traveling again today, and we’ve been unable to keep up with all of the kind messages from readers sending us various items of breaking news. We thank you all. But here are a few general announcements that we hope will address some of the questions we’ve been getting.

— We are not fans of Reza Aslan or his show, ‘Believer,’ but CNN’s reasons for canceling the show are pretty pathetic.
— Joy Villa’s visit to the White House is the greatest clown show ever, but we don’t know if it means the Trump administration is actually being “safe pointed.”
— Russian media is some of the worst we’ve ever dealt with, the country is run by a despotic maniac, and no, we are never encouraged to see yet another raid on Scientology happen there. (They occur every few months in various parts of the country.) Scientology properties being raided and Scientologists being detained there has, as far as we can tell, had no effect on Scientology’s popularity there, and this ongoing government harassment has no impact on, or larger lesson about, Scientology elsewhere. We hope that helps explain why we don’t jump on these stories the way the other media does.

——————–

Marty Rathbun has a new video posted today

New day, new video. Same question: Why, Marty, did you give the Church of Scientology a private email from Dani Lemberger to use against him in litigation. We don’t care about your tepid complaints about Lawrence Wright, Alex Gibney, Paul Haggis, Hana Whitfield, or the “anti-Scientology movement.” We just want to know how you justified, in your mind, handing over a potentially damaging email to the Church of Scientology in its litigation against a former member.

——————–

HOWDYCON ANNOUNCEMENT

You don’t want to miss out, so please visit the convention page and get in contact with Kim.

HowdyCon 2017: Denver, June 23-25 at the Residence Inn Denver City Center. Go here to start making your plans.

——————–

Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley has not seen his daughter Stephanie in 4,778 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 2,535 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 1,881 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 2,375 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 1,415 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy in 1,127 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 653 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 4,742 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 1,882 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 2,202 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 2,177 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 533 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin in 4,835 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 942 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis for 1,344 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 1,217 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 798 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike in 1,303 days.
Mary Jane Sterne has not seen her daughter Samantha in 1,547 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 12,656 days.

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on June 11, 2017 at 07:00

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

Who’s the most powerful elected Scientologist in the land? We have a candidate.

ortegaunderground — Sat, 10 Jun 2017 11:00:51 +0000

We beg your patience today as we take you on a bit of a meander to the point we want to make in today’s post. Eventually, here’s where we intend to arrive: Recently, and without any fanfare, a baton was passed, and we believe there’s been a change regarding the highest ranking elected official in this country who happens to be a member of the Church of Scientology.

It sneaked up on us, and we only now realized that the previous holder of that distinction — Nevada Assemblyman Brent Jones — lost his re-election bid in November.

So who’s the new title holder?

Patience, dear reader. We’ll get there.

First, we wanted to bring to your attention an intriguing mashup of Scientology harassment and, of all things, L. Ron Hubbard science fiction, that we were only recently made aware of. (The sleuths at WhyWeProtest.net were all over it some eight years ago, of course, and we’re indebted to an old thread there for much of today’s material.)

We’ll start our tale way back in 1985. At that time, L. Ron Hubbard was following up the success he’d had with his 1982 return to writing science fiction, the doorstop novel Battlefield Earth, with an even more ambitious forest-clearing publishing event: Ten planned novels in a series called “Mission Earth.” The first of those novels, The Invaders Plan, came out in October 1985, and copies had been sent out to reviewers. (How Hubbard managed to produce a ten-volume novel series while he was in hiding is a great story on its own.)

One of those reviewers was a woman named Janrae Frank. Janrae died in 2014 after a distinguished career of writing science fiction and fantasy, and writing about those subjects as a journalist. She had enjoyed L. Ron Hubbard’s work in the past, and she looked forward to reading The Invaders Plan. But being the thoughtful critic that she was, she also realized that it was difficult to separate Hubbard and his fiction from the thing he had by then become more well known for — Scientology. By the time Frank was done with her review, it was cleverly meta — and it also had praise for the novel. Here’s the entire review, with its postscript, as it appeared in a publication called Thrust: Science Fiction in Review under the title “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Review.”

After the galleys of The Invaders Plan had sat on my shelf for several weeks, insinuating guilt about the edges of my mind as only the work of one of my childhood’s favorite authors is capable of doing, I decided to read and review it. A simple decision, really.

I had been aware for some time that Hubbard was an intermittent source of controversy within the SF community, but had never taken it too seriously. Upon making a decision to review
The Invaders Plan, I went to my mainstream editors to ask if they’d be interested in running such a review. For financial reasons, I do almost nothing on spec these days: four mainstream editors of long acquaintance turned me down after long interrogations of my motives for doing such a review. (“What are you, anyway? A Scientologist or something?”)

My only contact with Scientology came in 1968 when, as an insatiably curious thirteen-year-old, I sent off for a free pamphlet on the subject A year of receiving nagging, hand-written letters followed the arrival of that slender booklet I was finally forced to write them a “leave my child alone” letter, to which I forged my grandmother’s name. But then one should never judge an author by his “fans,” and I doubt that the person writing those letters to me knew that I was a snot-nosed kid, not an adult.

But I’ve always felt that a book, especially a work of fiction, should be judged on its own merits, not by what its author did away from his or her typewriter. As any student of Western literature can tell you, fiction writing has long been the domain of social mavericks, moral degenerates, and dangerous dreamers, not to mention just plain bad dudes. Going back to the very roots of Western literature, we find Chaucer, dear to the hearts of librarians everywhere, was a convicted rapist who escaped the noose by claiming “benefit of clergy” (meaning, in that illiterate age, that he would read and write and was therefore too valuable to waste). Christopher Marlowe, a quasi-contemporary of William Shakespeare (and one who the Bard is said to have plagiarized) may, if the rumormongers of the day are to be believed these four hundred years later, have been a murderer; he certainly seemed to delight in drawn-sword quarrels, and met his death in a dispute over a tavern bill. A great many writers seem to have tried to live up to the reputations of Chaucer and Marlowe, in deeds if not in talent. In much more recent memory in the science fiction field, there was the small matter of wife-stealing that opened a serious breech between one of SF’s most illustrious editors of the 1950s and one of the field’s most seminal writers.

I would have to say that so trifling a matter as founding a religious/philosophical movement (a practice which has become fairly commonplace since the 1960s) just isn’t in the same league as rape, murder and wife-stealing.

A long time ago, when the subtleties of fiction and the nuances of language were more sharply defined, the term satire was limited to work whose humor derived from irony and sarcasm. To be satire, it has to have a bite to it. The shallow slapstick humor of Robert Asprin and L Sprague de Camp isn’t really satire, although some may be quick to apply the title to such light, humorous work.

The Invaders Plan has a delightfully sharp set of teeth which Hubbard sinks into a good number of science fiction literature’s favorite objects of derision: intelligence agencies, bureaucrats, and Dudley Do-Right heroes, as well as one not so favorite current mystique (though it ought to be), feminist machismo.

It seems that Earth has been marked for potential exploitation (“acquisition”) by a ruthless galactic empire. But their advance scout gets a bad case of financial indigestion upon discovering that pollution and the threat of nuclear warfare is jeopardizing the empire’s investment in time and research on what promised to be a very lucrative project. In order to enslave the Earth, they first must rescue it from corporate polluters and trigger-happy politicians.

The Invaders Plan is definitely worth the price of admission. As I begin reading the second book in what is promised to be a ten-book series, Black Genesis, it looks like the writing will hold up through the series.

Postscript

Shortly after writing this review I learned, along with the rest of the world, that L Ron Hubbard had died. I can only wish that he had come back to science fiction sooner. It is small consolation that the ten volumes of Mission: Earth are reported to have already been completed, and I therefore will not be left dangling in the middle as has happened with other of my favorite authors. As Hank Stine said recently about another deceased author (we’ve lost too many in recent months: Sturgeon, Herbert and Hubbard among them), “If he had written a hundred books, it still wouldn’t have been enough.”

As you can see, Frank mentioned that Hubbard had been a childhood favorite of hers, and her review was a very positive one. But years later, she wrote about how her review of The Invaders Plan resulted in some bizarre blowback from the Church of Scientology.

Here’s what she wrote about it…

In 1986 I sold first North American print rights to an article called “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Review.” It came out in a Hugo Award-winning semi-prozine entitled
Thrust: Science Fiction in Review. The article can speak for itself. What I want to bring to people’s attention is the reaction of the Scientologists to the article.

I had two guest pieces in the Washington Post Bookworld a few months before “Happened” was published. I used a mail drop in Hollywood as my address for doing business. It had kept me safe from irate people connected with some of the articles I wrote for Cinefantastique and other publications on more than one occasion. I have no idea how they found my home address, but find it they did.

A well-dressed blond woman, Simone, and a male whose name I no longer remember knocked on my door one afternoon. They introduced themselves as being PR people for Scientology and they were very concerned about the nature of the article I had in Thrust. They wanted me to take back several statements that I had made in the piece. I received a long lecture and a copy of Dianetics.

Over the next several weeks I received a minimum of one visit a week from Simone. She asked me what I thought of Dianetics and I tactfully sidestepped the fact that I had glanced through it and tossed the book in the fireplace. When it became clear that I was not going to retract certain sections of the article, Simone offered a compromise. She wanted me to make up for my misdeeds by writing another article about Hubbard’s novels, they would then approve it, and place it somewhere. I would receive a very large sum of money for doing it. I refused.

Gradually she shifted from cajoling and offering bribes to threats of ending my career as a journalist. They investigated me and Simone hauled out my dirty laundry. (Which is one of the reasons for my current policy of “I have no skeletons in my closet, they’re all hanging from the yardarm.” You can’t blackmail someone who has no secrets.)

I never budged and a few times I threw her out of my home. I will probably never know if they were behind the markets that suddenly closed their doors to me or not. What I do know is that my ability to sell articles was impaired in some mysterious fashion and I moved from writing to New Age editorial work.

I reinvented myself (to steal a phrase from Warren Ellis’s Transmetropolitan) as an editor. I reinvented myself again when I became an ebook author.

Frank then asked readers to look at her Thrust article itself to see if they could figure out why the church would have been so offended. We certainly can’t.

(One of our oldtimers tells us that Simone from Author Services was likely Simone Welch, who handled PR in those days. Anyone know where she is today?)

Anyway, we skip ahead to the first day of 2009. At her blog, Frank revealed that she had received a fascinating letter about her description of being harassed over her review of Hubbard’s novel.

Take a look at it and we think you’ll see why it’s unusual. It’s written by a person who describes himself as a second-generation church member who had been a Scientologist his “entire life.” But he’s unusually thoughtful, and even apologetic for the very typical bullying tactics of the church. Here, give it a close read…

As you can see, Chris Daniel of Houston’s suggestion is pretty wild — that the Church of Scientology some day apologize to a “merchant of chaos” — a journalist — that it had unnecessarily harassed? Oh wow.

Anyway, who was this Chris Daniel who had such a clear-eyed view of his own church? He had actually left a lot of clues to his identity — a third-year law school student with a mechanical engineering background who lived in the biggest city in Texas. With that much information, it didn’t take the sleuths at WWP long to track down another example of Daniel advocating for the Church of Scientology. In this case, it was an online forum about psychiatry, which Scientology hates with a passion and agitates against through its most unhinged front group, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights. In 2007, Daniel had celebrated CCHR’s activities, and this time he included his photo…

So by the year 2009, Chris Daniel of Houston had endorsed CCHR, and had described himself as a lifelong, second-generation Scientologist.

And that’s interesting, because just a year later, when he ran for Houston’s Harris County District Clerk as a Republican, Daniel was describing himself as an active member of a Baptist church, and he didn’t respond when his Scientology background was mentioned by his primary opponent.

Daniel won that primary, and then the general election in 2010, and he was reelected in 2014. He now runs one of the largest district courts in the country, which involves, for example, keeping track of Harris County citizens in order to call them down for jury duty. By all accounts, he’s done a solid job, and he’s been credited with upgrading online access to the district court system.

Let’s take a look at how Daniel describes his background in his current online bio at Harris County.

He was a high achiever as a youngster even though he was only 12 when his dad was killed in a car crash caused by a drunken driver and all parental duties fell on his mom, a secretary.

What he doesn’t mention is that his father, Hugh T. Daniel, had been a highly trained Scientology auditor before his untimely death. One of our experts looked over Hugh’s completions list and explained to us that he would have been sufficiently trained to have audited Scientologists to Clear.

Fortunately, Chris still could rely on his mom, Jolie Daniel, who is an OT 8 and is listed as a Scientology Patron — someone who has given at least $50,000 in donations to the International Association of Scientologists.

Despite the deep involvement of both of his parents, and that Chris Daniel himself is listed in a Scientology publication as completing a course (“The Route to Infinity”) as recently as 2007, here’s the only thing Daniel mentions about churchgoing on his bio: “They [Daniel and his wife] are active members at Second Baptist Church. Daniel also occasionally attends Bible classes at Champion Forest Baptist Church.”

We wondered if Daniel might be a little more forthcoming about his actual Scientologist background if he knew that, with the defeat of Brent Jones in Nevada, Daniel now appears to be the most powerful elected Scientologist in the country. (If you can think of another, please let us know. We are very open to suggestions.)

We noticed that a Facebook page Daniel runs under his District Clerk title was listed as having a “100 percent response rate,” and that made us hopeful that he might at least acknowledge a detailed message we sent him last week, asking about his new crown. But so far, we’ve heard nothing back.

Where is that thoughtful, intelligent Scientologist who wrote to Janrae Frank in 2009? Wouldn’t someone that self-aware as a Scientologist want to be known as an up and coming Republican star in David Miscavige’s organization? We hope he gets back to us.

——————–

HOWDYCON ANNOUNCEMENT

You don’t want to miss out, so please visit the convention page and get in contact with Kim.

HowdyCon 2017: Denver, June 23-25 at the Residence Inn Denver City Center. Go here to start making your plans.

——————–

Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley has not seen his daughter Stephanie in 4,777 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 2,534 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 1,880 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 2,374 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 1,414 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy in 1,126 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 652 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 4,741 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 1,881 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 2,201 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 2,176 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 532 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin in 4,834 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 941 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis for 1,343 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 1,216 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 797 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike in 1,302 days.
Mary Jane Sterne has not seen her daughter Samantha in 1,546 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 12,655 days.

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on June 10, 2017 at 07:00

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

Thanks for the slick videos, Marty Rathbun. Here’s a not very slick one for you.

ortegaunderground — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 11:00:45 +0000

As we write this, Marty Rathbun has put out three segments of a video that he shot recently with professional help. He says in these videos that he is going to expose the “anti-Scientology cult” that uses Lawrence Wright’s book Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief as its “bible.”

It’s truly fascinating, we’re sure. But as Rathbun emerges after months of silence, he’s avoiding a particularly important question that we’d like to see him answer.

We’re letting Dani Lemberger himself ask that question, from the old harbor at Caesarea, the Roman port built by Herod the Great which today is a charming place in Israel to have a glass of wine and catch up with old friends. Here’s Dani’s question, asked in our very unprofessional, not shot by Golden Era Productions video. (Sorry for the wind noise.)

Your proprietor: What question would you like to ask Marty Rathbun?

Dani Lemberger: Marty Rathbun, you gave my email to you to the Church of Scientology. Why did you do that? It didn’t damage me, it didn’t hurt me, but I’m curious to know why you gave the church my email.

Your proprietor: And that’s the question we’d really like him to answer.

Dani: Yes.

Rathbun, in his first couple of video segments, has been criticizing Lawrence Wright for some inaccuracies in Going Clear. As an author, we can tell you that errors happen, and we do our best to keep them out. If Larry Wright let a few through, it certainly didn’t take away from what was one of the most significant books published in this genre.

But the question we’re asking Marty Rathbun is far more important than a few gaffes in Going Clear. The question we’re asking goes to Marty Rathbun’s very credibility.

Why did he hand over a potentially damaging private email written by Dani Lemberger to the very Scientology attorney who would then use that email in litigation against Dani?

We’ll review the situation for those readers who missed our earlier story.

If you’ve seen our detailed summary of Rathbun’s blog over the years, you know that from about 2010 to 2012, he was the centerpoint of a movement. People who were leaving the Church of Scientology over their dissatisfaction with its leader David Miscavige were flocking to Rathbun’s website and to his home in Texas — particularly those who still had an affinity for the ideas of L. Ron Hubbard.

In 2012, an entire mission in Haifa, Israel, led by Dani and Tami Lemberger, split away from Miscavige and the church, and the Lembergers made a pilgrimage to Texas to meet with Rathbun. They spent six days there, and then we interviewed Dani on his way back home.

Since then, Rathbun’s blog went through significant changes. He increasingly criticized Hubbard, which turned off many “independent Scientologists,” and at one point he and Lemberger clashed over the formation of a stringent pro-Hubbard online group. Dani tells us that flare up was temporary, and he never considered it the end of his friendship with Rathbun.

In the last couple of years, however, Rathbun increasingly cut off ties with many of the former Scientologists he had associated with. By 2016, his website no longer had any criticism for David Miscavige, but instead Rathbun attacked people like former church members Ron Miscavige Sr. and Karen de la Carriere, filmmaker Louis Theroux, and this website.

A few of his remaining supporters applauded Rathbun, saying that he was taking a “middle path,” and that he was rooting out extremism on both sides of the Scientology debate.

While that didn’t make a lot of sense, it didn’t begin to explain what happened next.

In a Tel Aviv courtroom earlier this year, a trial was being heard in regards to a lawsuit filed by Dani Lemberger against the Church of Scientology for harassing him after he had announced the independence of his mission, the Dror Center in Haifa.

At one point, with Dani on the witness stand, Scientology’s local attorney, a partner with a prestigious law firm in Tel Aviv, Mattan Ben Shaul, said this, according to a transcript of the hearing we obtained:

I am telling you that I contacted Marty Rathbun, that enemy of Scientology that you visited in 2012. And I received from him an email that you sent him in 2013. Please confirm that you sent an email to Marty in April 2013? I will read to you what you said about Mr. Hubbard. Admitted into evidence as N33.

Dani confirmed to the attorney in court that day, and he confirmed to us, that the email Ben Shaul showed him in court that day was one he had written in private to Marty Rathbun. It contained a reference to Dani’s auditing, during which Dani admitted he’d imagined what it would be like to shoot David Miscavige in the head.

Dani tells us he was joking, but in the hands of a Scientology attorney, such an email could be very damaging in court. Dani was shocked that Rathbun had turned it over to the church for its use in the litigation.

“My email is my private email and I don’t know if he [Marty Rathbun] was allowed to give it to you, without my consent. But the fact is that he gave it to you,” Dani said on the witness stand.

Today, some five months later, Dani is still stunned that Rathbun would turn over such a potentially damaging email to the church to use against him. (As he pointed out in our video, the email turned out not to do him harm as the judge largely ignored it, and Dani and the church ultimately came to a settlement.)

How, we wonder, does helping out the Church of Scientology in its litigation against a former member fit with exploring a “middle path”? And what does it say about Rathbun that he would deliver such an email to the very church that he once railed against on his website?

Before we consider anything Rathbun has to say, shouldn’t he answer this question that casts his integrity in such doubt?

What about it, Marty? Is the “anti-Scientology cult” so important that you couldn’t answer this question first?

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In the meantime, here’s the third segment of Rathbun’s video, in which we learn that Larry Wright is a fame whore, L. Ron Hubbard’s lectures were criminally overlooked, Paul Haggis is a liar, and that if you endorse the crackpot who suggested we are infested with invisible alien souls, for some reason you aren’t taken seriously. Enjoy.

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Tom Cruise gets mummified by the NY Post

Oh, Tom. Five years ago, we warned you this day was coming.

We think Tom Cruise is a fine actor, and he’s still major money in Hollywood. But now that he’s in a turkey of a movie, The Mummy, the Hollywood press is pouncing.

Maureen Callahan at the NY Post has assembled a lot of the great reporting by Maureen Orth and others over the years to produce an unrelenting indictment of Cruise and his relationship to the Church of Scientology.

Callahan is right: Why don’t reporters ask Cruise about this stuff? And we’d add one question that she left out: How can Cruise simply abandon his daughter, reportedly because Suri is attached to her Scientology-defying mother?

How does Cruise get a pass?

Maybe it’s taken a bad movie to make him less than untouchable.

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HOWDYCON ANNOUNCEMENT

You don’t want to miss out, so please visit the convention page and get in contact with Kim.

HowdyCon 2017: Denver, June 23-25 at the Residence Inn Denver City Center. Go here to start making your plans.

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Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley has not seen his daughter Stephanie in 4,776 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 2,533 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 1,879 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 2,373 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 1,413 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy in 1,125 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 651 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 4,740 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 1,880 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 2,200 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 2,175 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 531 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin in 4,833 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 940 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis for 1,342 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 1,215 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 796 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike in 1,301 days.
Mary Jane Sterne has not seen her daughter Samantha in 1,545 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 12,654 days.

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Posted by Tony Ortega on June 9, 2017 at 07:00

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