Scientology and cryptocurrency: Has there ever been a better investment opportunity?

 
Hey gang, we thought we had better alert you that later today there’s going to be some big news about a new cryptocurrency, and the elements coming together to create this opportunity are really exciting!

Let’s take a look at what we’ve learned about it so far. First, the mover and shaker behind this new crypto venture and attempt to disrupt the world of water distribution is Riggs Eckelberry, a longtime OT Scientologist whose involvement goes back to serving on the Excalibur, a Sea Org vessel that cruised the California coast in the early 1970s, and on the Apollo, L. Ron Hubbard’s flagship that plied the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Caribbean.

Eckelberry is not only one of the few former shipmates of Scientology vessels from that period to still be an active church member, he’s also one of the very few who is an outspoken and very public Scientology cheerleader. His essays about the church have showed up at places like the STAND website and World Religion News, and one of them even caught the attention of former Scientology spokesman Mike Rinder.

Eckelberry’s 2020 essay “The Self-Evident Truth of Scientology” got a pretty thorough thrashing from Mike, who was particularly amused by Eckelberry’s finishing paragraphs, in which he extolled the leadership of David Miscavige:

The Smithsonian already lists L. Ron Hubbard as one of the 100 most significant Americans of all time (only 11 U.S. presidents made the list).

And it’s clear that the movement has survived the most dangerous moment in any religion’s history: the death of its Founder. Scientology has only expanded since, under the leadership of L. Ron Hubbard’s hand-picked successor, Mr. David Miscavige.

So — I think the odds are good that this movement will go on to last a thousand years and keep right on growing long after.

And in interviews, Eckelberry is also not shy about speaking up for Scientology, which many other prominent church members avoid. Here’s what he said last month when an interviewer asked him about someone who had inspired him in his work…

I like to credit philosopher L. Ron Hubbard for instilling in me this love of disruption. I had the amazing experience of apprenticing under him for three years in the early seventies. People forget that he was trained as an engineer and had served in both the Marines and as an officer in the Navy. He had an incredibly varied life, and perhaps because of that, he was quite forgiving of a young man’s mistakes. One time, serving in port relations aboard his ship the Apollo, I was focused on meeting all the bigshots in port. Ron taught me to pay attention to the underlings. And sure enough, one time we got a berth in a tight harbor because he taught me to go find the one overworked guy who made the docking assignments! This was a guy I had never bothered to meet before. “Regular people” are both more interesting and can get more done for you, often, than the higher-ups. And Hubbard was always interested in regular people.

And as far as disrupting the water industry, Eckelberry no doubt is inspired by other Scientologists like Tom Cummins and Jim Bridgeforth, who have turned electricity deregulation in Florida into the millions that they’ve personally donated to the church. Cummins has given at least $32.5 million just to the IAS, Scientology’s membership organization, and probably a lot more counting other church initiatives.

 
Eckelberry appears to be trying to go one better than Cummins and Bridgeforth. He’s not only attempting to disrupt the way water is bought and sold by commercial ventures, but to do it with his own crypto: ClearAqua!

Here’s how Eckelberry, CEO of a Clearwater, Florida company called OriginClear, described the forthcoming currency in a press release that came out last month…

A grandmother in Korea can contribute to cleaning up a mobile home park’s sewage problem in Alabama. It allows for anyone around the world to get involved and spreads the burden of changing the trillion-dollar water industry in a meaningful and impactful way. By aggregating resources, knowledge, and investment dollars, we believe we will be able to help dramatically improve the state of water by helping businesses cut the cord and take control over their own water treatment.”

Hey, what is it with Scientologists and water all of a sudden? Just last week we learned about a company shot through with Scientologists, AquaTerreX, that claims to find sources of water where other people can’t. And in the spring, longtime Scientologist and politician Brent Jones made the news when his “Real Water” scheme turned out to be poisoning people.

We’re sure that’s just a coincidence. Anyway, at his Facebook account Eckelberry announced that later today he’ll be holding a special live announcement at 8 pm Eastern…

How’s it going with our crypto initiative? What’s the status of the rollout of our planned water coin? How could this coin help us disrupt this huge world market? Find out at 5pm Pacific, 8pm Eastern

The link at his message takes you to a website proclaiming the “Water is the New Gold(TM) Interactive Briefing.”

We can hardly wait! We want to see if scooping up some ClearAqua can get us in early before everyone else tries to muscle their way into the lucrative Alabama mobile home park sewage market.

Scientology, cryptocurrency, and wisdom straight from L. Ron Hubbard: What could possibly go wrong?

We’re looking forward to the smart investment types who read this website giving us a thorough rundown on just what an amazing opportunity this is.

 
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Bonus items from our tipsters

What’s taking you so long to go OT?

 
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Sign up for a daily email when we post a new story on Scientology.

Did you know you can get an email every morning when we post our daily Scientology story? We know some of the folks who come to the Underground Bunker aren’t here to talk about the politics of the day, and that’s why we created a daily politics feature over at our other blog, The Lowdown, and we ask readers to take their political discussions over there. And if you drop us a line at tonyo94 AT gmail, we’ll put you on the list so you get a morning reminder that a new Scientology story has been posted — and only for our Scientology stories.

 
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Source Code

“I don’t think God wants to communicate with anybody myself. I’m — some people I know, and so forth — I know some of the things I have to say, I don’t think he would want to communicate with me. I know an awful lot of people that, boy, he’d run if he thought he had to communicate with them.” — L. Ron Hubbard, October 14, 1953

 
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Avast, Ye Mateys

“The vessel lying behind us is an oceanographic survey ship run by a US university. It has been located as the point spreading rumours about us in a limited fashion in the port. Another ship the blue 40 footer, is an American yacht with a journalist aboard bound for West West Africa. He picked up the rumors and exaggerated them. The things to remember are (a) stay with the shore story in casual conversation and (b) we actually are the proprietors of these ports. In other words keep consistent in what you say ashore, consistent with other crew members. Don’t dream up fancy tales. We’re the cowboys in the white hat, the good guys.” — The Commodore, October 14, 1970

 
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Overheard in the FreeZone

“Like all SPs, Scientology critics don’t have a life, they’re not going anywhere; oblivion is the name of their game. Their main strategies are generalisations, shutting down comm, diversion, trying to be louder, pretending authority. LRH faced all that, even in his own ranks. He dealt with it in the most detailed way, with admin, ethics and tech; a massive body of work. Critics have none of that; all they want to do is shut you up; that’s all they’ve got. Critics, SPs, the Church, have no solutions for the ills of mankind, the very personal difficulties we face in our own, individual lives.”

Past is Prologue

1997: Operation Clambake website creator Andreas Heldal-Lund reported a possible Scientology operation on him this week. “Today a guy rings my doorbell. When I open the door he asks if I have a friend called Kristian. I tell him he must have come to the wrong place. He says that was strange because he was driven here earlier and told to come to this apartment and deliver 5 grams of ‘stuff’. I made it very clear to this guy that he definitely had come to the wrong place and that I will call the police if he ever comes here again. Then I slammed the door in his face. I’ve just called the local police department and promised them to send a written report tomorrow.”

 
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Random Howdy

“So my mom being constipated and my dad poking me in the eye with his dick is the reason my life is shit? Thanks Ron, I knew it was their fault somehow, but I thought it had something to do with bad genes.”

 
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Full Court Press: What we’re watching at the Underground Bunker

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Next hearing set for November 10. Trial tentatively scheduled for February.
— Jay and Jeff Spina, Medicare fraud: Jay sentenced to 9 years in prison. Jeff’s sentencing to be scheduled.
— Hanan and Rizza Islam and other family members, Medi-Cal fraud: Pretrial conference December 17 in Los Angeles

Civil litigation:
— Luis and Rocio Garcia v. Scientology: Oral arguments were heard on July 30, 2020 at the Eleventh Circuit
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ US Supreme Court denied Valerie’s petition Oct 4.
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: California Supreme Court granted review on May 26 and asked the Second Appellate Division to direct Judge Steven Kleifield to show cause why he granted Scientology’s motion for arbitration. Oral arguments scheduled for November 2.
— Matt and Kathy Feschbach tax debt: Eleventh Circuit ruled on Sept 9 that Feshbachs can’t discharge IRS debt in bankruptcy. Dec 17: Feshbachs sign court judgment obliging them to pay entire $3.674 million tax debt, plus interest from Nov 19.
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Third amended complaint filed, trial set for June 28, 2022.
— Author Steve Cannane defamation trial: Trial concluded, Cannane victorious, awarded court costs. Case appealed on Dec 23. Appeal hearing held Aug 23-27. Awaiting a ruling.

 
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THE PROSECUTION OF DANNY MASTERSON

We first broke the news of the LAPD’s investigation of Scientology celebrity Danny Masterson on rape allegations in 2017, and we’ve been covering the story every step of the way since then. At this page we’ve collected our most important links, including our four days in Los Angeles covering the preliminary hearing and its ruling, which has Danny facing trial and the potential sentence of 45 years to life in prison.

SCIENTOLOGY: FAIR GAME

After the success of their double-Emmy-winning, three-season A&E series ‘Scientology and the Aftermath,’ Leah Remini and Mike Rinder continue the conversation on their podcast, ‘Scientology: Fair Game.’ We’ve created a landing page where you can hear all of the episodes so far.

LEAH REMINI: SCIENTOLOGY AND THE AFTERMATH

An episode-by-episode guide to Leah Remini’s three-season, double-Emmy winning series that changed everything for Scientology watching. Originally aired from 2016 to 2019 on the A&E network, and now on Netflix.

SCIENTOLOGY’S CELEBRITIES, from A to Z

Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

 
Other links: SCIENTOLOGY BLACK OPS: Tom Cruise and dirty tricks. Scientology’s Ideal Orgs, from one end of the planet to the other. Scientology’s sneaky front groups, spreading the good news about L. Ron Hubbard while pretending to benefit society. Scientology Lit: Books reviewed or excerpted in a weekly series. How many have you read?

 
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THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] Sea Org stealth candidate Brittany Ruiz: This is Scientology, so of course it gets even worse
[TWO years ago] David Miscavige made the scene in England: But how about his best Scientology bud?
[THREE years ago] Detroit going Ideal! Scientology throws its invite-only party in Motor City today
[FOUR years ago] Coming to grips with Scientology’s most vile secret, which was hiding in plain sight
[FIVE years ago] Older than Pythagoras, and guaranteed to raise your IQ: What Scientology promised in 1954
[SIX years ago] ‘MY SCIENTOLOGY MOVIE’: Louis Theroux’s doc premieres tonight at the London Film Festival
[SEVEN years ago] Former Scientologist indicted in financial scheme that victimized other ex-church members
[EIGHT years ago] Scientology Payback: Revenge of the Videographers
[NINE years ago] Marty Rathbun Reveals New Details in Nazanin Boniadi Story, Other Scientology Bombshells in New Book
[TEN years ago] Scientology Hates Clean Ice, Part 2: Another Target, and the Web as Weapon

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on October 14, 2021 at 07:00

E-mail tips to tonyo94 AT gmail DOT com or follow us on Twitter. We also post 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 new book with Paulette Cooper, Battlefield Scientology: Exposing L. Ron Hubbard’s dangerous ‘religion’ is now on sale at Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. Our book about Paulette, 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, 1995-2020 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2020), The Village Voice (2008-2012), New Times Los Angeles (1999-2002) and the Phoenix New Times (1995-1999)

Other links: BLOGGING DIANETICS: Reading Scientology’s founding text cover to cover | 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 | Shelly Miscavige, 15 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

Watch our short videos that explain Scientology’s controversies in three minutes or less…

Check your whale level at our dedicated page for status updates, or join us at the Underground Bunker’s Facebook discussion group for more frivolity.

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 | Battling Babe-Hounds: Ross Jeffries v. R. Don Steele

 

Tony Ortega at The Daily Beast