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]
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Lawrence Wright’s Book on Scientology — Going Clear — Hits Bookstores January 17

Lawrence Wright [Credit: Jana Birchum]

Big news for Scientology watchers: Alfred A. Knopf announced today that it will be releasing Lawrence Wright’s highly anticipated book about Scientology on January 17, which is a couple of months earlier than we had heard it would appear.

Jenna Miscavige Hill’s tell-all, meanwhile, appears to have been moved back []

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Lay Off Xenu: An Ex-Scientologist’s Plea

Lay off the big fella, already

Over at The Hairpin, on Monday “Stella Forstner” put up the second installment of her series on growing up in Scientology. This second chapter was about Scientology beliefs, and like the first, it’s very well written and smarter than your average church tell-all.

Forstner helps an outsider understand the []

Scientology Desperately Wants Your Children: The Cruise Ship Come-On

One of our tipsters forwarded to us an e-mail the Church of Scientology has sent out asking its members to consider sending their kids to a convention on the church’s private cruise ship, the Freewinds.

We immediately thought of the Freewinds experience of Ramana Dienes-Browning. Last year, we told her story of the hard sell she []

Scientology Sunday Funnies: Tom Cruise’s Son Connor Fights the North Koreans!

 On Sundays, we reveal the latest Scientology fundraising mailers that get sent to us during the week. And we have some good ones to show you this time. But first, we wondered if you had noticed, like we did, that Connor Cruise’s big action-movie debut is coming up!

Tom’s son appears in the remake of Red []

A Scientology Knockoff That Considers Children ‘Sexy’? Great Xenu’s Ghost!

Gary Douglas has a bridge to total…something…to sell you

Our old Village Voice Media colleagues at the Houston Press asked us to help get the word out about their cover story this week, and we’re happy to oblige.

Press veteran Craig Malisow has a barnburner of a story about a 70-year-old man named Gary Douglas []

SHOCKER: Court Punishes Scientology For Acting Like…Scientology

Mary Rieser’s lips are moving…

There’s a reason Scientology earned a reputation as one of the most litigious organizations on earth, and one that turns any court fight into a bruising slugfest.

People who have found themselves in litigation with the church often complain that Scientology plays dirty, and gets away with murder in America’s []

Scientology Excommunication: Documents the Church Usually Keeps Under Wraps

We want to thank Robert Berrington, a South African reader, who sent us some rare documents — records of his own Scientology excommunication.

Berrington learned that at the end of last year he was “declared a suppressive person” by the church — in other words, he’d been kicked out, and all church members who want to []

FOUR MORE YEARS!…Of Inaction On Scientology?

President Barack Obama was reelected yesterday here in the United States and, at nearly 2 in the morning, gave a rousing victory speech.

“You voted for action, not politics as usual,” he said.

Action? Hey, we have some ideas about the kind of action the US government could engage in during Obama’s second []

Scientology and the Presidential Election

Hey, it’s Election Day here in the US, and we hope our American readers go out and vote.

On this historic day, we have just a few thoughts about how this election intersects with our interests in Scientology watching at this []

Dianetics Read Aloud: Let Ron’s Wisdom Wash Over You

Lots going on here at the underground bunker this morning, and we didn’t have time for a regular Monday post. While we check up on other developing stories, we’ll share with you this entertaining homage to L. Ron Hubbard’s masterpiece, Dianetics.

Looking forward to your thoughts. [h/t: WWP]