We have a real treat this week in our ongoing ‘Scientology Lit’ series. It’s a full chapter from Robert Dam’s book The Defector: After 20 years in Scientology. Robert gives us a look inside Scientology’s operation in Copenhagen, its headquarters in Europe, where he spent some of his 20 years in Scientology before [...]]]>

 
We have a real treat this week in our ongoing ‘Scientology Lit’ series. It’s a full chapter from Robert Dam’s book The Defector: After 20 years in Scientology. Robert gives us a look inside Scientology’s operation in Copenhagen, its headquarters in Europe, where he spent some of his 20 years in Scientology before leaving the organization in 2004. Published in Denmark in 2011, the book was a bestseller there, but is less well known here in the U.S. We hope this intriguing chapter gives you some idea of how much the authoritarian nature of Scientology is consistent around the world…

 
There was a knock on the door. It was a late afternoon in the beginning of December 1996. Winter was about to set in and it was dark and cold outside. We had moved to a yellow-brick town house in the suburb of Valby. In the summer of 1994 we’d had a daughter and our old flat had become too cramped. Our new home was very roomy and we settled in nicely. There were only a few moving boxes in the cellar that had yet to be unpacked. One of them was not a real moving box, but a large, square box containing 50 Dianetics paperbacks. Some years before New Era Publications – the international Scientology publisher in Copenhagen – had run a campaign to get Dianetics back on the bestseller lists. A persistent Sea Org member had contacted me and said I needed to help support the project by buying a box of 50 copies. He said that if just a certain number of Scientologists did so, the book would once again be a bestseller. Simple math. Then it was up to me to sell the books further to friends and acquaintances I wanted to get interested in Dianetics and Scientology. As it turned out I never got around to selling the books, but New Era succeeded in reinstating Dianetics back on the bestseller lists. Not because the book had had a renaissance as the world was led to believe, but because we – myself and thousands of other loyal Scientologists around the world – had done our duty and bought a whole box each.

We liked our large, three-level townhouse and had used a lot of money and energy to make it livable. I had risen to OT V, the highest level one could attain in Europe, and thus was just as far up The Bridge as VIP Scientologists like John Travolta and Tom Cruise at the time. My auditor was the Dutchman, Caspar de Rijk. Occasionally there were fantastic sessions where I felt I got a real power boost or a sense of great relief, as if a heavy stone had been removed from my mental backpack. But for the most part the sessions were more routine, with no major accomplishments. In the Scientology community I was a walking success story, an OT, a superhuman, and I kept up the facade and played my role. I did my duty, all the time hoping and believing I’d become a proper OT when I advanced to the next level. But as my auditing progressed I was having nightmares more and more often.

Tina had used her maternity leave to study and audit between changing diapers and nursing, and had become an OT IV. We had accumulated debts totaling many tens of thousands of dollars in order to pay for our OT levels, but this was not unusual. As a Scientologist one was used to being under constant economic pressure from the organization, but we made it through this period and were able to meet our commitments.

Before I reached the door, there was another knock. Outside stood two female Security Force officers in full uniform.

“Yes?”

I was surprised by their unannounced visit, but immediately knew the occasion. I had come under suspicion in connection with the printing of the AOSH’s members’ newsletter. Since it was the principal organization in Europe, the list of members was quite extensive. There were around 74,000 names of current and former course participants and about 170,000 names of all book buyers. The high number was primarily due to the fact that all the regional organizations in Europe were required to hand in all their lists so the AOSH could send out newsletters, not only to all the currently active members, but also to ex-members and book purchasers from the whole of Europe. It was practically impossible to be taken off the lists, and it only happened if one really protested or threatened a lawsuit. In this way an individual who had bought a Scientology book twenty years ago was still on the list, even though the person had had nothing to do with Scientology since. Therefore the lists were in no way accurate if one wanted to know the actual number of Scientologists in Europe, but this wasn’t what interested me. For me it was a decent business, printing and disseminating the AOSH newsletters, and I had attained high esteem with the local management. I’d discovered I could produce and distribute even more cheaply from Africa than from the Far East, and this saved the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.

But problems had arisen after I’d begun producing in Zimbabwe in the middle of 1993. A whole lot of mail had been stranded in Frankfurt Airport enroute from Zimbabwe because the German postal service, which Zimbabwe used to distribute mail into Europe, claimed it was a case of illegal re-mailing. They had held back almost a hundred mail sacks, which was approximately the equivalent of 150,000 addressed members’ newsletters. What drew their attention was probably the fact that the sudden increase in the volume of mail from Zimbabwe, was in Scientology’s name. The various countries’ postal services have an internal accounting system that gives better rates to third-world countries like Zimbabwe. Otherwise the postage would be so expensive that no average Zimbabwean could ever afford to send a letter to Europe. In other words, the European postal services were supposed to distribute Scientology’s mail for a fraction of the price they would otherwise be entitled to, and this was probably what the German postal service protested over. But they had no legal case. We were doing nothing illegal, merely taking advantage of a developing country’s privileges. And one could rightly argue that we were good for business in Zimbabwe and that the German postal service was not warranted to ignore its part of the agreement and thereby obstruct a good source of export income for the country. However that may have been, I became aware of the problem and arranged a meeting with one of the highest officials in the Zimbabwean postal service.

It took me less than two hours to convince him to use another route to Europe. He began negotiating with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines about flying all the mail to Schiphol, Amsterdam, instead, from where it would be distributed to the rest of Europe. The Dutch postal service didn’t seem to have a problem with this and I personally took part in the meeting in Amsterdam where the contract was signed. The official from the Zimbabwean postal service had invited me to participate and we spent most of the day being shown around the facilities. I had also managed to get the Zimbabwean mail service to fetch the stranded mail sacks from Frankfurt and redistribute all of them via the new partnership. So the situation had been remedied, but nevertheless I had come under suspicion.

The statistics for income had been down for a number of months. The influx of new members had stagnated for years. The AOSH wasn’t earning any money. This was a serious problem that had proven impossible for the local management to solve and the international management had intervened. Normally income statistics would rise considerably about six weeks after a mailing, but it hadn’t happened the last couple of times I had sent out the members’ newsletter for the AOSH. When the international management learned it wasn’t a Sea Org member who was in charge of the mailings, on top of which the newsletters were being sent from a third-world country, all hell broke loose. They were convinced I had never printed or sent the newsletters, but had merely produced a few copies to show my contacts when I came home and had otherwise stolen the rest of the money. The AOSH management had always placed complete trust in me, but they had been bypassed. Now David Miscavige had taken charge of the case and he used the CLO EU management as his proxy.

I’d been summoned to a meeting at the CLO EU where I had to present my accounting and had also been paid a visit by three officers from the accounts department who wanted to scrutinize my vouchers. At first I had resisted because I didn’t feel a client could demand that a supplier hand over his entire business, but they’d applied so much pressure that I was forced to yield. If I wanted to entertain hopes of continuing as a Scientologist and preserve the possibility of progressing up The Bridge, I had to do as I was told. I had delivered all my bookkeeping and voucher folders and figured everything was okay. From the vouchers they would be able to see I had printed and sent out every, single members’ newsletter I had ever received payment for.

But here they were again, nevertheless. This time in the form of the Security Force.

“What can I do for you?”

The older of the two women said there was someone from the Org who wanted to speak with me and I should follow them to the Org immediately. The woman was in her late thirties. She spoke broken English in a hard, commanding voice. Neither of them was Danish. All in all there were only very few Sea Org members who were. They were from all over Europe, especially Italy, Germany and France, as well as some from Eastern European countries.

An unpleasant sensation coursed through my body. Bringing in my balance sheets had apparently not been enough. I knew from experience that a scapegoat always had to be found when something went wrong. It was simply a necessity. There had to be “a head on a pike,” as Hubbard once wrote in one of his policy letters. But I had been hoping it wouldn’t be mine. My documentation certainly spoke for itself.

 
I answered courteously that unfortunately I was unable to accompany them, since I was at home alone with my daughter and my wife wouldn’t be arriving until later. The two women said in that case they would come inside and wait. I knew if I protested, the consequences would be serious. It had all happened so suddenly. A few weeks ago I had been a highly esteemed Scientologist and contractor; now I was a suspect and being treated as such. I was still a hundred-percent Scientologist by conviction, as was my wife, much of our family and most of our friends. I didn’t want to risk losing my OT levels and our entire future together – everything I had worked for so hard during the past twelve years. Our spiritual freedom, our social network, even my income was dependent on my being in good standing with the organization.

Apparently I just needed to answer a few more questions and then everything would fall in place. I had faith in the management and, for that matter, understanding for the suspicions they harbored against me. Miscavige didn’t know me. He had no idea who I was. The only thing he knew was the statistics had been down for several months in a row. There was no money and new membership had stalled which was a very serious problem. Members’ newsletters had been sent out, but this was not reflected in income as it should have been. He had launched an investigation that was supposed to reveal whether or not members had received their newsletter during recent months. A too-large percentage had answered no, which was probably due to the problems we’d had in Frankfurt, but of course Miscavige knew nothing of this, so it was quite reasonable to believe someone had been tampering with the mailing. I could easily follow the line of reasoning and had no doubt I would succeed in explaining what had actually happened.

The two female Security Force officers had planted themselves in the hallway and were clearly impatient. I showed them into the living room and asked them to take a seat. My two-year-old daughter wanted to say hello, but they showed no interest in talking to her. The atmosphere had become cold and edgy. I tried to stay positive, but couldn’t. An hour and a half passed before Tina got home, and it felt like an eternity. The women were not in the mood to engage in any form of social small talk. They spoke several times with their superiors on their mobile phones and I could hear they were being pressured into bringing me in right away.

Tina was home and I could now go make things right, once and for all. The Security Force officers had not come by car, so I drove us to the Org in mine. As we were walking from the parking lot on H.C. Andersens Blvd. to the building on Jernbanegade, they put in yet another call to their superiors.

“We’re approaching the building with suspect. Arriving in approximately two minutes.”

One walked in front of me, the other behind. If it hadn’t been for the gravity of the situation I would have had to smile about this farcical march maneuver. When we arrived there were more Security Force guards in the lobby. One of them opened the door for us and as I stepped in it dawned on me just how serious the situation was. Besides all the security guards, many of the staff came out to see what was happening. My arrival was apparently quite an attraction. I looked around in surprise and saw several of those I usually worked with on the newsletters. I greeted them with a forced smile, but nobody said a word. Most of them avoided eye contact with me. It was extremely disquieting. Had I already been found guilty? Guilty of a crime I hadn’t committed?

“Hurry up they’re waiting for you up there,” the older woman commanded.

There were guards on each landing of the staircase. It was obvious they feared I could get it into my head to escape. Thoughts began racing through my mind. Who was sitting up there, waiting for me? What might happen that could make me want to flee? The situation was clearly worse than I’d thought. During my twelve years in Scientology I had heard many nasty things about the organization. How people had been taken prisoner, locked into small rooms for weeks, robbed of their night’s sleep and interrogated until they broke down and confessed to anything at all or else signed statements where they waived their right to sue the organization. I had heard plenty of stories about brainwashing and abuse, but had rejected them all as vile attacks by our enemies, attempts to discredit the organization with slanderous lies. Now I was beginning to fear they might not all be tall tales.
We passed the fifth floor, which meant I was probably going to be interrogated in the boardroom on the top floor. I wished I’d had more time to prepare myself. Everything was moving so fast and I couldn’t collect my thoughts. With only twenty or thirty steps to go, my worst fears were getting the upper hand.

 
— Robert Dam

 
——————–

MEANWHILE, AT FACEBOOK…

 
Please join us at the Underground Bunker’s Facebook discussion group for more frivolity.

 
——————–

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on July 28, 2018 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 can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2017 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Undergound Bunker (2012-2017), 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 | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Our non-Scientology stories: Robert Burnham Jr., the man who inscribed the universe | Notorious alt-right inspiration Kevin MacDonald and his theories about Jewish DNA | The selling of the “Phoenix Lights” | Astronomer Harlow Shapley‘s FBI file | Sex, spies, and local TV news

In 2015, our correspondent Rod Keller posted at his own website a photo from Scientology’s South Coast mission in Orange County, California (see above). It featured a young woman named Kristi Bouck showing off a document indicating that she had attested to “Clear.”

The state of Clear was the [...]]]>

In 2015, our correspondent Rod Keller posted at his own website a photo from Scientology’s South Coast mission in Orange County, California (see above). It featured a young woman named Kristi Bouck showing off a document indicating that she had attested to “Clear.”

The state of Clear was the original goal of Dianetics when L. Ron Hubbard began his movement in 1950. It has been superseded since then, but it remains an important intermediate milestone for any Scientologist and can take years to obtain.

Kristi Bouck grew up in a Scientology family in Orange County, and going Clear meant that she was on her way to L. Ron Hubbard’s promised superhuman powers. She had previously spent some time in Scientology’s “Sea Organization,” the most dedicated hardcore group in the church.

Last month, in early June, Kristi drove across the country with her boyfriend on their way to Scientology’s spiritual mecca in Clearwater, Florida. Her boyfriend reportedly was planning on going from Clear to OT 3, another major milestone for any Scientologist, by taking expensive auditing levels at the Flag Land Base.

Along the way, one family friend says, the two of them got engaged.

On June 6, just a few days after they arrived at a rental house in the nearby town of Dunedin, Kristi, who was just 26, was found dead of a gunshot wound to the chest.

We have obtained a copy of the Pinellas County medical examiner’s report which determined that Kristi Bouck committed suicide.

Her memorial at the Orange County Ideal Org on June 30 was reportedly attended by some 200 people. Kristi Bouck was well liked and admired.

Many Scientologists have tried to put a happy face on the situation, celebrating Kristi at various Facebook pages and discouraging questions about how or why she died.

But other Scientologists are puzzled, as we learned when we obtained a copy of a letter that was sent by one church member to Kristi’s parents.

Why had there been nothing said publicly about Kristi’s death occurring while she was at Flag, the letter writer asked. What was she doing in the few days she was there? How did she obtain a gun in order to kill herself? Was she under pressure at Flag to return to the Sea Org and give up her plans of marriage?

The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office has repeatedly told us that they have nothing to say about the matter other than to give us the address of the Dunedin rental house where Kristi was found.

On Wednesday, we called Kristi’s father, and he declined to talk to us.

Because Kristi’s family and her friends are active Scientologists, we are skeptical that we’re going to get much more information about this shocking incident. A Scientology Clear, at Flag, and only 26 years old and newly engaged, killing herself?

“I find it incredibly sad that another second generation Scientologist has taken her life,” former Sea Org officer Sunny Pereira tells us. “Scientology claims to have the solutions to everything, but this was someone who had been a part of it her whole life and had moved up in awareness to ‘Clear,’ and still had the same or similar issues to everyday man. A Clear should be free of abberative ‘human’ behaviors. Clears are supposed to be rid of their reactive mind, extroverted, and happy. Sadly, she was unable to get the help she needed because of being convinced somehow that Scientology had the answers.”

Meanwhile, looking into Kristi’s story revealed that her home base — the South Coast Mission — is in disarray. The woman who attested Kristi Bouck Clear, the mission’s executive director, Kim Perry, was reportedly declared a “Suppressive Person” in May, Scientology’s version of excommunication. Her many Scientology friends abandoned her Facebook page almost overnight.

We have seen no indication that the two incidents — Perry’s declare and Kristi Bouck’s suicide — have anything to do with each other. But their relative proximity has us curious.

We also wondered about Kristi Bouck’s attestation to Clear, which took place at the South Coast mission. Sunny, a technical expert, was surprised when we told her about that.

“I have been out since 2004, but never in my years on tech lines did I ever hear of Clears being made in missions,” Sunny says. “In fact, on Hubbard’s own grade chart it notes that Missions are only able to deliver services up to NED case completion, which is all of the grades and then Dianetics sessions. Clear verifications have always been required to be done in orgs. This was Hubbard’s instruction. Part of the reason was to keep Missions from hoarding public and instead having them move up. Apparently all Missions are now authorized to make Clears.”

Missions creating Clears. A California mission in disarray. A California woman dead. If you have a piece of this puzzle, please drop us a line. We have a feeling there’s a lot more to uncover.

 
——————–

MEANWHILE, AT FACEBOOK…

 
Please join us at the Underground Bunker’s Facebook discussion group for more frivolity.

 
——————–

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on July 27, 2018 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 can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2017 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Undergound Bunker (2012-2017), 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 | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Our non-Scientology stories: Robert Burnham Jr., the man who inscribed the universe | Notorious alt-right inspiration Kevin MacDonald and his theories about Jewish DNA | The selling of the “Phoenix Lights” | Astronomer Harlow Shapley‘s FBI file | Sex, spies, and local TV news

Paulette Cooper, the “Unbreakable Miss Lovely” herself, turns 76 today, and she has an amazing update for us. We are so in awe of this lady.

  Here’s my birthday update: It’s been an incredible few months, all while you and I have been completing [...]]]>

Paulette Cooper, the “Unbreakable Miss Lovely” herself, turns 76 today, and she has an amazing update for us. We are so in awe of this lady.

 
Here’s my birthday update: It’s been an incredible few months, all while you and I have been completing Battlefield Scientology: Exposing L. Ron Hubbard’s dangerous ‘religion’.

A year ago, you told the story of how a woman in Brussels purchased a house last year and discovered it had been a major orphanage during the war. She found some early photos of me, and tracked me down indirectly through you. (Your story in the Village Voice led to a related story in Belgium and Holland that listed my birth name and adopted name, and she found a photo in her house with my birth name and traced me through that story.)

At any rate, all my life I wondered what happened to my two best friends in the orphanage: Deedee and Janet. We were called the “Three Graces,” and they wanted us to be adopted by Americans.

 
You wrote in The Unbreakable Miss Lovely about one of them, Deedee, who was adopted when I was about four and taken away to America which was very traumatic for me. I kept in touch with her until I was about 16 years old.

But what happened to my other best friend, Janet? I often thought of her – especially because I made “Janet” the answer to my security question as to who was my best (or first) childhood friend…

 
The woman in Belgium tracked down Deedee, who I learned a few months ago had died 8 years ago. So I’ll never have a chance to talk to or see her again.

But she sent me Janet’s adopted name and I located her on Facebook.

After my messages to her went unanswered, I contacted each of her 44 Facebook friends asking where she was. One finally responded with the name and phone number of a nursing home. I called there this month and spoke to her nurse who told me a sad story.

After Janet’s parents were killed and she came to America, she was adopted by her aunt, who died about 15 years ago. (Janet also found in her papers that she had a brother she never knew about who was also killed in Auschwitz. She was devastated about that.)

Anyway, after she graduated college, she was crossing the street and was hit by a car. She was thrown on her head and was in a coma possibly for as long as a year. When she came to, she was pretty much paralyzed and brain damaged. She has spent all these years unable to walk, or use her hands or read — her Facebook posts had been posted by a nurse. She never married and has been in and out of hospitals, possibly also for depression. She is understandably bitter about how her life turned out.

The nurse told me that she doesn’t always speak and that she never talks about the orphanage or her early past. She didn’t think Janet would be aware enough to know who I was or want to talk to me. So, I sent the caretaker some photos of Janet as a child and some of us together (that you printed in last year’s story)…

And then the nurse e-mailed me this…

Dear Paulette!
I talked with Janet about our conversation, She got very excited, I showed her the picture and she recognized herself and you and the third girl. Tomorrow she will write to you and we will see if she is strong enough to talk with you by phone. It is a story!! Thank you very much!

About two weeks ago I finally spoke to Janet on the phone. It was a difficult conversation because we were all on a speaker phone and she can’t hold a phone so someone was holding it next to her but we managed to say a few words – mainly that she wants me to come and visit her. (I would but, she’s 6,000 miles away!)

She has friended me on Facebook and I received the nicest comment after our first contact…

“Thank you very much for the effort to find me HeartHeartHeart”

Finding Janet after more than 70 years looking for her has been a great birthday present. (I still tear up when I think about it.)

Also, in Miss Lovely, you told the story of how the father of a Dutchman named Peter de Hoo saved me and my sister one week before we were to be sent to Auschwitz.

But I still wanted to know, where were we hidden after we were saved from that train?

In your article, you quoted a note from Peter’s father saying… “…I was informed that the children ‘B’ are now in the house of Sister Louise.”

Well, this Belgian woman found (and recently sent me) what is now the earliest known photo of me at around 11 to 12 months in which I was being held by a nun — who was probably Sister Louise!

 
You also printed a photo of three of us, but there was also a boy with us. I have learned that his name was Bernard Baror, and this woman in Brussels mailed me his adopted name. I found him living in Los Angeles and we spoke on the phone last month for about an hour. He’ll be in Florida this winter and we’ll meet.

 
And finally, my sister Suzy came to Florida and we got together a few months ago. She had a stroke last month and had to cancel her trip to Holland where she was finally going to meet Peter de Hoo. But she’s doing fine, with no residual problems

 
So that brings you up to date!

 
— Paulette Cooper

 
——————–

Chris Shelton on changes in Scientology

Says Chris: “This video references a couple of your stories recently and gives some of my thoughts on why some of the changes we’ve been hearing or seeing lately inside Scientology, and what Scientology would really have to do in order to show substantive change.”

 
——————–

MEANWHILE, AT FACEBOOK…

 
Please join us at the Underground Bunker’s Facebook discussion group for more frivolity.

 
——————–

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on July 26, 2018 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 can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2017 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Undergound Bunker (2012-2017), 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 | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Our non-Scientology stories: Robert Burnham Jr., the man who inscribed the universe | Notorious alt-right inspiration Kevin MacDonald and his theories about Jewish DNA | The selling of the “Phoenix Lights” | Astronomer Harlow Shapley‘s FBI file | Sex, spies, and local TV news

We’re thrilled to have another well-researched piece by historian Chris Owen, who today is marking a major milestone in Scientology history on its anniversary…

  Fifty years ago today on 25 July 1968, the United Kingdom became the first country in [...]]]>

We’re thrilled to have another well-researched piece by historian Chris Owen, who today is marking a major milestone in Scientology history on its anniversary…

 
Fifty years ago today on 25 July 1968, the United Kingdom became the first country in the world to introduce nationwide restrictions on Scientology. Foreign Scientologists were banned from entering the country, and Scientology’s founder L. Ron Hubbard was classified as an “undesirable alien”. The British Health Minister, Kenneth Robinson, addressed the House of Commons to issue one of the strongest condemnations of Scientology ever made by a member of a government.

“The Government is satisfied,” he said, “having reviewed all the available evidence, that Scientology is socially harmful. It alienates members of families from each other and attributes squalid and disgraceful motives to all who oppose it. Its authoritarian principles and practices are a potential menace to the personality and well-being of those so deluded as to become its followers; above all, its methods can be a serious danger to the health of those who submit to them.” Robinson declared that Scientology was “so objectionable that it would be right to take all step … to curb its growth.”

The ban lasted twelve years before it was repealed. Fifty years on, it’s worth looking again at this episode to see how it came about, whether the British government did manage to curb Scientology’s growth and what lessons can be drawn from the affair.

After struggling in its early years in the UK, Scientology became a moderately successful fringe group but largely kept out of the limelight until Hubbard’s unexpected purchase of Saint Hill Manor at East Grinstead in West Sussex in 1959. Scientology’s activities attracted increasing attention from the British authorities and media, particularly after the devastating Anderson Report was published in the Australian state of Victoria in 1965. Scientology attracted press criticism after a number of members were reported to have experienced mental breakdowns. The Scientologists’ conduct also alienated many people in East Grinstead and resulted in the area’s two Members of Parliament becoming strong critics.

The Ministry of Health and the police received a growing number of complaints about Scientology from members of the public, though there was nothing that could be done about it from a criminal law perspective. Nor was it practicable to introduce legislation banning Scientology outright or trying to constrain it through more general restrictions, as the Australian state of Victoria had attempted. Instead, the government decided that it would seek to disrupt Scientology’s operations through administrative action. It hoped that Scientology would wither away or give up on the UK.

Campaigners against Scientology pushed for a public inquiry, similar to the Anderson Inquiry in Victoria, but Robinson was reluctant as he felt that it would take too long and would not produce any information that was not already publicly known. Instead, he sought to summarise what the government knew about Scientology in the form of a White Paper which would be published as an explanation for planned restrictions. This was actually drafted in full but was never published due to a veto by a more senior minister, Richard Crossman, who was due to take over Robinson’s ministerial responsibilities in November. Robinson and the Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, went ahead with the imposition of the ban on 25 July 1968, but did not release the evidence contained in the White Paper.

Crossman was sceptical of the ban’s justification from the start. The abandoned White Paper presented many cases of alleged harm that had not been made public, but while these accounts were at times harrowing, they were limited in numbers and scope. It listed 26 complaints, most of them relating to single individuals, almost all within a two-year period and principally relating to a single location, Saint Hill Manor. They indicated that problems certainly existed, but the number of complaints was not large in comparison to the 2,000 Scientology students who were passing through Saint Hill annually. The Ministry of Health seems to have believed that there were many more unreported cases but was unable to substantiate this.

Although the ban had an immediate impact in disrupting Scientology’s UK operations and forced it to move some of its activities abroad, it had many practical and political problems. Foreign Scientologists could only be excluded if the authorities knew about them in advance. There was no requirement for them to declare themselves at the border, and they were still allowed to enter if they were ostensibly visiting as tourists. Not surprisingly, this meant that evading the ban was easy. It was also only weakly enforced, and only at the borders. None of the four governments (under Prime Ministers Wilson, Heath, Callaghan and Thatcher) which policed the ban seem to have considered raiding Saint Hill Manor to look for those working or studying there illegally. Only about 200 people were said to have been excluded from the UK during the twelve years that the ban was in force.

The political issues were equally problematic. The ban attracted strong criticism from civil liberties groups, the media and some MPs for being enacted without any publicly released evidence to justify it. By November 1968, according to Crossman, all of his Cabinet colleagues had come to regard the ban as a mistake. “We all agreed we ought to get out of it but the others thought the best way was to play it down quietly and that a public inquiry would be a mistake,” Crossman wrote in his diary. However, he persuaded his colleagues to support an inquiry and established one under Sir John Foster in January 1969.

The outcome of the Foster Inquiry satisfied neither the government nor the Scientologists. Its eponymous report, published in December 1971, declared the ban to be unjustified on the basis of the evidence provided and called for it to be relaxed (though not lifted entirely). Foster also called for a new system of regulation for psychotherapy that prompted years of discussions but proved unworkable. Although Scientology welcomed Foster’s criticism of the ban, it was less pleased with the way that he subtly condemned its practices and called for tighter policing of its financial affairs. Foster himself became a target of Scientology’s notorious Guardian’s Office, which carried out a covert operation against him in New York the following year in an apparent effort to discredit him.

Scientology carried out a lengthy campaign against the ban using all the weapons at its disposal. It sued dozens of newspapers and magazines for reporting on Robinson’s statement; handed out hundreds of thousands of copies of its newly-established newspaper Freedom attacking Robinson and British psychiatrists; sent a claimed million letters to people around the UK asking for their input on how Scientology could be reformed; ostensibly abolished the practices of disconnection, Fair Game and keeping preclear files; and tried to take over the National Association of Mental Health, which it believed was the “hidden hand” behind the ban.

The ban also prompted a lengthy series of legal battles between the Scientologists and the government. A bid to have the ban overturned in the British courts failed, but the UK’s accession to the European Economic Community in 1973 opened new avenues to attack it. When Scientology obtained confidential letters and papers written by government officials, acquired by means which seem never to have been disclosed, it sued the government for libel in 1974. This backfired on Scientology, as it blocked any moves towards resolving the ban: the government did not want to lift it while the libel actions were pending, as that would have weakened its legal position. The Guardian’s Office also envisaged suing the British government for genocide as part of Hubbard’s notorious Snow White Program but does not seem to have put this plan into action.

Legal and political skirmishing over the ban continued through much of the 1970s until two things changed at the end of the decade. First, Scientology made a major push to obtain political backing for its case against the ban. The Guardian’s Office established extremely close relations with one London MP in particular, Norman Lewis of Newham North West, and obtained the support of many more for a repeal of the ban. Over 100 MPs signed a Commons motion calling for “Justice for Scientologists”.

The second big change was the rise to power of Margaret Thatcher. She had been involved with Scientology-related issues as far back as 1968, in her capacity as a constituency MP. The Guardian’s Office likely flagged her as potentially sympathetic to its cause, as it lobbied her through Scientologists who lived in her constituency in Finchley in North London. Although she acknowledged that she knew little about Scientology or its beliefs, she shared the concern of many MPs that the ban was unjustified. Her ideology also predisposed her towards taking a critical view of the ban. She was much more strongly libertarian and anti-statist than many of her predecessors, and was far less inclined to support state interventions.

Even before Thatcher came to power in 1979, the ban was clearly regarded by the Callaghan government as a failure. It had inconvenienced Scientology but had not stopped it. It was too easy to evade, and too little enforced. It was causing ongoing political and legal problems, and the chances of defending it in the European courts seemed doubtful. Other fringe groups such as the Moonies, the Rajneeshis and the Hare Krishnas had established a presence in the UK without any restrictions. Singling out Scientology thus seemed unfair and inexplicable, given the lack of public evidence to support the government’s position. Scientology’s growth had stalled, despite the organisation’s claims to the contrary, and the social problems feared by the government had not materialised.

Scientology let it be known that it would drop its legal actions against the government if the ban was lifted. However, the government rejected this as an unacceptable bargain due to the precedents it might set. (In the end the Scientologists dropped the litigation, which had dragged on for years without coming to trial, as a ‘goodwill gesture’.) When Thatcher became Prime Minister, she instructed her first Home Secretary, Willie Whitelaw, to review the ban and if possible to lift it.

The arrests and convictions of Mary Sue Hubbard and other leading Scientologists between in 1978-79 nearly derailed this, as there was clear evidence from files seized by the FBI that their crimes had been masterminded from Scientology’s headquarters at Saint Hill Manor; two of those convicted were extradited from the UK to stand trial in Washington. Despite the evidence, however, the Chief Constable of the Sussex police force declined to open an investigation. The government also decided to terminate its ongoing investigation of suspected money smuggling by the Scientologists. With no evidence of wrongdoing in hand, the last arguments for the ban fell away and it was duly lifted on 16 July 1980. Other than a brief flurry of press coverage, the demise of the ban attracted little public comment.

Hubbard’s own status remained unresolved, although his ban had formally been lifted. Perhaps to test it, he applied for permission to visit the UK in 1982. The government clearly did not want him in the country and managed to deter him by requiring him to present himself at a British consulate for an interview – something that the reclusive and deeply paranoid Hubbard evidently refused to do.

It’s not difficult to see why the ban failed, but what lessons can be learned from its failure? There are a few:

— Transparency. The ban was undermined from the start by the government’s inability to release the evidence to support it. This raised entirely legitimate concerns about the ban’s justification.

— Fairness. The Scientologists were able to make the case, justifiably, that they were being treated differently from everyone else. There was no attempt by the government to explain why this was the case.

— Lack of enforcement. The ban was scantily enforced, making it largely ineffective. There was little point in introducing it if it was not going to be enforced.

— Lack of political support. The government seems to have made no real effort to obtain political support for the ban, although in this regard it was greatly hindered by legal restrictions which prevented it from commenting publicly on Scientology for much of the 1970s.

— Lack of public support. Very few people, as a percentage of the population, were affected in any way by Scientology. Opposition to Scientology was largely confined to the small number of people (principally relatives) who were affected, plus elite figures – newspapers and medical professionals. There was no large-scale public pressure for action against Scientology; people seem to have regarded it as a bad thing but were not particularly concerned about doing something about it.

— Misunderstanding of Scientology’s intentions and capabilities. The government believed that it could make Scientology give up simply by inconveniencing it. It seems to have had no awareness of Scientology’s determination – expressly directed by Hubbard – to hold onto every scrap of territory and fight every adversary for as long it it needed to, at whatever cost it incurred, until it eventually wore them down. Nor did it appreciate that Hubbard had specifically designed Scientology’s organisational structure to deflect and defeat pressure from the state.

All of these factors still apply today to any state authority that might seek to take action against Scientology for any reason, whether over taxes, treatment of its members, legal violations or anything else. Very few state interventions against Scientology anywhere in the world have succeeded in having a substantial or long-term effect. The Wilson government’s immigration ban was poorly thought-out and badly implemented, but even if it had been better designed it might well have failed anyway because of Scientology’s sheer determination to persist and overturn it. It remains to be seen whether more recent interventions – such as the Hungarian government’s action to tackle data protection violations by Scientology – will fare any better.

 
— Chris Owen

 
——————–

MEANWHILE, AT FACEBOOK…

 
Please join us at the Underground Bunker’s Facebook discussion group for more frivolity.

 
——————–

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on July 25, 2018 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 can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2017 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Undergound Bunker (2012-2017), 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 | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Our non-Scientology stories: Robert Burnham Jr., the man who inscribed the universe | Notorious alt-right inspiration Kevin MacDonald and his theories about Jewish DNA | The selling of the “Phoenix Lights” | Astronomer Harlow Shapley‘s FBI file | Sex, spies, and local TV news

The day after we reported last week on the ordeal of 75-year-old Efrem Logreira — who says the Church of Scientology ran up charges on his credit cards for courses he would never take, and which cost him thousands in interest payments — he heard from the church in a letter [...]]]>

The day after we reported last week on the ordeal of 75-year-old Efrem Logreira — who says the Church of Scientology ran up charges on his credit cards for courses he would never take, and which cost him thousands in interest payments — he heard from the church in a letter disputing his numbers.

Until our story appeared, he had heard nothing from the Los Angeles Org for months, despite sending numerous letters complaining about the way he was being treated. He only joined Scientology last year, at 74, and took a couple of introductory courses before running into problems with a third course. The church then opened up numerous credit cards in his name and put $73,000 in charges on them for various reasons, including 200 hours of auditing that he could never complete.

After being heard to complain about the long drives he was making to the Los Angeles Org from where he was staying at a friend’s house in Palm Springs, Efrem was barred from entering Scientology’s New Year’s event, held in December at the Shrine Auditorium in LA. Since then, he’s been sending letters demanding refunds from the church as the interest charges on his credit cards have impoverished him.

Not long after we first started talking to him, Efrem did receive a payment of $45,379.82 in refunds from the church. In its July 19 letter, Scientology says it had earlier refunded him even more — another $20,000, which Efrem acknowledges was returned to him on October 12 to make up for one of the unauthorized charges made to his credit cards, and under particularly troubling circumstances.

In that case, Efrem says, three female Scientology “registrars” offered to take him from the Los Angeles Org to a local ice cream parlor, singing along with the radio in the car, and plying him with flirtatious pleas to “keep helping us out,” along with touching and kissing him until he agreed to help — but he didn’t realize until later that his “help” meant a charge to his credit cards for $20,000 of future auditing. (Efrem acknowledged the return of this money in his previous letters to the church. It was our oversight not including that refund amount in our previous story.)

Efrem sent us a photo of the three registrars on his ice cream date (see above). He says their names are, from left to right, Roxanne, Natalie, and Lindsey.

Scientology now tells Efrem it owes him only another $8,415 to complete his refunds, and it’s being pretty aggressive about it: “If you continue to decline to provide an address to send the check, I will conclude that you are not seeking to resolve this matter in good faith, but rather, are seeking to further some other agenda that you or others may have,” the July 19 letter states.

But Logreira tells us that Scientology will have to pay a lot more to make him whole. The church not only ran up $73,000 in charges for auditing he would never use, but he had to pay interest on those charges for nearly a year, and it has drained his savings, wrecked his credit, and made him essentially homeless.

He told us he is not going to accept Scientology’s $8,415 check, and this week he sent copies of his documentation to attorney Graham Berry, who has a long record of representing former Scientologists in litigation.

Part of that documentation, which Efrem shared with us, is a current accounting of the credit card balances that he owes which come directly from the fees, charges, and interest he paid for his Scientology adventure. Over five different accounts, that balance totals $43,006.99 as of June.

“The only thing I want is those credit card balances zeroed so I can re-establish my credit. How can I pay that if I don’t have any money? That’s my situation,” he says. “Scientology has treated me like garbage. And I want satisfaction.”

 
——————–

MEANWHILE, AT FACEBOOK…

 
Please join us at the Underground Bunker’s Facebook discussion group for more frivolity.

 
——————–

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on July 24, 2018 at 08:00

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 can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2017 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Undergound Bunker (2012-2017), 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 | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Our non-Scientology stories: Robert Burnham Jr., the man who inscribed the universe | Notorious alt-right inspiration Kevin MacDonald and his theories about Jewish DNA | The selling of the “Phoenix Lights” | Astronomer Harlow Shapley‘s FBI file | Sex, spies, and local TV news

After nine years of characteristic scorched-earth legal maneuvering which included numerous appeals and delays and long-shot Hail Mary passes, Scientology has finally chickened out of actually going through a trial over the forced-abortion allegations of Laura DeCrescenzo. The two sides hammered out a settlement to end the case before [...]]]>

After nine years of characteristic scorched-earth legal maneuvering which included numerous appeals and delays and long-shot Hail Mary passes, Scientology has finally chickened out of actually going through a trial over the forced-abortion allegations of Laura DeCrescenzo. The two sides hammered out a settlement to end the case before trial was scheduled to begin on August 13, more than nine years since Laura first filed her lawsuit. The settlement of the case was announced in open court this morning.

The sides won’t divulge the terms of the deal, but we can tell you it’s pretty likely that Scientology leader David Miscavige cut the largest check he ever has to end a lawsuit, and for good reason. As attorney Scott Pilutik explained just a few days ago, this trial was going to be very ugly for Scientology, with evidence that it works children under horrific conditions, over endless hours, and that it forces young women to have abortions to keep them working around the clock.

Scientology threw two motions for summary judgment at the case and lost them both, appealed one ruling about turning over Laura’s personal files all the way to the US Supreme Court, and most recently filed its own lawsuit against Laura in federal court. Add several judge changes, a dismissal and successful appeal, and it took an enormous time to get here. But with the trial only weeks away, Scientology had run out of its last chance to delay things, and Laura’s attorney John Blumberg cranked up the pressure recently by serving Miscavige with a notice to testify in the proceeding.

While publicly Scientology was filing a motion with the court to get that subpoena quashed last week, privately it scrambled to cut a deal to end the case entirely.

For nine years, Laura DeCrescenzo had fought Scientology’s legal onslaught with devastating testimony and frightening documentation about her treatment in the Sea Org. Every detail of her life was exposed, and she had to sit through aggressive and insulting questioning in depositions with Scientology lawyers. She put herself entirely out there, exposing her family to the potential that one of Scientology’s legal strategies might make all the effort for naught. But now, she walks away victorious, and likely a lot richer, and we only hope it begins to compensate her for what she’s been through. We have put in a request for a statement, but we are skeptical that she’s going to make one.

We have more thoughts about the seven years we’ve been reporting on this case, but first we want to hear from attorney Scott Pilutik, who was following Laura’s ordeal even before she filed her lawsuit…

I’m absolutely thrilled for Laura. I recall speaking with her years ago, before she filed, about the facts of her case, and I’ve been rooting for her like crazy from the sidelines ever since. I knew her story would devastate Scientology should it ever be heard in a courtroom before a jury, and I knew she’d probably prevail if she could survive the gauntlet that lay before her.

I said a little more than a week ago that a last minute settlement wouldn’t have surprised me because, for Scientology, this last decade of expensive motion practice was entirely about avoiding a courtroom where the facts of the case would be heard. And so even though the upcominmg trial was only the trial before the ‘real’ trial, most of the same facts were due to be heard, because in both the issues was Scientology’s very real abuses covering most of Laura’s life up to the point where she left, and even afterward.

I suppose, as is often the case, some people will be disappointed for not getting a trial. I think it’s important to keep a few things in mind. First, it’s not your case, it’s Laura’s. Second, this was a civil, not criminal case, meaning that in the end, Laura was either going to get money, or not get money, whether it be via a trial or settlement. It’s always been within Scientology’s capacity to make the case go away simply by coming up with oodles of money. Finally, the net result of this settlement will in all likelihood result in changes (perhaps small, but still) within Scientology, to avoid the specific conduct that permitted Laura’s case to go as far as it did. Could it mean no more forced abortions for Sea Org members? I guess we’ll see in a few years when future ex-members leave and head for the courtroom.

 
Thank you, Scott. We too are thrilled for Laura. But as we close the book on this chapter, we want to point something out that has really bugged us throughout this case.

Nine years. Dozens of court hearings, including dramatic moments in court over motions for summary judgment. Mountains of crucial evidence that had to be pried out of the church after it lost appeals all the way to the US Supreme Court. Evidence of the mistreatment of a 12-year-old girl, forced to work 90 hours a week for essentially no pay. Punished for missing her mother. Interrogations before being allowed to see her grandparents. Marriage at 16 to another Sea Org member, and forced to have an abortion at 17, which was Sea Org policy — and documented evidence that the church knew she didn’t want to go along with it. Thrown into the Sea Org’s prison detail for years, with no hope of getting out and seeing her family again. Finally drinking bleach in order to get out of her imprisonment.

All of that, which had primarily taken place in Los Angeles, and litigated over nine years in a Los Angeles courtroom, where Scientology argued quite openly that it can treat the children under its employ as badly as it wants to because of its First Amendment religious protection. And now, the entire circus has ended with probably the largest settlement in Scientology history…

…and not one single word about Laura DeCrescenzo or her lawsuit has ever appeared in the local paper of record, the Los Angeles Times.

Not. One. Word.

This shameful failure by what was once the leading journalistic organization covering Scientology is almost incomprehensible. If someone at that once great institution can help us understand what’s going on there, we’d love to hear it. Please drop us a line.

Well, Laura, we salute you. We would have enjoyed seeing the trial, but we have to admire your stamina and what you’ve endured over nearly a decade to get some justice.

Scientology, meanwhile, escaped the glare of publicity by writing a huge check from its massive reserves…

…of tax-free funds.

 
——————–

MEANWHILE, AT FACEBOOK…

 
Please join us at the Underground Bunker’s Facebook discussion group for more frivolity.

 
——————–

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on July 23, 2018 at 15:10

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 can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2017 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Undergound Bunker (2012-2017), 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 | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Our non-Scientology stories: Robert Burnham Jr., the man who inscribed the universe | Notorious alt-right inspiration Kevin MacDonald and his theories about Jewish DNA | The selling of the “Phoenix Lights” | Astronomer Harlow Shapley‘s FBI file | Sex, spies, and local TV news

  Last week we published a report from an eyewitness at the third “Maiden Voyage” event held on L. Ron Hubbard Way at Scientology’s “Big Blue” headquarters in Los Angeles. This week, our inside source was once again in attendance Saturday night when the fourth Maiden Voyage event took place. Our source had some [...]]]>

 
Last week we published a report from an eyewitness at the third “Maiden Voyage” event held on L. Ron Hubbard Way at Scientology’s “Big Blue” headquarters in Los Angeles. This week, our inside source was once again in attendance Saturday night when the fourth Maiden Voyage event took place. Our source had some pretty interesting observations about what went down…

 
Maiden Voyage Night Four on LRH Way: Ideal Orgs, Dissemination, and the Scientology Media Production studios.

Joy Villa attended and sat in the front row. I did not see Nation of Islam Minister Tony Muhammad or Fred Shaw, who were so prominent the week before. It is possible they were there somewhere and I missed them, but don’t think so.

David Miscavige did not appear in tonight’s Maiden Voyage video. Instead, the presenters were executives from Public Relations, the Landlord Office, the SMP television department, the SMP Internet department, and the Ideal Org office.

The following facts stood out: There are many Ideal Orgs on the runway and coming in 2018 and 2019. The Scientology TV Network has trained and dispatched teams of correspondents to each Scientology region to produce new content for SMP and the Scientology Network. Scientology Network shows are available on demand over the Internet and via apps in 17 languages.

Each Ideal Org already has televisions dedicated to current Scientology Network programming as it is broadcast on DirecTV. A new development is that each Ideal Org is now being outfitted with an on-demand Scientology Network kiosk prominently located in the public information area. The new kiosks will provide every Scientology Network show that has ever been aired on demand in 17 languages. New shows will be automatically downloaded to the kiosks after they have been aired on DirecTV.

The most important information from Night Four concerns the statistics regarding claimed results from the creation of the Scientology Network. There is a claimed 3X increase in First Service Starts throughout the Ideal Org Network since the March 12 inaugural of the network. This was led by a claimed 11X increase at the Inglewood Ideal Org, a claimed 10X increase at the Harlem Ideal Org, a claimed 7X increase at the San Diego Ideal Org, a claimed 5X increase at the Mexico Ideal Org, and a claimed 4X increase at the Kaoshung Ideal Org.

There has been a consistent change in regging behavior during not only the four Ideal Org Events but also at prior events on LRH Way this year. I didn’t want to report this until I was sure the pattern was consistent and stable. The change in behavior clearly indicates a change in policy. Before, regging pressure for the IAS, Ideal Orgs, SMP, Fourth Dynamic campaigns, etc. at LRH Way events on a 1 – 10 scale with 10 being highest was a consistent, solid 10, and quite frankly rude. It is now consistently at 2 or maybe 3 at worst. No more double or triple teaming. If one contributes, one is acknowledged, sincerely thanked and not pressured to increase their contribution. If one has already contributed and is approached by another Sea Org member, one is generally acknowledged, thanked and not pressured to increase their contribution. Most importantly, and unprecedented in my experience in Scientology, if one says one cannot afford to contribute, etc., that answer is politely accepted with no pressure, no invalidation, no questions about one’s income, and no attempt to convince one to “flow something.”

I say the regging pressure at LRH Way events is still at 2 or maybe 3 at worst because in the scenario where one has already contributed and is approached a second time, some Sea Org staff are still clueless and rude enough to ask how much one previously contributed, but even that comes across more as a young Sea Org member’s ignorant lack of manners than real pressure. They back off quickly, easily and politely. I cannot overstate the positive change in behavior in this specific area. In general, the Sea Org members are operating with higher ARC for the public. It makes attending events much more pleasant.

My Conclusions and Predictions: The Church of Scientology continues to be all-in with the Ideal Org program. Expect a lot of new Ideal Orgs coming relatively quickly. The Church of Scientology is serious about making every Org ideal.

The Church of Scientology is all-in on the Scientology Network. There will be no cut-backs, decrease in budget, or decrease in original programming. I predict an increase in programming. They believe this is working, or are completely committed to making it work.

 
Thank you, correspondent, for your eyewitness account and your observations over time about the dialed-down regging. Could David Miscavige be letting up, or is it a sign that the desperation is finally having its effect? Let us know what you think, readers.

 
——————–

Class-action lawsuit coming?

Yesterday, Scientology and the Aftermath costar Mike Rinder posted a notice to many Facebook groups, as well as at his website. Here is the crucial language from it:

I am looking for people who have left the Sea Org in the last ten years, and particularly people who feel they had a hard time leaving due to physical or psychological coercion.

Please let me know if you or someone you know fits this bill, and would be willing to talk about it.

I am in contact with a sophisticated law firm that is potentially willing to assist in the matter.

Sophisticated law firm? That certainly sounds good. If you fit Mike’s description, please get in touch with him.

And we look forward to reporting on any new litigation against the church.

 
——————–

MEANWHILE, AT FACEBOOK…

 
Please join us at the Underground Bunker’s Facebook discussion group for more frivolity.

 
——————–

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on July 23, 2018 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 can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2017 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Undergound Bunker (2012-2017), 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 | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Our non-Scientology stories: Robert Burnham Jr., the man who inscribed the universe | Notorious alt-right inspiration Kevin MacDonald and his theories about Jewish DNA | The selling of the “Phoenix Lights” | Astronomer Harlow Shapley‘s FBI file | Sex, spies, and local TV news

  Rod Keller compares Scientology’s approach in two very different places where it plans to “expand” in the near future…

According to L. Ron Hubbard policy, Scientology’s “fourth dynamic” campaigns are intended to “safepoint” an area in order to establish a Scientology organization there. But two examples will illustrate how irrelevant safepointing actually is. [...]]]>

 
Rod Keller compares Scientology’s approach in two very different places where it plans to “expand” in the near future…

According to L. Ron Hubbard policy, Scientology’s “fourth dynamic” campaigns are intended to “safepoint” an area in order to establish a Scientology organization there. But two examples will illustrate how irrelevant safepointing actually is.

This week it was announced that the Detroit Ideal Org will open later this year. Staff are being recruited, they will go to Los Angeles for training, and David Miscavige will pull the ribbon at the opening ceremony, all this without any significant safepointing. Social media is full of photos of Detroit fundraising activities but not of distribution of literature from the front groups The Way to Happiness or Foundation for a Drug Free World.

April, 2018: “With the Director General of Prevention and Citizen Security of the Ministry of the Interior and Police Lic. Bienvenido Flores and the prosecuting magistrate of the Province of Espaillat, José Aníbal Carela and his team yesterday to work together on the plans to expand the programs of education and social reform in the Cibao region in Dominican Republic.”

The opposite is true for the Dominican Republic, a nation of 10 million inhabitants that shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. Scientology has been safepointing heavily there since at least 2011. Above, Miami area Scientologist Diana Pedroni poses with government officials as they plan to distribute The Way to Happiness (El Camino a la Felicidad in Spanish) in the heavily populated northern part of the country.

July 17, 2018: “Sharing with the police books of The Way to Happiness in Moca, by the hand of the Sub Commander of the Moca Police, Tn. Colonel Omar Urbaez. We are helping the police in their daily task of reinforcing the values and safeguarding the security in the community.”

April, 2018: “After a whole week in Miami Org in training, the delegates of the Ministry of the Interior and Police of the Dominican Republic pose with me in front of our building.”

January, 2018: “The General Directorate of the National Police and the Church of Scientology, carried out the second stage of training of the Personal Efficiency course, with the participation of 50 senior and subordinate officers in the multipurpose room of the museum of the institution.”

Ties between Scientology and officials are close. This week police officers distributed The Way to Happiness door to door in the city of Moca. Police and other officials also visited the Miami Ideal Org this year for Scientology training. As a Field Staff Member, Pedroni receives a commission for this.

 
Bienvenido Flores, an official in the Ministry of the Interior and Police has commissioned personalized edition of The Way to Happiness, and last year received an award for distributing Scientology materials in schools.

May, 2018: Enid Gil (center, blue dress) with graduates of The Way to Happiness seminar.

In 2014 Enid Gil, the Deputy Minister of Extension at the Ministry of Higher Education was appointed Executive Director of The Way to Happiness for the Dominican Republic. She is working to bring the book to the country’s teachers and schools.

May, 2018: “This excellent work was done by Antonio Vizcaino of the Dominican Republic. He is part of Drug Free World America’s. We’re fighting to safeguard youth everywhere.”

October, 2017: at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra in Santiago De Los Caballeros

Queens dentist and Freedom Award winner Bernard Fialkoff is the primary force behind the Foundation for a Drug-Free World front group in the the Dominican Republic and much of the Caribbean.

Scientology has poured resources into safepointing in the Dominican Republic. L. Ron Hubbard’s policies say that this allows the establishment of an org in the area. Today Scientology lists a third floor apartment in this building in the capital city of Santo Domingo as the address of the mission. There is no sign or storefront, and they have not purchased a building to renovate into an Ideal Org. One source thinks Scientology may have moved out from even this modest location.

The lack of safepointing in cities such as Detroit is irrelevant for the opening of an Ideal Org. Wealthy public members in Clearwater and Los Angeles funded it after the local membership stalled for years in their renovation project. So far these Scientology “whales” have not funded an org in the Dominican Republic, despite years of safepointing and close ties with government officials. Perhaps the fourth dynamic campaigns there are not intended to expand Scientology as policy dictates, but rather to fuel donations to the front groups that send cash up the line into Scientology’s huge reserve funds.

 
— Rod Keller

 
——————–

MEANWHILE, AT FACEBOOK…

 
Please join us at the Underground Bunker’s Facebook discussion group for more frivolity.

 
——————–

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on July 22, 2018 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 can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2017 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Undergound Bunker (2012-2017), 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 | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Our non-Scientology stories: Robert Burnham Jr., the man who inscribed the universe | Notorious alt-right inspiration Kevin MacDonald and his theories about Jewish DNA | The selling of the “Phoenix Lights” | Astronomer Harlow Shapley‘s FBI file | Sex, spies, and local TV news

  Our Saturday ‘Scientology Lit’ series continues with a glimpse of Sands Hall’s richly penned memoir, Flunk. Start.: Reclaiming My Lost Decade in Scientology. Sands, a veteran musician and writing instructor, may not have been a Sea Org member or high-ranking Scientology executive, but we found her book to be one of the best [...]]]>

 
Our Saturday ‘Scientology Lit’ series continues with a glimpse of Sands Hall’s richly penned memoir, Flunk. Start.: Reclaiming My Lost Decade in Scientology. Sands, a veteran musician and writing instructor, may not have been a Sea Org member or high-ranking Scientology executive, but we found her book to be one of the best for explaining the “tech” that members encounter and the ways that Scientology affects the mind. She gave us this excerpt to share with you.

 
Her lovely face revealing nothing about the purpose or mood of our meeting, Jessica ushered me into her office and closed the door. On her desk lay a large red book embossed with gold letters. I recognized it. It was one of a dozen volumes that contained, in chronological order, all the policy letters and bulletins that L. Ron Hubbard had written regarding auditing, Scientology’s form of counseling. A bookcase behind Jessica’s desk held the entire set, bound in red leather, with an inch-and-a-half gap where this one had been removed. Another bookcase held the equally large set of “admin” volumes, bound in green, which contained everything Hubbard had ever written about how to found and run an organization. Of course Jessica kept these books close to hand. As the mission holder of a Scientology Center, she would refer to them often.

Jessica emanated serenity. She wore simple, elegant clothes, black and tan and linen. Her long hair was straight and glossy. She had unswerving faith in L. Ron Hubbard’s religious technology, yet even as she ensured that the mission (she called it a “Center,” choosing, with purpose, a less religiously charged word) adhered to his policies, she was never dictatorial. This was generally true of the Scientologists I’d come to know in my five years in the Church. I found them reasonable, kind, ethical, straightforward, and sane. Through the Church’s hermetic seal (especially hermetic in 1987, pre-Internet), whispers and speculation made their way: someone who’d done something wrong — “gone out-ethics” — had been chained for days to a toilet in a brig or forced to live in something like a gulag, eating rice and beans and doing menial labor, but these rumors had nothing to do with my own experience. Nevertheless, ever since the previous night — when, as I’d been finishing up my duties in the Center’s course room, Jessica had stopped in to request this meeting — I’d been anxious.

I perched on the edge of a chair, swallowed, and swallowed again.

She took her place on the other side of the desk and, folding her hands on its glossy surface, said, “Sands. You need to be firmer in the course room.”

I nodded, a little dazed, wondering what I might have done wrong.

My post at the Center was as a Course Supervisor. A Course Supervisor does not teach; she oversees the study going on in the course room — study that is entirely of materials written by Hubbard — making sure students understand what they are reading. So what Jessica was referring to might mean that I had not been absolutely vigilant as I checked a student’s understanding of one of Hubbard’s policy letters. Or maybe it was that student, Skip, who’d had so much trouble with the Training Routines. The previous week, he’d enrolled in the Success Through Communication course, but after just two nights, hadn’t returned. I was haunted by the story he’d told me, about a weekend retreat that was supposed to have taught him how to master fear but instead seemed to have fried his brain. If I’d passed him on a drill when he wasn’t ready to be passed, I might be responsible for whatever fragile mental state he might find himself in. Even though he’d come to us in a pretty fragile mental state.

“The Tech is the most precious thing,” Jessica was saying, her dark eyes serious. “You know that, Sands. If we’re to keep Scientology working, we must apply it correctly.”

She reached for the book on her desk, opened it to a marked page, and swiveled the volume around so I could see it.

I knew it well: an HCOPL — Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter — written in February 1965 entitled “Keeping Scientology Working.”

Jessica cleared her throat. “‘We have some time since passed the point of achieving uniformly workable technology.’”

She was either reading upside-down or reciting. Many Scientologists memorized, word-for-word, chunks of what was known as the “Tech.”

“‘The only thing now is getting the technology applied,’” she quoted.

“I understand,” I said.

She smiled. “I’m sure you do. But I can hardly tell you to Keep Scientology Working without doing exactly what LRH says we must do if we are to keep Scientology working.”

I tried to smile back and bent my head to read the familiar words. This policy letter was the first thing you read each time you started a new Scientology course. Which meant I’d read it about a dozen times. I see now that the first sentence makes a statement as if it’s self-evident — “We have some time since passed the point of achieving uniformly workable technology” — and the other steps follow from that assumption. But at the time I did not spot how this led the reader, unquestioningly, into the second step — “Two: Knowing the technology.” After which comes:

Three: Knowing it is correct.

Four: Teaching correctly the correct technology.

Five: Applying the technology.

Six: Seeing that the technology is correctly applied.

I looked up from the page and again said, “I understand.”

And it was true that about this far I was usually able to follow Hubbard’s thinking, even if I found it awfully arrogant. He and he alone had come up with the only possible technology? Still, although I might not agree that it was the only correct technology, it did seem as if it might be — my knowledge was limited — a correct technology. I was not in the course room to teach the Tech, but I was doing my best to make sure students understood it. I understood that “applying Tech” meant living your life more or less by Hubbard’s policies and perspectives. Around this I was definitely wishy-washy: my faith in the validity of everything Hubbard had ever written or said was in no way absolute — some things actually scared me. But I did believe in the efficacy of a lot of it.

However, the next four steps to Keep Scientology Working really troubled me, even though I’d glibly demonstrated my understanding of them — which certainly implied agreement — any number of times. They were so adamant. I lowered my eyes to the page.

Seven: Hammering out of existence incorrect technology.

Eight: Knocking out incorrect application.

Nine: Closing the door on any possibility of incorrect technology.

Ten: Closing the door on incorrect application.

“Sands,” Jessica said. “We must, as LRH says, ‘close the door on any possibility of incorrect application.’” I nodded, wondering what door of “incorrect application” I’d left ajar. And who had noticed? Who’d brought it to Jessica’s attention? The only thing I could think of was Skip. Poor Skip! How on earth could he live with the images in his head?

Jessica turned the page and pointed to a paragraph at the end of the document.

The whole agonized future of the planet, every Man, Woman and Child on it, and your own destiny for the next endless trillions of years depend on what you do here and now with and in Scientology.

I knew the rest of this paragraph. This was a “deadly serious” activity. If we didn’t manage to “get out of the trap” now, we might never have another chance. The inherent hysteria made me roll my eyes, just a bit. Humans had been on the planet a long, long time.

Which, I also understood, was part of Hubbard’s point.

“If we falter in delivering the Tech in a completely standard way, Sands, we risk losing it.” Jessica’s voice had the slightest wobble in it. It wasn’t just that her own status as the mission holder was on the line if the Center was found to be delivering anything other than Standard Tech — a terrifying idea for all involved. It was also the idea that under her watch, Scientology might not work as it was meant to work. I found this utterly noble and beautiful, even as inside the little cat of doubt I knew so well stretched a paw and yawned.

“We need you to be a zealot, Sands.”

I blinked. The blood in my veins came to a halt. “A zealot?”

She nodded. My blood began to pump again. Actually, it lurched and spun as through my head roiled visions of men holding gleaming scimitars in one hand and in the other, gripped by their long hair, the bleeding lopped-off heads of women. I saw horses screaming and rearing as their riders stormed through a crowd of unbelievers. I saw a little girl, held by her ankles, whirled against a rock to smash her heathen forehead. I saw a hundred Muslim bodies impaled on sharp poles, left to writhe and die. I saw Christians opening their arms to welcome the hungry lions that, mouths agape, raced toward them across a Roman ring.

 
“At times you are too gentle,” Jessica said.

I could only stare, caught up in the sight and sound and smell and filth of carnage in the name of faith.

“At times you allow yourself to be swayed by someone you think of as stronger than you — or, what I mean is, if you think they’re smarter. Especially if that person is male.”

I nodded. This was inarguable. My father. My brother. The man I’d married, Jamie, whose brilliance as a musician helped persuade me that he might also be brilliant about his chosen spiritual path, which was how I’d come to Scientology in the first place. My current sweetheart, Skye, was tenderer, but the quicksilver quality of his mind, and his marvelous sense of humor, caused me to sometimes wonder whether his thoughts might be better than my own.

Except for the volume open between us, the surface of Jessica’s desk held only a photo in a frame and a small potted plant, and she ran a hand over the gleaming rosewood. “Delivering the Tech has nothing, nothing to do with being ‘nice.’ Let me remind you — you’re the one who pointed it out to me — that the root of the word ‘nice’ is ‘foolish.’”

“Well,” I said, “ignorant, anyway.”

“You are not ignorant. Nor foolish! So don’t be ‘nice.’ I worry that you’d rather be liked than risk offending a student by sending him back to, say, restudy material.”

Again I tried to think where I’d been lax. After taking the Course Supervisor Course I’d had to do an internship in a course room, and I thought I’d gotten pretty good at telling people to restudy their materials if I felt they had to. Hubbard’s Study Tech was an aspect of Scientology in which I completely believed.

“That’s what I mean by ‘zealot,’” Jessica said. “If Scientology is applied standardly, we know it works.”

I thought about Skip. I wondered if the Tech had helped him. I worried that by now he’d blown his brains out.

 
— Sands Hall

 
——————–

OK, ZUCKERBERG, YOU WIN

As we announced yesterday, we’ve created a Facebook Group for the Underground Bunker and its community, where you can spend even more time discussing Scientology news. It should be a lot of fun, or maybe it will be a big headache, or maybe Facebook itself will collapse in a grand conflagration of regrets and recriminations. Who can tell! Please join the madness if you wish.

 
——————–

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on July 21, 2018 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 can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2017 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Undergound Bunker (2012-2017), 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 | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Our non-Scientology stories: Robert Burnham Jr., the man who inscribed the universe | Notorious alt-right inspiration Kevin MacDonald and his theories about Jewish DNA | The selling of the “Phoenix Lights” | Astronomer Harlow Shapley‘s FBI file | Sex, spies, and local TV news

We have some updates for you from Laura DeCrescenzo’s forced-abortion case as it rapidly approaches its August 13 trial date.

A week ago, we told you that Scientology’s attorneys were scrambling to deal with a last-minute surprise from Laura’s legal team — she had filed a “notice to appear” requiring [...]]]>

We have some updates for you from Laura DeCrescenzo’s forced-abortion case as it rapidly approaches its August 13 trial date.

A week ago, we told you that Scientology’s attorneys were scrambling to deal with a last-minute surprise from Laura’s legal team — she had filed a “notice to appear” requiring church leader David Miscavige to testify in the trial, which will consider her allegations of abuse as a child working for the church’s “Sea Organization.”

Scientology’s lawyers filed a motion to quash that subpoena, and asked Judge Mark Mooney to expedite his handling of it. The judge set a hearing date of Monday to make a decision about whether Miscavige would have to show up for the trial.

We have now learned that during that hearing on Friday, the attorney for the Religious Technology Center — the nominally controlling entity of Scientology as a whole — told the judge in open court that a mediation hearing on the case would be going on the next day.

We don’t know the result of that Saturday mediation hearing. However, we did learn that earlier today the Church of Scientology International dismissed its Ninth Circuit appeal on a federal lawsuit it had filed against Laura in one of its final gambits to try and delay her trial.

Also today, Laura’s attorneys withdrew the notice to appear that would have required Miscavige to testify in the trial. As a result, the Monday hearing to quash that subpoena won’t be held.

We called Laura’s attorney, John Blumberg, asking him what we should conclude from these changes, and he responded that he was unable to comment on the developments.

Even without Miscavige’s participation, the trial should be an ugly mess for Scientology, as attorney Scott Pilutik explained last week. “For Scientology, goal number one has always been to prevent any trial where the types of grisly abuses alleged by Laura are made public,” he told us.

So, here’s what we know. After a mediation hearing, both sides have now given up something going into the trial. Scientology’s Ninth Circuit appeal was a longshot attempt to overturn the dismissal of a longshot federal lawsuit it filed in December, hoping to convince the federal courts to kill Laura’s state court action. But even though the federal lawsuit seemed like a Hail Mary pass, if the appeal somehow succeeded, it would make her state lawsuit moot. So getting that dropped is one less headache for Laura.

And is she giving up a lot by letting Miscavige off the hook? A significant increase in media attention occurred in the last 24 hours over the prospect of Miscavige trying to get out of the case — imagine the press feeding frenzy if he’d actually been compelled to testify. So yes, this does seem like a pretty big chip to lose.

But either way, Scientology is still facing a major headache with the trial just a little more than three weeks away. Expect more fireworks as it nears.

 
——————–

Peter Nyiri on life under David Miscavige

Jeffrey Augustine continues his conversation with recent Scientology defector Peter Nyiri. In this episode, says Jeff:

“Peter Niyri discusses the ways David Miscavige and the RTC Rep Network issues orders concerning the day-to-day operations of the Church of Scientology International. This directly contravenes what Miscavige’s attorneys told a Texas court when they claimed Miscavige had nothing to do with managing the daily affairs of CSI. There are no checks and balances in the Church of Scientology as it told the IRS in its 1992 1023 application for 501(c)3 tax exemption. Peter also describes the extremely poor quality — literally nonexistent at times — of medical care in the Sea Org. Peter then switches topics to the release of the Basics in 2007 when the focus in Scientology was selling Basics libraries. He and his fellow Sea Org members worked from 9:15 AM to 5:00 AM — an 18 workday. This was done seven days a week for six months.”

 
——————–

A NEW FRONT OPENING IN THE WAR FOR YOUR ATTENTION

Well, we should have done this a long time ago. We’ve created a Facebook Group for the Underground Bunker and its community, where you can spend even more time discussing Scientology news like today’s court development. It should be a lot of fun, or maybe it will be a big headache, or maybe Facebook itself will collapse in a grand conflagration of regrets and recriminations. Who can tell!

Let’s give it a try and see how it develops.

 
——————–

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on July 19, 2018 at 19:30

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 can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2017 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Undergound Bunker (2012-2017), 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 | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Our non-Scientology stories: Robert Burnham Jr., the man who inscribed the universe | Notorious alt-right inspiration Kevin MacDonald and his theories about Jewish DNA | The selling of the “Phoenix Lights” | Astronomer Harlow Shapley‘s FBI file | Sex, spies, and local TV news