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When the feds tracked down L. Ron Hubbard’s boast about getting rich by creating a religion

 We’re nearing another big anniversary — 30 years since the Great Thetan, L. Ron Hubbard, dropped his material body — and so we’ve been looking through our files for material about the man that isn’t already picked over. We have something pretty nice and never posted online for the anniversary itself. But along the way []

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DOX: Government disclosure shows extent of Scientology’s reliance on cheap foreign labor

 In 2009, researcher Jeff Jacobsen wrote about Scientology’s documented problems bringing foreigners to the United States to work in its “Sea Organization.” Anecdotally, ex-Scientologists say that the church relies heavily on foreigners to accept jobs under the bizarre working conditions of the Sea Org, which requires signing a billion-year contract and working 16-hour days, seven []

Document leak: When the FBI investigated Scientology’s bizarre New Mexico vault

 We have a juicy document for you today, courtesy of our friend and dogged researcher, R.M. Seibert. []

US Army catches Scientology ‘detox’ study rigging results, government document shows

As the Daily Beast reported recently in an excellent piece, a government-funded study has been going on for several years in Maryland that is measuring the effect of Scientology’s “detoxification” regimen on veterans with Gulf War Syndrome. The study isn’t actually testing L. Ron Hubbard’s quack theories for how his sauna-and-niacin plan is actually supposed []

‘Book ’em, Danno’: Just for fun, L. Ron Hubbard’s fingerprints, revealed!

Thanks to researcher R.M. Seibert and the MuckRock website, we’ve been receiving some pretty great original documents about L. Ron Hubbard and his family lately, some of which have never been seen in public or put online before.

Much of it is also very serious, and is having us rethink some of the historical record []

Another document trove on L. Ron Hubbard’s troubled son, Nibs, the Scientology flip-flopper

[Nibs and his grandson, Jamie DeWolf]

Last week, we told you we’d found yet more interesting and previously unseen documents about L. Ron Hubbard and his family in records that have been released lately by the FDA. Researcher R.M. Seibert has been doggedly pursuing the records with the help of the MuckRock website, prying out of []

When the FDA interviewed L. Ron Hubbard’s first family about Scientology

Over the last few months, we’ve been publishing documents that a researcher has been able to pry out of the Food and Drug Administration regarding its 1960s investigation of L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology.

Using the MuckRock website, researcher R.M. Seibert has tracked down some real gems for us, including the first glimpse of Hubbard’s high []

On Memorial Day, some new revelations from L. Ron Hubbard’s military record

Recently, we heard from Chris Owen, the preeminent historian of L. Ron Hubbard’s war record. We had contacted Chris after a news story appeared that had a hard time making heads or tails of Hubbard’s convoluted war record, and ended up making some conclusions that were a bit off.

Chris helped us set the record straight []

More proof that Scientology used the ‘R2-45’ method to intimidate enemies

We’re back with more documents that have been released recently by the FDA that illuminate Scientology’s early years. Thanks to a researcher who is a friend to the Underground Bunker and her work with the Muckrock website, we have yet more investigative records that have never before been online.

In this case, we’re looking at an []

DOX: Two early Dianetics supporters, including the E-meter inventor, turn against Hubbard

This week has been all about the excitement of Going Clear hitting theaters, and we expect a big burst of activity when the documentary by Alex Gibney and Larry Wright opens in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco for limited runs starting tomorrow. But we also want to keep up on our other subjects []