Tony Ortega | The Underground Bunker

Tony Ortega is a journalist who was formerly the editor of The Village Voice. He's written about Scientology since 1995, and in May 2015 released a book about Scientology's harassment of Paulette Cooper titled 'The Unbreakable Miss Lovely.' He continues to monitor breaking developments in the Scientology world from an undisclosed location in an underground bunker he shares with four cats and one of them wrinkly Shar Pei dogs. Despite his super-secret security protections, you can still reach him pretty easily by sending him a message at tonyo94 AT gmail.com (Drop him a line if you'd like to get an e-mail whenever a new story is posted.) [Header image courtesy John Rickard]

Scientology TV debuted one year ago, and it’s still unwatchable propaganda

What a buildup Scientology leader David Miscavige orchestrated last year before premiering his long-awaited television channel on DirecTV. Based on all the fundraising he’d done, and the slick nature of the programming, it was obvious that Dave was blowing a mighty chunk of change on his pet project. […]

Nxivm: Prosecutors provide some details of sex slavery in unsealed memo

[Keith Raniere and Nancy Salzman]

In January, prosecutors filed a memo with the court in order to counter arguments by Nxivm defendants that their upcoming six-defendant criminal trial should be broken up into multiple […]

About 1,200 people die each year because of this dope’s misreading of the Bible

This is Nathan Homer Knorr. He was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1905, and by the age of 18 he was so dedicated to his faith he was volunteering at the Watch Tower headquarters of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Brooklyn, New York. […]

New government docs show Scientology trying to snow the Justice Dept after Snow White

[Randy Levine and Lawrence Hoffheimer]

Thanks to the indefatigable efforts of researcher R.M. Seibert, we have more government documents about Scientology that have never seen the light of […]

Lloyd Evans premieres new film about JW child abuse cover-up: ‘Reclaimed Voices’

Lloyd Evans is premiering a new film today, Reclaimed Voices: Abuse Survivors Speak Out, and we were lucky enough to get a sneak peak at some of it. As usual, Lloyd’s production qualities are first rate, and the subject matter is stunning. […]

Catherine Oxenberg and Leah Remini: Celebrity whistle-blowers getting huge results

[Catherine Oxenberg]

This week’s story about Catherine Oxenberg in the Daily Mail about her recent book about Nxivm has us thinking about some parallels with Leah Remini and Scientology, and we’ll just put down a few thoughts in the hope that it will spark some […]

A new drug shows promise for depression, so naturally Scientology is fighting it

Rod Keller keeps an eye on Scientology’s most unhinged front group and its quixotic battle against modern mental […]

With trial just a month away, the jockeying in the Nxivm case gets frenetic

[US Attorney Richard P. Donoghue]

Underground Bunker regular John P. Capitalist has been digging into Nxivm for years, and we asked him to give us his thoughts on a couple of recent additions to the court file in the looming trial. And keep in mind, we expect a superseding indictment from the government in the near […]

William Burroughs at Scientology’s ‘Saint Hill Manor’ in 1968, before his discontent

[William Burroughs in 1968]

In 2013, we interviewed author David Wills about his book on William Burroughs, Scientologist! William S. Burroughs and the ‘weird cult’. He argued that Burroughs biographers tended to play down (or merely not understand) how deeply into Scientology Burroughs had been before famously falling away from it in scathing testimonials. We thought […]

Rick Ross: ‘What did Keith Raniere take from Scientology for Nxivm? Everything.’

[Rick Ross]

We first heard about Nxivm and Keith Raniere more than a dozen years ago and from Rick Ross, an Arizona cult expert we’ve known since 1995. […]

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