Spyentology: For Scientology, operating as an intelligence agency is a religious mandate

 
Chris Owen is back with another insightful dive into Scientology history…

There’s so much going on with Scientology — from missing wives to dubious financial dealings, broken families and allegations of abuse — that it sometimes seems like it has distilled every type of dysfunction and mismanagement into one rackety organisation. Scientology’s controversies aren’t unique; many other faith groups have their own scandals, as the Catholics, Baptists and Jehovah’s Witnesses can testify. But there is one aspect of Scientology that is genuinely close to being unique.

In my research, I’ve identified only three contemporary faith groups which have a dedicated covert intelligence organisation. (By this I mean an internal organisation which is explictly modelled on a state intelligence agency, using specially trained staff as professional intelligence officers who carry out intelligence practices and procedures against external targets.)

The first is Aum Shinrikyo, which carried out the 1995 Toyko nerve gas attacks and established a “Ministry of Intelligence.” The second is the jihadist organisation ISIS, which created its own “Amniyat” (Security) agency to carry out intelligence, counter-intelligence, and overseas operations. The third is Scientology, which had its Guardian Office between 1966–1982 and today has its euphemistically-named Office of Special Affairs.

Aum and ISIS are violent apocalyptic organisations which created intelligence organisations to help achieve their visions of the end of the world. But how and why did Scientology, an organization dedicated to self-improvement through mental therapy, end up with an intelligence operation bigger than many national intelligence services?

That’s one of the key questions that I’m looking to answer in a new book that I’m writing, which has involved research in archives on four continents. (If you would like to help out with the research costs for this project, please take a look at my GoFundMe page — any donations would be greatly appreciated, as I’m in the middle of a major series of research projects at the moment. Many thanks to those who have already donated; your help has made it possible to uncover a great deal of previously undocumented information, which you will see first here at the Bunker.)

Scientology’s use of intelligence has been shrouded by intense secrecy for decades. In contrast to the famous Xenu story, which has been taught to thousands of Scientologists despite its ostensibly secret status, the church has been extremely tight-lipped about its intelligence activities. However, documents acquired from law enforcement raids, leaks, and the accounts of defectors provide a window into why Scientology not only uses intelligence but regards it as a religious mandate.

The answer, as ever with Scientology, lies in the singular personality of L. Ron Hubbard. I first got interested in this issue 20 years ago while researching “Ron the War Hero,” my account of Hubbard’s military service. The issue of intelligence plays a big role in Hubbard’s military history, as he served for a while in the US Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). The late conspiracy theorist L. Fletcher Prouty claimed falsely that Hubbard’s naval records had been altered to conceal his involvement in secret intelligence operations in Australia and elsewhere. Debunking these claims was thus an essential part of writing about Hubbard’s military service. In the course of doing that, I came across a fascinating 1995 paper by Jon Atack titled “Scientology: Religion or Intelligence Agency?” which provides a good overview of Scientology’s intelligence activities.

Jon’s paper highlights an issue that tends to be only briefly covered in mainstream books and papers as part of Scientology’s wider background. Many people will be aware of the notorious Operation Freakout against Paulette Cooper (documented by this blog’s proprietor’s excellent The Unbreakable Miss Lovely) and Scientology’s Snow White espionage campaign. But there is far more to Scientology’s intelligence activities over the years, from its extraordinarily long list of covert operations in the 1970s to its more recent operations in Greece in the 1990s. There is also much that has never systematically been covered in depth before, such as the way that Hubbard developed Scientology’s intelligence activities and structures in response to specific external challenges.

Hubbard liked to claim that he was an expert in intelligence matters but the truth, as ever, was much less impressive. His role in the ONI was as a military censor, not in an intelligence role, and he was offloaded from the ONI when censorship ceased to be one of its responsibilities. He almost certainly had access to some naval intelligence while he was temporarily assigned to routing ships in Australia in early 1942 — a job Hubbard did so badly that he was kicked out of the country by his enraged superiors — and likely had contact with the ONI’s B3 (counter-espionage) section when he was working for the civilian-run Office of Censorship later in 1942. His job involved investigating violations of the US government’s cable censorship regulations and referring suspicious cases to B3 for further investigation.

His posting to the Office of Censorship lasted for only seven weeks, from May 1 to June 24, 1942, yet he seems to have used that as a key basis for later claiming to his followers that he was an expert on intelligence. He told them falsely that he had experience of intelligence operations as “a B3 [sic] of the Office of Naval Intelligence.” In fact, by the time he worked with the Office of Censorship he was no longer a member of the ONI, as it was no longer responsible for censorship. He had never been a member of B3 at any time.

Why did Hubbard set up an intelligence function in Scientology? His innate paranoia was a key reason — he periodically denounced a supposed conspiracy of communists and Nazi remnants that were hindering Scientology — but he faced real problems that were more than just products of his imagination. One important strand of my ongoing research is to identify the pressures that Scientology was facing and how it responded to them.

From as early as the mid-1950s, local and national governments in the UK, Australia, and the US caused problems for Scientology, and for Hubbard personally, over a variety of issues. The Better Business Bureau sought to have action taken against Hubbard’s “borderline illegal practices” and briefed the US Secret Service on Scientology. Law enforcement agencies and reporters sought to investigate Scientology over concerns about its activities. Medical authorities mobilized internationally to oppose what they regarded as quackery and fraud. Media reporting, especially in Australia and the UK, became increasingly hostile.

At the same time, Hubbard faced repeated splits, defections, and challenges to his authority as veteran Scientologists broke away, often in response to his increasing authoritarianism. Scientology’s predecessor, Dianetics, had collapsed amidst a welter of splits, financial chaos, and external pressure. Hubbard was determined not to let that happen again.

He responded by converting part of his central management team, the Hubbard Communications Office (HCO), into an intelligence organization in the late 1950s. He told his staff that they were to regard themselves henceforth as intelligence operatives, as that was an essential duty of the HCO: They had to “know our friends and our enemies and what they are doing.” In 1966 he established the Guardian Office (GO) as a dedicated intelligence organisation within Scientology, with its headquarters at Saint Hill Manor in England. By the time it was disbanded in 1982, the GO had 1,200 staff in fourteen countries around the world and is said to have run some 5,000 agents.

The GO was certainly much larger than the Aum or ISIS intelligence organisations and was larger than many state intelligence services (though to be fair, not everyone in the GO worked on intelligence matters). It was impressively successful at keeping its activities secret for over a decade, until a defecting senior operative finally blew the whistle to the FBI in 1977. Recently declassified papers released to the UK National Archives show that the British government had no idea that a huge private intelligence organization targeting the governments of dozens of countries — including the UK — was being directed from a location only thirty miles outside London.

Hubbard saw intelligence not just as a means of obtaining information about his enemies, but as a means of exacting revenge. From the start, he sought to weaponize intelligence. In his notorious 1959 Manual of Justice, he instructed Scientologists to use investigations and private detectives to find compromising information on internal and external enemies. If a journalist wrote something unflattering about Scientology, for instance, he ordered that his followers were to hire private detectives to “investigate the writer, not the magazine, and get any criminal or Communist background the man has.”

He saw the use of weaponized intelligence as a form of justified punishment, claiming that Scientologists “may be the only people on Earth with a right to punish.” If Scientology was the only workable solution to the world’s problems, it was an injustice for anyone to impede it. Preventing anyone doing so was thus an act of justice for the world as a whole. This applied to his own members as much as to external critics; the notorious “Fair Game” policy was first advertised and applied to Scientologists, putting them on notice of what to expect if they defected and “betrayed” Scientology.

Scientology’s use of intelligence tactics was not simply about Hubbard’s paranoia, but owes much to ideology and indoctrination. Hubbard saw Scientology as something akin to a revolutionary movement that would take control of society and change the world. It’s a theme that comes across in many of his writings about Scientology, where he constantly proclaims it to be the the best, the greatest, the most powerful, the most vital and the only means by which humanity’s future can be secured.

To someone other than a true believer, Hubbard’s boasts about Scientology’s greatness often comes across as megalomaniac. But Scientology’s followers are conditioned to accept it unquestioningly. In fact, in some respects Hubbard went further than the founders of Aum and ISIS; while those organizations established intelligence functions to further their ideologies, only Hubbard made it a literal article of faith. He created a personality cult around himself that has, if anything, intensified since his death. Scientologists regard him with all seriousness as the greatest, wisest, and most humane person who ever lived. His words are treated as Scientology’s “scriptures” and are regarded as eternally valid and unchangeable. This, of course, includes his writings on intelligence.

Hubbard considered intelligence to be utterly vital for the survival of Scientology, which he wrote “daily depends upon its Intelligence people, their flair, their investigation, their raw data, their estimate and their prediction and, in the end of it, their support in making defense and attack possible, purposeful and effective.” He saw intelligence as a way for Scientology to face its enemies on equal terms, despite being much weaker than governments or health associations. He compared Scientology to Sweden, a small nation which he said had managed to hold its own against the much greater power of the Soviet Union through “superlatively well-organised organisation… [and] superb intelligence.” These assets had enabled Sweden to survive against “a tremendous amount of huge roaring monsters.”

Another point of comparison was Alexander the Great, who had overthrown the enormous power of the Persian Empire despite commanding only a relatively small army. Alexander’s secret, Hubbard claimed, was that he had focused his attacks on his key enemy, the Persian king Darius, rather than trying to defeat the whole of the vastly larger Persian army. Scientology’s enemies had not adopted such ruthless tactics because they were squeamish about creating martyrs. This was not a constraint for Hubbard, who told his followers to focus on targeting key individuals in the hope of defeating the organizations they represented.

Scientology likes to proclaim that Hubbard was “an accomplished professional in 29 fields as diverse as aviation, horticulture, cinematography, drug rehabilitation, music and administration.” Not surprisingly, it says nothing about his career as a spymaster. Admittedly, this is most likely because it does not want to acknowledge his role in creating and leading one of the world’s largest non-state intelligence organisations. It is also fitting, however, as he was very far from being an “accomplished professional” in the intelligence field. This becomes particularly apparent when considering how Hubbard managed intelligence work and the broader strategies of the GO.

Scientology’s troubles necessarily meant that much of what Hubbard described as the role of intelligence was oriented defensively towards uncovering the plans of Scientology’s enemies and defeating them. He had a much more ambitious long-term ambition, however, as he saw intelligence as being essential to Scientology literally taking over the world. He envisaged its “Intelligence service” eventually stepping up to locate “the key points of control on the planet” and, by some unexplained means, embarking upon “the very ambitious program of bringing the planet sufficiently under control to preserve its peace.”

In reality, Scientology came nowhere near to achieving this objective, or even making much of a start on it. There was a great deal of delusion in Hubbard’s thinking; he set wildly over-ambitious objectives, often as a knee-jerk response to an immediate problem, but failed to follow up with effective planning or implementation.

The fundamental problem – quite apart from Hubbard’s own character defects – was that he had no relevant experience or training in managing intelligence operations, and no real understanding of the limitations and pitfalls of intelligence. What little knowledge he did have appears to have been gleaned in a fairly superficial way from published books and probably magazine articles. He had clearly read Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, for instance, and put great stock in two particular works which he made required reading for his operatives: Sun Tzu’s classic The Art of War and Christopher Felix’s 1963 book The Spy and His Masters.

The purpose of intelligence in general, according to Hubbard, was to “[inform] one’s command area of the plans, characteristics, and crimes of all opponents to one’s own activity and purpose.” It was to be used to provide an “estimate” for Scientology’s management, comprising an assessment of whether there was a “situation” — meaning an issue of concern to Scientology — whether it represented danger or an opportunity, and how important it was. The goal was to ensure that no situation would arise for which Scientology was unprepared, such as an unexpected lawsuit or government intervention.

Hubbard boasted that he had developed a “prediction technology” that would seem like black magic to “those in primitive [intelligence] services.” Among Scientology’s advantages, he claimed, was its ability to provide unique insights into others’ mental processes. He also asserted that its members were less “aberrated” and therefore thought more clearly than others. It had a “more honourable and honest purpose and goal” for mankind than any intelligence agency. Its internal organization was superior and it had been battle-hardened in conflicts with “the most severe and unreasonable adversaries on many continents,” achieving great victories “even against the ‘greatest’ existing Intelligence services”.

In reality, the inadequacy of Hubbard’s “prediction technology” was laid bare by the professional investigators of US and Canadian law enforcement agencies. The GO was taken completely by surprise when its US headquarters in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles were raided by the FBI in July 1977. The Ontario Provincial Police achieved an even greater coup in Toronto a few years later. One of their officers infiltrated the GO’s Toronto office and worked there undetected for two years until it was raided with the aid of her insider knowledge. The two agencies seized tens of thousands of pages of documents that proved the GO’s culpability in numerous crimes.

The superficial nature of Hubbard’s understanding of intelligence can be seen in many aspects of his writing on the topic, as well as his behavior. To take one example, he adopted a tactic of character assassination that he termed “dead agenting,” borrowing a concept from Sun Tzu. But he completely misunderstood what Sun had advocated.

Hubbard claimed that Sun had advised that an efficient method of dealing with enemy agents was to give them false information or provide the enemy with false information about them, which would lead to them being killed by the enemy for being unreliable or untruthful. Thus Scientology, to this day, seeks to discredit critics — the “dead agent caper,” as Hubbard called it — in order to ensure that they are not believed by others.

In fact, Sun advised giving one’s own spies false information and sending them on futile missions knowing that they would be captured by the enemy. Such “expendable” — not “dead” — agents would give the false information in the belief that it was true, resulting in the enemy mistakenly taking that information at face value. In the example given by Sun, a captured agent unwittingly gave false information that a high-ranking enemy officer was a traitor, leading to the officer’s execution. The agent’s true mission, which only his controller knew, was to relay the false information and cause the enemy to carry out an act of self-harm. Hubbard’s misinterpretation of Sun was typical of his superficial and shallow approach to research, which lent itself to misunderstandings of this sort.

Much more seriously, Hubbard failed utterly at understanding the role of intelligence in providing objective information to inform decision-making. He did at least have a basic understanding that intelligence is a process, not just a product. It involves not just gathering secret information (a task at which the Guardian Office was often quite proficient) but also processing it, analysing and assessing it, and using it to inform future actions.

However, objectivity is an essential requirement. The fiasco over the intelligence regarding Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction provides a classic example of what can go wrong. It was due, to a significant extent, to some of those in charge having preconceived ideas about Saddam’s military capabilities. They had sought intelligence to confirm their views while downplaying anything that contradicted them. As a result, they made the decision to go to war in Iraq on the basis of a belief that was soon proved to be false.

Hubbard was in exactly the same position. He was perhaps temperamentally incapable of objectivity, and indeed had explicitly argued against the very concept of objective reality. His maxim of “what’s true is what’s true for you” is a formulation that rejects the idea that something can be true even if you do not personally believe in it. (It’s an objective fact, for instance, that the world is round; your belief that it’s flat doesn’t change this fact.) Applied to intelligence, this doctrine was predictably disastrous. Hubbard used the Guardian Office not to uncover the objective reality of Scientology’s situation, but to pursue confirmation of his many and varied conspiracy theories, which he grandiosely called “intelligence hypotheses.”

In one example, after a British freelance journalist visited Hubbard’s flagship in Casablanca in November 1969, Hubbard summoned his top aides for an hours-long angry monologue. He told them his “intelligence hypothesis” that it was obviously an operation by the British foreign intelligence service MI6, and that British reporters in general were “MI6 agents” operating on behalf of the World Federation of Mental Health and “Jewish Bankers.”

Hubbard offered no evidence of these claims but simply stated them as facts, which none of his underlings questioned. He ordered an intensive operation against the journalist, having his hotel room searched and his records obtained from the Moroccan authorities. He used his contacts with the Moroccan secret police to obtain information on the man, whom he labelled “the voice of MI6 in Morocco.”

Hubbard’s own mouthpiece, the Scientology-published newspaper Freedom, even published an unattributed article — which he likely wrote himself — taunting MI6: “To protect ourselves we are currently spreading the rumour that C (which is what the head of MI6 is cutely called) has had a nervous breakdown and that MI6 is being run by C’s psychiatrist, who studied twelve years to become an expert Communist. Two can play this game.”

The investigation consumed Guardian Office resources for the next two years and culminated with the the journalist being induced to visit Scientology’s then world headquarters at Saint Hill Manor in England. He was subjected to an interrogation by two senior GO officials which cleared him of any connection to MI6.

The whole investigation, in other words, had been a waste of time: He had been falsely labelled by Hubbard on the basis of a conspiracy theory which had no foundation in reality. Yet the GO regarded it as a great success. The affair was studied for years afterwards by trainee GO officers as part of its confidential intelligence course. It was held up as a case study of how to handle such situations. In fact, it should have been used as a warning against the dangers of relying on preconceived ideas.

The KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky writes in his memoirs that during his time in the KGB’s London office in the 1980s, many of his colleagues spent their time writing reports to Moscow that interpreted recent events as signs of the imminent collapse of capitalism. It was all nonsense but was what Communist bosses expected to see, due to their ideological fixations, and enabled the KGB to keep the bosses happy and the promotions coming.

Something similar appears to have happened in Scientology, which was hamstrung — then as now — by being an effective dictatorship: Nobody dares to tell the boss he is wrong or, even worse, that the shared ideology is wrong. In a culture where objectivity is rejected and ideological deviance is punished, the misinterpretation of intelligence is virtually inevitable.

One more question of interest which I’ll highlight here is whether Scientology ever had input or assistance from intelligence professionals. There have been claims and conspiracy theories over the years that it was somehow linked with the CIA — a popular trope in the Mediterranean countries in the early 1970s, which caused many problems for the State Department — or that it was “infiltrated and set up to fail” by the US government, as current Scientology leader David Miscavige has claimed.

Aum and ISIS again provide useful points of comparison. Aum’s members included employees of Japanese government agencies and defence contractors who were able to use their privileged access to help Aum’s “Ministry of Intelligence” steal weapons technologies, which Aum’s leader sought to use to bring about the end of the world. ISIS, as an offshoot of Al Qaeda, already had an established intelligence operation before the Syrian Civil War. It too wanted to bring about the end of the world, foreseeing a final battle between its forces and the “Crusaders” at the Syrian village of Dabiq. It used its intelligence operatives to carry out attacks in the West in a bid to draw in Western forces and accelerate the apocalypse.

Ironically, a good deal of ISIS’s knowledge of intelligence came from the United States. A former Egyptian Army officer named Ali Abdul Saoud Mohamed reportedly used his knowledge of counter-intelligence and unconventional warfare, obtained at Fort Bragg, to educate Al Qaeda’s members in those disciplines. After it broke away from Al Qaeda, ISIS’s Amniyat (literally “Security”) organisation was further strengthened when members of Saddam’s disbanded army and intelligence services joined it and brought their expertise with them.

Scientology seems to have taken quite a different path that relied more on its leadership’s personal research than any input from outsiders or members with relevant expertise. I’ve found no evidence that it ever had any contact with state intelligence agencies — indeed, it regarded them as the enemy — though under Hubbard’s direction, Scientology attempted an ultimately disastrous liaison with the Moroccan security forces in the early 1970s.

It also undoubtedly employed people who had expertise in investigative and intelligence matters. In the mid-1960s, Hubbard employed two British private detectives who claimed to have previously worked for the Metropolitan Police and an unnamed government “intelligence/security” agency. They told him that they had infiltrated the Daily Mail newspaper on his orders. However, I’ve found no indication that they, or anyone else externally, gave any advice or instructions on how to run intelligence operations.

Similarly, a number of Scientologists during the 1970s worked at various US government agencies, including the CIA — a matter which records show caused the agency some concern after the GO’s espionage network was exposed. It’s unclear how the GO viewed them: Were they seen as assets who could spy on its behalf, or as potential threats? Either way, there seems to be no evidence that they had any influence on the running of the GO.

Instead, the GO seems to have relied primarily on Hubbard’s advice, gleaned from his own reading and thinking, and on whatever research its operational staff was able to do on practical matters such as how to carry out burglaries or infiltrate targets. Its successes were a mark of the audacity and inventiveness of its staff, but its failures reflected its underlying amateurism.

The title of Jon’s paper, “Religion or Intelligence Agency?,” invites us to make a choice between the two possibilities. I would argue that it’s a false choice. Intelligence is simply a tool, just as marketing is a tool. Scientology does a good deal of advertising, but this does not make it an advertising agency. It’s also not uncommon for large businesses to pursue intelligence — there’s an entire field of corporate intelligence — but this likewise does not make them intelligence agencies. Nor is it wholly unknown for faith-based organisations to have an organized intelligence function, as the examples of Aum and ISIS demonstrate.

It is, however, extraordinarily unusual and a sign of ideological extremism. If you, as a non-member, have dealings with the Catholic Church or your local synagogue or temple, it’s vanishingly unlikely that their representative will have any links with intelligence activity. Scientology representatives, in contrast, will most likely be members of the church’s combined intelligence and public relations agency, the euphemistically-named Office of Special Affairs. There is also a fair chance that the engagement will be part of a plan — of which several examples have been leaked — that integrates intelligence, PR and legal activity. The Catholic Church is very unlikely to be investigating critical journalists in an effort to find their “crimes.” For Scientology, such activity is a standard operating procedure set out by Hubbard himself.

The church’s use of intelligence does not mean by itself that Scientology is not a religion, however that may be defined. It does mean, though, that Scientology needs to be considered — and perhaps treated — in a different light to other faith groups. It reflects an ingrained attitude of hostility and suspicion towards the outside world. Probably nobody has put it better than Sir John Foster, who wrote in his 1971 report on Scientology: “One can take the view that anyone whose attitude to criticism is such as Mr. Hubbard displays in his writings cannot be too surprised if the world treats him with suspicion rather than affection.”

— Chris Owen

 
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HowdyCon 2019 in Los Angeles

This year’s HowdyCon is in Los Angeles. People tend to come in starting on Thursday, and that evening we will have a casual get-together at a watering hole. We have something in mind, but for now we’re not giving out information about it.

Friday night we will be having an event in a theater (like we did on Saturday night last year in Chicago). There will not be a charge to attend this event, but if you want to attend, you need to RSVP with your proprietor at tonyo94 AT gmail.

On Saturday, we are joining forces with Janis Gillham Grady, who is having a reunion in honor of the late Bill Franks. Originally, we thought this event might take place in Riverside, but instead it’s in the Los Angeles area. If you wish to attend the reunion, you will need to RSVP with Janis (janisgrady AT gmail), and there will be a small contribution she’s asking for in order to help cover her costs.

HOTEL: Janis tells us she’s worked out a deal with Hampton Inn and Suites, at 7501 North Glenoaks Blvd, Burbank, (818) 768-1106. We have a $159 nightly rate for June 19 to 22. Note: You need to ask for the “family reunion” special rate.

 
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Scientology’s celebrities, ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and more!

We’ve been building landing pages about David Miscavige’s favorite playthings, including celebrities and ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and we’re hoping you’ll join in and help us gather as much information as we can about them. Head on over and help us with links and photos and comments.

Scientology’s celebrities, from A to Z! Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

Scientology’s ‘Ideal Orgs,’ from one end of the planet to the other! Help us build up pages about each these worldwide locations!

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 our weekly series. How many have you read?

 
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THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] More proof that L. Ron Hubbard really did want Scientologists to consider him the Antichrist
[TWO years ago] Before Scientology’s Xenu was a genocidal galactic overlord, he was a … mountain?
[THREE years ago] Louis Theroux’s ‘My Scientology Movie’ at Tribeca today, & more in our social media review
[FOUR years ago] Is France dropping its anti-Scientology fervor because Tom Cruise is just too délicieux?
[FIVE years ago] Leah Remini ‘Fair Gamed’ by Scientology? Her sister gets a visit, and Tony Dovolani is tailed
[SIX years ago] Love in the Time of Miscavige

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on April 17, 2019 at 07:00

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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, 1995-2018 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2018), 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, 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

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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