In 2016, the A&E Network had filmed and edited an eight-episode series about Scientology that has never aired.
We have always been curious about this show produced by Sirens Media and the person who was meant to be its presenter and star. So, in this limited podcast series, we’re talking to some of the people who were involved in it.
In our first two shows, we talked to Phil Jones and Derek Bloch about the Sirens episodes they were in that tried to reunite them with loved ones who had disconnected from them according to Scientology policy.
Today, we’re talking to Carol Nyburg about her experience in Scientology as a familiar figure at the Flag Land Base. And as she explains to us, some of her experiences were happy ones, particularly with Scientology’s celebrities.
But she too suffered from disconnection, which was going to be the subject of her Sirens episode. Then in 2019, she did appear with a group of former Scientologists on an episode of Leah Remini’s series, Scientology and the Aftermath, and she did a great job.
What we didn’t know, and that Carol sprung on us, was the surprising new development in her story that we really did not see coming. Yes, we’re reporting breaking news in this episode, and we hope you find it as stunning as we did.
We are producing this special series as a thank-you to our paid subscribers, who have been so generous to help us out with our new Substack experiment. If you’re not a paid subscriber, we still have other podcast episodes that you can listen to for free. All of the podcast episodes can be found here.
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Technology Cocktail
“You must realize that we suffer, all of us, from the misuse of knowledge concerning the mind at a very early period. To place this data near such people as psychiatrists or even states places them in a position to enslave people or repeat the original action and cave people in. A very small minority, receiving incorrect data, did promptly use it harmfully on others after April 1964. Until we ourselves have climbed well out of the hole, we must safeguard the materials. Our case gains depend on it. And others could make our salvage of people impossible. We do not safeguard these materials from any commercial consideration. Our futures, those of each of us and those of all Scientologists, depend on our keeping this material under lock and safeguarded from abuse until we are well away as a group and can handle things better as individuals as well as a group.” — L. Ron Hubbard, 1966
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Now available: Bonus for our supporters
Episode 9 of the Underground Bunker podcast has been sent out to paid subscribers, and Marc Headley returns to explain why he took the trouble to submit a lengthy response to a Scientologist’s nutty YouTube video. Meanwhile, we’ve made episodes 1 through 8 available to everyone, with Patty Moher on her career as a Scientology spy, Geoff Levin on Scientology’s celebrities, Pete Griffiths on running a mission, Sunny Pereira dishing secrets of Scientology’s Hollywood Celebrity Centre, Bruce Hines on the crazy life in the Sea Org, Jeffrey Augustine on recent Scientology court cases, Claire Headley exposing Tom Cruise, and Marc Headley on what it must be like for David Miscavige living in Clearwater, Florida.. Go here to get the episodes!
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“Instead of running him on CCHs or something like this, or trying to straighten up something, nah! let’s go for broke; let’s clear him! Not take too many hours at it, either. All right. Now, that’s possible. That can be done. But, let me call this to your attention, it is — this is the controverting fact. It is not being done. Now, you can’t argue with that, can you? Now, I could get down and scream and howl and beat the floor, and Hitlerize the room. But let me tell you something, that isn’t going to do any good. That isn’t going to do any good at all. That’s in the line of reason, or something like this mounts up. If you looked at it very broadly you could say, ‘Well, nobody can audit.’ I mean, that’s the first thing you’d say. ‘Nobody can run a session in the whole world, except just this little handful or maybe five,’ you know. Something like that. But that’s an unacceptable datum that isn’t true, see. So it must be that there were some great big broad bugs on this, and the biggest bug — and I finally located what it was, a very simple bug — it’s just the fact that the goal and the terminal easily disappear in the face of an out-rudiment.” — L. Ron Hubbard, August 24, 1961
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“Any real emergency is chaotic. The drilling of sequences of actions is a stable series of data that prevents the chaos from overwhelming one. Interesting bit of history here. I developed the theory and practice of ‘Battle Conditioning’ used in WW II. I did a paper on it for the Navy before the war and was sent over to the Army G2 with it and Army G2 got it in practice, training by crawling under machine fire and all that. Must have saved a few hundred thousand lives! Nobody even ever said thank you but that’s all right.” — The Commodore, August 24, 1970
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“How come the more we’ve done to make it easier to survive, the harder it has become to survive?”
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1996: Johan Wevers revealed himself to be the formerly anonymous poster Vorlon, who posted the NOTs series of materials last week. “After a lot of pressure from the sect xs4all has decided to give them the name and address of the user who posted them. I was that user. As many other users, I obtained a copy of these documents in May 1996 on the net. I’ve had previous disagreements with scientology about the NOTs: I had the parts of them which had appeared in Scamizdat on my homepage for a while, and after complains I had them replaced by NOT34, one of the most despicable of them. After being persuaded by my provider to remove them, and growing more and more irritated by the behaviour of the sect on Internet (the flooding of ars with other copyrighted scieno stuff, their illegal cancels, the legal threats against critics), I decided to repay them the favor by reposting the NOTs, hoping this would teach them a more civil behaviour on Internet. Judging the reactions of their lawyers, at least I’ve got them rather angry.”
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“I’m the Dennis Hopper of the ‘Down with Scientology’ club.”
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Full Court Press: What we’re watching at the Underground Bunker
Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Trial scheduled for October 11.
— ‘Lafayette Ronald Hubbard’ (a/k/a Justin Craig), aggravated assault, plus drug charges: Last hearing was on January 18, referred to grand jury. Additional charges also referred to grand jury after January 5 assault while in jail.
— Jay and Jeff Spina, Medicare fraud: Jay sentenced to 9 years in prison. Jeff’s sentencing to be scheduled.
— Rizza Islam and other family members, Medi-Cal fraud: Readiness hearing scheduled for August 22 in Los Angeles
— David Gentile, GPB Capital, fraud: Next pretrial conference set for September 19.
— Yanti Mike Greene, Scientology private eye accused of contempt of court: Found guilty of criminal and civil contempt.
Civil litigation:
— Baxter, Baxter, and Paris v. Scientology, alleging labor trafficking: Complaint filed April 28 in Tampa federal court, Scientology moving to compel arbitration. Plaintiffs filed amended complaint on August 2.
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ Selection of arbitrators underway. Next court hearing: February 2, 2023.
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: Appellate court removes requirement of arbitration on January 19, case remanded back to Superior Court. Stay in place, next status hearing October 25. Scientology petitioning US Supreme Court over appellate ruling.
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Third amended complaint filed, trial set for December 6.
— Author Steve Cannane defamation trial: New trial ordered after appeals court overturned prior ruling.
— Chiropractors Steve Peyroux and Brent Detelich, stem cell fraud: Lawsuit filed by the FTC and state of Georgia in August, now in discovery phase.
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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.
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] Leah Remini podcast: Ian Rafalko talks about his father, chiropractor Eric Berg
[TWO years ago] Danny Masterson changes his tune about criminal case in new civil brief
[THREE years ago] Paging Graham Berry: Another Scientology horror story of credit fraud targeting retirees
[FOUR years ago] The Scientology pamphlet that has finally convinced us this planet is theirs
[FIVE years ago] What’s at stake in Tuesday’s San Antonio court hearing with Scientology’s former enforcer
[SIX years ago] Ken Dandar’s courtroom nightmare is finally over (unless Scientology starts it over from scratch)
[SEVEN years ago] Tonight, it’s Boston! And that has us thinking about Beantown’s connections to ‘Miss Lovely’
[EIGHT years ago] Scientology claims credit for solving the crisis in Ferguson, Missouri
[NINE years ago] LA Sheriff to Grace Scientology Gala, Days after Celebrity Centre Employee Arrested for Planning to Kill a Cop
[TEN years ago] Marty Rathbun: Scientology’s Attorney ‘Supervised’ Destruction of Records in Lisa McPherson Death
[ELEVEN years ago] The Top 25 People Crippling Scientology, No. 17: Jefferson Hawkins
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Bernie Headley (1952-2019) did not see his daughter Stephanie in his final 5,667 days.
Valerie Haney has not seen her mother Lynne in 2,766 days.
Katrina Reyes has not seen her mother Yelena in 3,271 days
Sylvia Wagner DeWall has not seen her brother Randy in 2,821 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his grandson Leo in 1,811 days.
Geoff Levin has not seen his son Collin and daughter Savannah in 1,702 days.
Christie Collbran has not seen her mother Liz King in 5,007 days.
Clarissa Adams has not seen her parents Walter and Irmin Huber in 2,877 days.
Carol Nyburg has not seen her daughter Nancy in 3,651 days.
Doug Kramer has not seen his parents Linda and Norm in 1,982 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 4,455 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 3,771 days.
Dylan Gill has not seen his father Russell in 12,337 days.
Melissa Paris has not seen her father Jean-Francois in 8,256 days.
Valeska Paris has not seen her brother Raphael in 4,424 days.
Mirriam Francis has not seen her brother Ben in 4,004 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 4,266 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 3,302 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy and daughter Jessica in 3,017 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 2,542 days.
Julian Wain has not seen his brother Joseph or mother Susan in 897 days.
Charley Updegrove has not seen his son Toby in 2,072 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 6,623 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 3,754 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 4,092 days.
Roger Weller has not seen his daughter Alyssa in 8,947 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 4,066 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 2,422 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin and daughter Taryn in 6,725 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 2,831 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis in 3,229 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 3,105 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 2,688 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike and daughter Emily in 3,183 days.
Mary Jane Barry has not seen her daughter Samantha in 3,437 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 14,546 days.
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Posted by Tony Ortega on August 24, 2022 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, 1995-2021 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2021), 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
