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Flag Down drama — Mark Bunker kicked out by conference organizer

We just heard from longtime Scientology critic Mark Bunker, who has just been summarily ejected from the Flag Down 2014 conference in Clearwater by organizer Laura Flynn.

“I just got kicked out and so did Tom Smith,” Bunker told us by []

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Scientology archiving magazines online? Are they nuts?

If you’ve been hanging out with us for a while, you know that we bounce around from big stories with wide appeal to some things that only the truly obsessive will care about. Today we have a real treat for you obsessive types who love going down the Scientology rabbit hole.

One of our great tipsters []

Scientology’s E-meter police, and the horse doctor of LaBelle, Florida

Last month we told you about Jillian Schlesinger, a young woman who escaped from Scientology’s “Sea Organization” and then, just weeks later, began telling her story for publication. We wondered if that short period between her dash for freedom and speaking out might be a sign of Scientology’s deepening crisis that is driving so many []

Scientology leader David Miscavige turns 54 today — Hip, hip, hooray!

On this special occasion, we’ll allow ourselves a little levity and congratulate Scientology leader David Miscavige on his 54th birthday with a humorous photo-illustration done by our old friend Jeffrey Augustine. []

Chris Shelton on the origins of Scientology’s notorious ‘Fair Game’ policy

We have Chris Shelton’s next video, and we really like the way he traces the origins of Scientology’s notorious retaliation policy of “Fair Game” back to L. Ron Hubbard’s 1959 “Manual of Justice.”

As usual, Chris does an excellent job connecting the dots to illuminate a subject we thought we already knew well. And he’s right, []

Selling out, and other strange side-effects of Scientology watching

We have a couple of really complex and lengthy stories working, but they take a lot of time to put together. In the meantime, we have some strange odds and ends that have been building up here in the Bunker and we thought we’d share some of them.

For example, a couple of weeks ago, we []

NARCONON EXPOSED: Scientology’s flagship drug rehab facility is struggling, records show

The Underground Bunker has obtained internal financial records from Scientology’s flagship drug rehab facility in Oklahoma — known as Narconon Arrowhead — which show the toll that recent deaths, multiple lawsuits, and a drumbeat of bad press has taken on the treatment center.

At its website, Scientology says that the Narconon network has 155 centers and []

The rising business star, his mother, and Scientology’s attempt to rip them apart

On April 1, a story at Forbes.com caught us by surprise.

It was about a man named Aaron Smith-Levin, who made a living in an unusual way. Forbes writer Nathan Vardi explained that Smith-Levin was becoming known for the complex and deep research he did for hedge fund managers who desire intelligence about companies they might []

Leah Remini ‘Fair Gamed’ by Scientology? Her sister gets a visit, and Tony Dovolani is tailed

Leah Remini and Tony Dovolani, during their run on DWTS

In her public appearances since she left Scientology last summer, actress Leah Remini has talked about losing many longtime friends who were ordered by the church to “disconnect” from her and her family.

She’s talked about how stunning it was to see how quickly people []

VERDICT: Scientology’s Quebec rehab facility violated human rights of David Love and 2 others

David Edgar Love and two other former patients of a Canadian drug rehab facility run by Scientology’s front group, Narconon, have won a stunning victory from Quebec’s human rights commission.

More than three years after Love complained about the way he was treated as a patient and employee of the Narconon Trois-Rivières facility (now closed), the []