Mike Rinder tells us he was surprised to see in our story yesterday that we had blown up photos Scientology posted in a press release and found that John Travolta and Elisabeth Moss were front and center at the March 16 L. Ron Hubbard Birthday Event in Clearwater, Florida.
Mike pointed out that at Scientology’s main website a different image appears, and in place of Travolta and Moss were another important Scientology duo, major donors Alan and Sheila Atkinson-Baker.
We don’t know. But we do know that Travolta and Moss can clearly be seen in the photos at the press release, and while we’ve seen Travolta attend this event numerous times, this is the first time we’ve ever seen Elisabeth Moss at any major Scientology event.
We asked Geoff Levin, a musician who was formerly a fixture at the Hollywood Celebrity Centre, for his thoughts about Moss showing up to the event.
“I’ve known Elisabeth since she was a toddler. I performed many times with her mom Linda, and I brought Linda into my recording studio. Elisabeth and I ran into each other often and talked many times at Celebrity Centre,” he said. “Of course she is still a dedicated Scientologist. And my gut feeling is Celebrity Centre International made it their highest priority to get Elisabeth to the Birthday Event. I feel Miscavige is not happy with the poor showing CC Int is making regarding bringing new celebs in like they used to. So it was of paramount importance that they get one their few big celebs at the event.
“Also, after the bad press from her father Ron Moss’s death, she needed to show more solidarity. Her showing up was a big perk for the whales who were there.”
Rinder, meanwhile, tells us that Moss’s presence suggests to him that she is being subjected to a major conditioning exercise.
“I think she is probably the target of a very intense campaign to ‘get her on board’ — like the one that was conducted by Marty Rathbun to get Tom Cruise ‘active’ under the direction of Miscavige. She is the only ‘new’ big name celebrity Scientology has. But she has not been ‘disseminating’ and I would bet that insisting she attend this event to ‘see how we are expanding and how great things are going’ is part of this effort to get her ‘on board.’ Also very likely she is being audited/sec checked by someone in RTC, closely supervised by Miscavige as the ‘executive C/S’ (a very bad thing according to Hubbard). Travolta is probably part of it — helping her as an ‘old hand.’ He doesn’t have anyone else these days. Kelly, Kirstie, and Lisa Marie are all gone.”
(Rinder’s reference to Cruise was in regards to the actor drifting away from Scientology while he was with Nicole Kidman in the years 1992-2000. Then, after the couple split, Cruise was subjected to an intense campaign by Marty Rathbun, under Miscavige’s direction, to get him back in the fold and re-dedicated to the cause. By 2003, Cruise was so gung-ho he appeared at the grand opening of the new Applied Scholastics headquarters in Missouri, and then in 2004 he went to his one and only Ideal Org grand opening in Madrid in September, and in October received his big medal from David Miscavige recognizing his new involvement.)
For years, we’ve seen interesting media takes on Moss, who stars in a successful show that criticizes a totalitarian, dystopian future (The Handmaid’s Tale), while she grew up in and is a prominent member of an actual totalitarian ‘religious’ organization with designs to subject the entire planet to the ideas of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard.
And while various commenters have wrestled with that cognitive dissonance, we’ve seen others surmising (or hoping) that although Moss had grown up in Scientology, perhaps she was only tangentially related to it or not hardcore about Hubbard and his precepts.
But here she is, front row and center at a 3.5-hour ceremony lavishing praise on Hubbard and featuring the boasts of its current leader, Miscavige, presenting the “expansion” of new “Ideal Orgs” which he opened recently in Austin, Mexico City and Chicago.
Moss has a new spy series coming soon to the FX Network, “The Veil.” When she does press for it, we hope an enterprising reporter will ask her about attending the birthday party of L. Ron Hubbard with John Travolta.
Did she get to meet David Miscavige? And what does she think about Leah Remini’s lawsuit against Scientology which claims that Scientology viciously harasses former members, or the lawsuits by Danny Masterson’s victims and Valeska Paris and the Baxters that allege human trafficking, sexual abuse of employees, and coddling of sexual predators?
They’re all fair game questions now.
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Technology Cocktail
“The sickness and death rate of persons who are part of Dianetic groups is only a small fraction of that of other groups. Pilots audited with Dianetics, by a test involving a whole squadron, went without a single even minor accident for the following year. Scientists audited with Dianetics have greatly improved intelligence. Dianetics raises IQ as a side product to usual auditing, at a rate of about one point of IQ per hour of processing. Withered limbs, skin blotches and rashes and even blindness and deafness have all responded to Dianetics.” — L. Ron Hubbard, 1969
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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 as Danny faces a potential sentence of 45 years to life in prison. NOW WITH TRIAL INDEX.
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THE PODCAST: How many have you heard?
[1] Marc Headley [2] Claire Headley [3] Jeffrey Augustine [4] Bruce Hines [5] Sunny Pereira [6] Pete Griffiths [7] Geoff Levin [8] Patty Moher [9] Marc Headley [10] Jefferson Hawkins [11] Michelle ‘Emma’ Ryan [12] Paulette Cooper [13] Jesse Prince [14] Mark Bunker [15] Jon Atack [16] Mirriam Francis [17] Bruce Hines on MSH
— SPECIAL: The best TV show on Scientology you never got to see
[1] Phil Jones [2] Derek Bloch [3] Carol Nyburg [4] Katrina Reyes [5] Jamie DeWolf
— The first Danny Masterson trial and beyond
[18] Trial special with Chris Shelton [19] Trial week one [20] Marc Headley on the spy in the hallway [21] Trial week two [22] Trial week three [23] Trial week four [24] Leah Remini on LAPD Corruption [25] Mike Rinder 2022 Thanksgiving Special [26] Jane Doe 4 (Tricia Vessey), Part One [27] Jane Doe 4 (Tricia Vessey), Part Two [28] Claire Headley on the trial [29] Tory Christman [30] Bruce Hines on spying [31] Karen de la Carriere [32] Ron Miscavige on Shelly Miscavige [33] Karen de la Carriere on the L’s [34] Mark Bunker on Miscavige hiding [35] Mark Plummer [36] Mark Ebner [37] Karen Pressley [38] Steve Cannane [39] Fredrick Brennan [40] Clarissa Adams [41] Louise Shekter [42] John Sweeney [43] Tory Christman [44] Kate Bornstein [45] Christian Stolte [46] Mark Bunker [47] Jon Atack [48] Luke Y. Thompson [49] Mark Ebner [50] Bruce Hines [51] Spanky Taylor and Karen Pressley [51] Geoff and Robbie Levin [52] Sands Hall [53] Jonny Jacobsen [54] Sandy Holeman
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“The possession of an object is necessary to its handling and control. The ability to have something is necessary to its nullification. In other words, if you want to take the danger out of something, you’d better be able to have it. Don’t try to stretch away and run away to the other end of Earth because some machine is going whirr-clang. Because there’s a guillotine somewhere that is going whirr-clang is no reason that you have to go to south Borneo. It might be if you’re trying to play the game of preserve the body, preserve the body, preserve the body, to take the body there. But I assure you, that if you run away from a guillotine, the next time you get beheaded it’ll hurt like hell. But if you didn’t run away from the guillotine there’s a distinct possibility that the guillotine wouldn’t clang. If it did it wouldn’t hurt. First, if it did clang it wouldn’t hurt, or it wouldn’t even drop, or it would disappear, or you probably have the ability to simply mock up a body someplace else. In other words, you could vanish if you could be there. But not if you ran away.” — L. Ron Hubbard, March 25, 1957
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“WEDDING: The Wedding of Diana Hubbard and Jon Horwich went off beautifully. The reception at the hotel was extremely nice. They will go on a honeymoon to the states on April 15. It is planned to have a second ceremony at Jon Horwich’s home. PARTY: There will be a party with the same band aboard on the evening of 3 April for those who did not attend the reception yesterday evening.” — The Commodore, March 25, 1971
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“The Church is causing 98 percent of its own troubles by Misapplications of Scientology, such as Fair Game, wherein they drive others down tone. If the Church would stop all of its Misapplications — 98 percent of the critics would go away. For that remaining two percent who would insanely attack the Church for making people happier — you use AS-ISNESS as the ONLY solution to them. Prove they are telling lies….You are God in your own universe. You cannot be the effect of something unless you agree to be the effect…The Church is a DEAD END bridge at this point in time, as we have already said. The Church product is missing. Its stats on stable Theta Clears, OTs and Free Beings is zero. The Upper Bridge exists outside the Church — and the case gain and exteriorization and OT phenomena outside of the Church, far exceeds any inside the Church. The hope of man now belongs to the independents.”
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1996: An article from the St. Petersburg Times detailed Scientology’s request for changes in Clearwater’s housing regulations. Scientology wants to pack in twice as many Sea Org members into the Hacienda Gardens, the barracks for low ranking SO and many RPF. “The change would cut in half the required living space and eventually provide homes for the 300 new Scientology staff members needed for the ‘Super Power’ facility, said Richard Haworth, a spokesman for Scientology’s Clearwater-based Flag Service Organization. Hacienda Gardens, 551 N Saturn Ave., has 200 units populated, in large part, by members of Scientology’s Sea Organization, who wear Navy-style uniforms and sign billion-year contracts to devote themselves to Scientology. Sea Org members, as they are called, spend 10 to 14 hours on the job daily. That unusual work schedule, and the fact that they eat their meals at Scientology dining halls and not at home, means that the city’s normal living standards aren’t necessary in Hacienda Gardens, Haworth said. ‘The units are used primarily for sleeping and are seldom used for cooking, entertaining, etc.,’ the Scientology request said. ‘If this variance is not granted, then, among other results, the applicant will be required to acquire additional property for housing purposes, which property will then be removed from the tax rolls.’ The Scientology request asks that in 120 apartments, the city’s minimum dwelling space requirements be cut in half. For a 700-square-foot apartment, for instance, the change would boost the number of Scientologists allowed from six to 13. In April 1992, city building officials cited the church for overcrowding in 34 of the Hacienda Gardens apartments. Scientology officials moved staff members around to alleviate the overcrowding, which they blamed on the logistics of renovating the facility.”
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“You know, I actually try not to swear on here. And If I’m in mixed company I try to do the same. Even though I’m an old punk I do have fairly good manners, and I have the scars from my mother’s fingernails digging into the fleshy part of my arm when I didn’t to prove it.”
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Full Court Press: What we’re watching at the Underground Bunker
Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Found guilty on two counts on May 31, remanded to custody. Sentenced to 30 years to life on Sep 7.
— David Gentile, GPB Capital, fraud.
Civil litigation:
— Leah Remini v. Scientology, alleging ‘Fair Game’ harassment and defamation: Some defamation claims were removed by Judge Hammock. Leah seeking to amend her complaint.
— Baxter, Baxter, and Paris v. Scientology, alleging labor trafficking: Forced to arbitration. Plaintiffs allowed interlocutory appeal to Eleventh Circuit.
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: motion to file new complaint, hearing on May 29.
— Jane Doe 1 v. Scientology, David Miscavige, and Gavin Potter: Case unsealed and second amended complaint filed. Scientology moves for religious arbitration, hearing on April 16.
— Chiropractors Steve Peyroux and Brent Detelich, stem cell fraud: Ordered to mediation.
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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] PODCAST: Louise Shekter compares working closely with both Hubbard and Miscavige
[TWO years ago] Danny Masterson accusers to CA Supremes: Stop Scientology from harming Valerie Haney!
[THREE years ago] Another records request from Scientology shows how Mark Bunker drives them nuts
[FOUR years ago] The million-dollar donors keeping Scientology flush, New Year’s 2020 edition
[FIVE years ago] Scientology, naturally, is trying to capitalize on the New Zealand mosque massacre
[SIX years ago] The Ideal Org grift isn’t complete until Scientology’s ‘Birthday Game’ is won
[SEVEN years ago] ‘God of Pop’ Kuba Ka on meeting Scientology’s David Miscavige: ‘Like an emperor or the Pope’
[EIGHT years ago] Attorney for Scientology’s drug rehab centers threatens lawyer running anti-Narconon website
[NINE years ago] ‘Going Clear’: Marty Rathbun on what he was thinking during his key moment in Gibney’s film
[TEN years ago] New judge announced in Laura DeCrescenzo case, and Narconon lawyers up
[ELEVEN years ago] A SMERSH Madness Update: Time for the Bracket Finals to Begin!
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Bernie Headley (1952-2019) did not see his daughter Stephanie in his final 5,667 days.
Tammy Synovec has not seen her daughter Julia in 2,850 days.
Valerie Haney has not seen her mother Lynne in 3,345 days.
Katrina Reyes has not seen her mother Yelena in 3,860 days
Sylvia Wagner DeWall has not seen her brother Randy in 3,410 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his grandson Leo in 2,400 days.
Geoff Levin has not seen his son Collin and daughter Savannah in 2,281 days.
Christie Collbran has not seen her mother Liz King in 5,585 days.
Clarissa Adams has not seen her parents Walter and Irmin Huber in 3,456 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 5,008 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 4,349 days.
Dylan Gill has not seen his father Russell in 12,916 days.
Melissa Paris has not seen her father Jean-Francois in 8,835 days.
Valeska Paris has not seen her brother Raphael in 5,003 days.
Mirriam Francis has not seen her brother Ben in 4,584 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 4,845 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 3,881 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy and daughter Jessica in 3,597 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 3,161 days.
Julian Wain has not seen his brother Joseph or mother Susan in 1,476 days.
Charley Updegrove has not seen his son Toby in 2,651 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 7,202 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 4,333 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 4,671 days.
Roger Weller has not seen his daughter Alyssa in 9,524 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 4,645 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 3,001 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin and daughter Taryn in 7,304 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 3,410 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis in 3,808 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 3,684 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 3,249 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike and daughter Emily in 3,762 days.
Mary Jane Barry has not seen her daughter Samantha in 4,016 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 15,125 days.
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Posted by Tony Ortega on March 25, 2024 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, 1995-2022 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2022), 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
