TODAY AT SUBSTACK: If you’ve signed up for free emails at Substack, you will receive today’s feature story at your inbox: We figure you’ve seen some of the same stories we have about the strange situation in Memphis: Riley Keough, daughter of Lisa Marie Presley and granddaughter of Elvis Presley, is fighting to keep from [...]]]>

TODAY AT SUBSTACK: If you’ve signed up for free emails at Substack, you will receive today’s feature story at your inbox: We figure you’ve seen some of the same stories we have about the strange situation in Memphis: Riley Keough, daughter of Lisa Marie Presley and granddaughter of Elvis Presley, is fighting to keep from having her grandfather’s iconic home Graceland sold off in an auction. [What is this Substack thing, anyway?]

 
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Technology Cocktail

“Techniques have existed since 1952 that exteriorize a person. These are not now used because the person (a) still being aberrated and not Clear, soon returns to his body and (b) when audited thereafter has trouble. This is a major problem a thetan sometimes has at death. How to exteriorize? He makes it eventually of course but he should be able to do so at once.” — L. Ron Hubbard, 1970

 
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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 as Danny faces a potential sentence of 45 years to life in prison. NOW WITH TRIAL INDEX.

 
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THE PODCAST: How many have you heard?

[1] Marc Headley [2] Claire Headley [3] Jeffrey Augustine [4] Bruce Hines [5] Sunny Pereira [6] Pete Griffiths [7] Geoff Levin [8] Patty Moher [9] Marc Headley [10] Jefferson Hawkins [11] Michelle ‘Emma’ Ryan [12] Paulette Cooper [13] Jesse Prince [14] Mark Bunker [15] Jon Atack [16] Mirriam Francis [17] Bruce Hines on MSH

— SPECIAL: The best TV show on Scientology you never got to see

[1] Phil Jones [2] Derek Bloch [3] Carol Nyburg [4] Katrina Reyes [5] Jamie DeWolf

— The first Danny Masterson trial and beyond

[18] Trial special with Chris Shelton [19] Trial week one [20] Marc Headley on the spy in the hallway [21] Trial week two [22] Trial week three [23] Trial week four [24] Leah Remini on LAPD Corruption [25] Mike Rinder 2022 Thanksgiving Special [26] Jane Doe 4 (Tricia Vessey), Part One [27] Jane Doe 4 (Tricia Vessey), Part Two [28] Claire Headley on the trial [29] Tory Christman [30] Bruce Hines on spying [31] Karen de la Carriere [32] Ron Miscavige on Shelly Miscavige [33] Karen de la Carriere on the L’s [34] Mark Bunker on Miscavige hiding [35] Mark Plummer [36] Mark Ebner [37] Karen Pressley [38] Steve Cannane [39] Fredrick Brennan [40] Clarissa Adams [41] Louise Shekter [42] John Sweeney [43] Tory Christman [44] Kate Bornstein [45] Christian Stolte [46] Mark Bunker [47] Jon Atack [48] Luke Y. Thompson [49] Mark Ebner [50] Bruce Hines [51] Spanky Taylor and Karen Pressley [51] Geoff and Robbie Levin [52] Sands Hall [53] Jonny Jacobsen [54] Sandy Holeman [55] Mark Bunker [56] Trish and Liz Conley [57] Trish Conley [58] Alex Barnes-Ross [59] Alex Barnes-Ross [60] Alex Barnes-Ross [61] Alex Barnes-Ross [62] Alex Barnes-Ross [63] Alex Barnes-Ross [64] Tory Christman [65] Tammy Synovec [66] Dennis Erlich [67] Alex Barnes-Ross [68] Valerie Ross [69] Kat in Austin [70] Mark Bunker [71] Phil Jones

 
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Source Code

“I could read in this life when I was about three and a half years old. And then I went to school and they kept insisting that I learn how to read. And you know, I never learned how to read in school. I could read, only nobody ever heard that…You can read so then if anybody tries to teach you how to read and you won’t learn how to read and you can read, why nobody ever finds out about that. See? So you’ve had it. So, let’s say we were teaching a course on how to be a rocket jockey. How to fly a Mark 14 interplanetary scout ship. See, and we’re running a course on this. And we’ve got somebody and they had Mark 18s in their system and he knows all about flying one of these things, you know. Well, that’s fine you know. Here’s this, here’s that, and the instructor keeps saying, ‘Now just a minute. Hold it down now. Now, that is your circumlocutor.’ And the fellow says, ‘Yes, I know. And you pull it like this, and you go like this, and so forth; and it’s for vertical takeoff, see. Yeah, well now, what I do want to know is, you’ve got a couple of dials here that were taken off the later?’ And the instructor says, ‘Now just a minute, just a minute, that’s the circumlocutor.’ See. That guy has a hell of a time, see.” — L. Ron Hubbard, May 22, 1962

 
——————–

Avast, Ye Mateys

“Annabelle Buchanan is ordered back to the FSO Service Dept to properly turn over her desserts hat and regain the standard. This will assist already improved meals.” — The Commodore, May 22, 1971

 
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Overheard in the FreeZone

“The problem is that ‘thetans’ are more than ‘single viewpoint in space’ beings. The Time Track of Theta tapes speak of that. Buddhists are more aware of those issues. They must be laughing at us over this ‘Hunt for the Reincarnated LRH.’ In short, they know that there can be several reincarnated LRHs.”

 
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Past is Prologue

1997: Grady Ward, Keith Henson and attorneys for Dennis Erlich deposed Scientology head David Miscavige this week. Scientology fabricated the story of a bomb threat to upset Grady and Keith’s schedule, delaying their deposition until the next day. The deposition was held at a secret location to allow Scientology to keep high security around Miscavige. Keith Henson described his time spent near Palm Springs. Details of the deposition itself will not be available for 30 days. “Early in the morning I was opped for the first time this year by two hang up calls to my room at 5:30. Never did get back to sleep. About 7:30 I went down to join Grady. Not knowing what to expect after the various confused rumors of the previous evening, Grady and I headed for the Palm Springs airport. About 8:40 Mike Rinder and an older cult zombie showed up. Rinder handed us the following court order: ‘On May 19, 1997, at approximately 4:20 p.m., counsel for Plaintiff RTC made an emergency ex parte application by telephone for a protective order respecting the deposition of David Miscavige, scheduled to commence May 20, 1997 at 9:00 a.m. RTC further requested that Defendants Ward and Henson be excluded from the portion of the deposition conducted by Defendant Erlich’s counsel due to concerns regarding the safety of Mr. Miscavige. RTC requested that the deposition resume on May 21, 1997, for separate deposition by Defendants Ward and Henson. RTC’s concern for the safety of Mr. Miscavige arises from certain recent internet postings by Defendant Henson perceived by RTC as threats against Mr. Miscavige, and alleged conversations between Defendants Henson and Ward overheard by an employee of Southwest Airlines at the San Jose Airport at approximately 1:00 p.m. today.’ He mentions Embassy Suites ($100/night), which while not nearly as opulent as the Marriott Desert Springs ($350/night) where the deposition was originally set, was a cut above previous night’s Comfort Inn ($50/night). So, we start down that direction, get slightly lost, and loop around. There is a car following, so for fun I make a quick turn into an unoccupied business complex, and the guy goes by. Back on the road behind him, he does a 180, and I wave at him as he goes by, but he may not have recognized me and goes tearing down the road in the reverse of our direction and vanishes. I figured I might get a quick picket in at Gold Base on the way back to the airport. The older cult zombie who was with Rinder is posted out there next to the hotel driveway, in the hot sun, waiting for me. He takes off in a heavy jog over to the lot next door where they must have parked some chase cars. I went back to the hotel and made up a sign. One side said ‘Miscavige Fears Wogs’ and in smaller letters, ‘Wogs at Cause.’ Toss the sign in the car, check a map and take off. Then out on I 10 and off toward the west. I drove through the half mile or so the cult owns on both sides of the road and parked outside of their property on the end toward Hemet. I took out my sign with the pool cue handle, sprayed on a layer of sun block, made sure the cell phone was in one pocket and my camera in the other and started walking back toward the Golden Era gate. It was about 2:45. I was not even 20 feet from the car before a guard in the sheriff looking uniform came roaring up on the dirt bike. I figured he would stop to talk, but no, he took one look at me, figured out what was going to go down, turned around and blasted off full throttle back toward the Golden Era gate to report, and perhaps start getting their people where they could not see the picket person or signs. Two of them (in uniforms, one a dark haired guy who had been on the bike) met me on foot while I was walking against the traffic direction about where the curbs started. After a few words, where I asked them to tell me if I was starting to step in cult property, they indicated they were unwilling to talk to me, though, in response to a question of why they were not asking who I was, the first one said grimly that they already knew. When the guy with the camera was about to shoot a picture, I would stop and give him a nice smile, then turn the sign so he could get the other side on a second shot. Only one other person, a woman of obvious high status in the cult, perhaps in her thirties (and possibly a public) stopped to talk to me. She got out of her nicely maintained car and asked if I didn’t have something better to do. I told her that their fearless leader had delayed a deposition that morning and as a result, no, I didn’t have anything better to do. She left somewhat flustered. I don’t know how many people should have been outside that time of the day, but I saw only four or five, one of which might have been an RPF gardener. There seemed to be considerable effort to keep the people inside away from the fence. It was about 3:40 when I got back to the car. I tossed the sign into the boot (as the Brits would say) and drove back through Gold Base snapping a few last pictures. About ten or ten thirty (Sergeant?) William Rahn called from the Hemet station of the Riverside Sheriff’s department. The Gold Base clams were whining to them about me, and he was interested in my side of the story. After getting my story, Deputy Rahn and I had an extended chat. He mentioned that over the years the cult property has accumulated quite a reputation for people being reported wildly running about on the roadway, or off into the desert by motorists passing through Gold Base. By the time they could get out there to check, nobody would be found, and no one would admit to knowing anything about such an incident.” [after the deposition]
“I told the desk clerk what was up, being tailed by three scientology operatives. One of the desk clerks offered to go get my car from the lot next door. So I gave him the key, after warning him the operatives would not be happy. He came back somewhat bug eyed with this tale of being stopped by the PIs who insisted on knowing who he was and what he was doing with the car–thus providing the cops who came by later with a third party verification.”

 
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Random Howdy

“I was attacked by an angry goose once. I still have that engram.”

 
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Full Court Press: What we’re watching at the Underground Bunker

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Found guilty on two counts on May 31, remanded to custody. Sentenced to 30 years to life on Sep 7.
— ‘Lafayette Ronald Hubbard’ (a/k/a Justin Craig), aggravated assault, plus drug charges: Grand jury indictments include charges from an assault while in custody. Next pretrial hearing May 31, 2024.
— David Gentile, GPB Capital, fraud.

Civil litigation:
— Leah Remini v. Scientology, alleging ‘Fair Game’ harassment and defamation: Some defamation claims were removed by Judge Hammock. Leah seeking to amend her complaint.
— Baxter, Baxter, and Paris v. Scientology, alleging labor trafficking: Forced to arbitration.
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: motion to file new complaint, hearing on May 29.
— Jane Doe 1 v. Scientology, David Miscavige, and Gavin Potter: Case unsealed and second amended complaint filed. Scientology moves for religious arbitration, on hold until appeal over new judge heard.
— Chiropractors Steve Peyroux and Brent Detelich, stem cell fraud: Ordered to mediation.

 
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SCIENTOLOGY: FAIR GAME

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] Scientology salutes ‘humanitarian’ couple for donating $33.8 million to building fund
[TWO years ago] When Scientology says it will ‘Clear the Planet,’ here’s what it means
[THREE years ago] Holy Xenu, even we didn’t expect Scientology to be this big in Danny Masterson’s hearing
[FOUR years ago] Even more filmmakers who are helping out Scientology with its TV network
[FIVE years ago] Scientology loses a whale: Major donor Michael Baybak dead at 77
[SIX years ago] Jack Parsons is getting his star-turn next month, but we’ll have to wait for L. Ron Hubbard
[SEVEN years ago] Google helps Scientology censor two more of our stories — maybe you can help us figure out why
[EIGHT years ago] Scientology makes you a god who can heal this horse just with your finger
[NINE years ago] DOX: How Scientology ensnares the unsuspecting in a series of binding contracts
[TEN years ago] Scientology Hip Hop: Is there anything better in the world?
[ELEVEN years ago] Meet Dennis Nobbe, Miami Chiropractor and Scientologist!

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on May 22, 2024 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, 1995-2023 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2023), 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

 

Tony Ortega at Rolling Stone

How I got to know Lisa Marie Presley was that a bomb went off in the Los Angeles Times on April 8, 2015.

That day, a story by Kim Christensen appeared which revealed that for 18 months, a pair of private investigators hired by Scientology leader David Miscavige had been paid $10,000 [...]]]>

How I got to know Lisa Marie Presley was that a bomb went off in the Los Angeles Times on April 8, 2015.

That day, a story by Kim Christensen appeared which revealed that for 18 months, a pair of private investigators hired by Scientology leader David Miscavige had been paid $10,000 a week to spy on Dave’s own father, Ron Miscavige, who had escaped from one of Scientology’s secretive California bases.

The LA Times story was based on a police report from West Allis, Wisconsin after the two private eyes, a father and son team, had been picked up after appearing suspicious. Police found a small arsenal in their vehicle, including an illegal rifle silencer fashioned from PVC pipe. The father was looking at 10 years in federal prison for it, and so the two of them sang like canaries.

I had been talking to Ron privately since his 2012 escape, and I called him up to congratulate him on the huge story. But he said the real reason that the story was coming out now, and in the LA Times, was all thanks to Lisa Marie. The two of them had been very close in Scientology, and now that he was out, that relationship continued.

But what, I asked, was Lisa Marie Presley doing dropping bombs on David Miscavige through the press? Could I get that story?

He put me in touch with her, and a week after the Times piece appeared, she started talking to me about her history in Scientology. And talking.

It turned out that for years she’d been a daily reader of my website the Underground Bunker where I cover Scientology news as a regular beat, and she’d been tempted to talk to me for a long time.

She said that the story of growing up in Scientology, becoming one of its more visible celebrities, and then breaking away after becoming more aware of its abuses was a complex tale.

“It’s a fucking hell of a story. There’s so much to it,” she said. And ultimately, it had become a tale about how she was now pitted against David Miscavige, who had taken over control of Scientology following the 1986 death of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard.

“Dave was a good friend of mine. Now he’s fucking Hitler,” she said.

I asked her to start at the beginning.

 
“I got in right after my father died,” Lisa Marie told me, explaining how she ended up a Scientology celebrity.

Elvis Presley had famously kept Scientology at bay, saying that it only wanted his money, but when he died of cardiac arrest on August 16, 1977, there were still some Scientology books that had been sent to him among his things.

Priscilla Presley had divorced Elvis in 1973, but she found the books and she was curious about them. She knew that John Travolta was involved in the group and she asked him about the books.

Travolta sent over his assistant, a woman named Sylvia “Spanky” Taylor.

“John sent me over, and that’s how I recruited Priscilla Presley into Scientology,” Spanky told me for a 2015 interview.

For Scientology, it was a huge get: Both the former wife and the daughter of the King were sucked in, after Elvis himself had resisted their recruiting efforts for years.

For Lisa (as her friends called her), who was 9 when her father died, it was a bewildering experience as her mother began dropping her off at Scientology facilities.

She said her mother was treated with deference as a major celebrity, but Lisa herself was treated shabbily, like an afterthought.

“My mom was always trying to figure out what to do with me. I had watches on me. I thought at one point that I wanted to join the Sea Org just to get out of my mom’s house.”

In Scientology’s highly hierarchical structure, the Sea Organization is the elite inner corps of dedicated church workers. Joining the Sea Org requires signing a billion-year contract and the promise of coming back, lifetime after lifetime, while working 365 days a year for $25 a week, when there’s any pay at all.

Lisa must have been feeling pretty desperate to even consider it.

“My mom would dump me off at Scientology. She dumped me at Flag at one point,” she said, referring to Scientology’s “spiritual mecca,” the Flag Land Base in Clearwater, Florida.

But there, at least, she was taken care of by the captain of the base, a woman named Debbie Cook.

“I loved Debbie. And what happened to her really wrecked me.”

(On New Year’s Day 2012, Debbie Cook sent an email of protest about David Miscavige’s leadership to thousands of her fellow Scientologists. The church sued her, but then paid her in a settlement to end the lawsuit after she briefly took the witness stand in a San Antonio courtroom and began to describe the horrors of “The Hole,” a prison created by David Miscavige for disfavored Sea Org executives.)

Lisa said she had been touched by Cook’s compassion for her when she was a teenager, being raised by Scientology itself.

“I talked to Debbie Cook yesterday. ‘Your whole life has been a manipulation, Lisa.’ That’s what she said.”

Things really began to change for her in Scientology, Lisa said, once she hit 25, the age when she qualified to get her inheritance from her father’s estate.

“At 25, after I got the inheritance, they started grooming me to be this person who would go out and get everyone else in.”

Scientology wanted Lisa to be irresistible bait for other celebrities.

And they had one particular celebrity in mind.

 
“I was in love with Michael, believe it or not. I didn’t want to leave him. He was in trouble and I wanted to help him. And they made sure that I left him,” Lisa told me, perhaps sensing that I, like so many others, had assumed her 1994 marriage to pop superstar Michael Jackson was some sort of put-on.

She said that her affection for him was very real, but that Scientology had its own interests in the union: It had long wanted to bring in Jackson, who had a Jehovah’s Witnesses background. “But then they realized he was getting too much bad press,” she said.

She denied ever seeing anything like what Jackson was accused of that would result, ten years later, in a trial for child molestation.

“Fucking around little boys? Dude, do you think I’d be with someone if I witnessed that?” she said.

In a 2003 Rolling Stone interview, Lisa described some of the things that were driving a wedge into the marriage. That, for example, she hadn’t seen Michael in a month as he prepared for the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards, and there was also the time Jackson had said something false to a TV Guide interviewer, claiming that Lisa had told him that Elvis had gotten a nose job.

When Rolling Stone asked her how things had come to a head, she replied “I’d had enough. That’s all.”

To me, however, she said that Scientology was intimately involved in the split.

“I was in love with Michael. I wanted to help him,” she said. But there was always a Scientology presence wherever they went. “There was always someone here. Even when we did that ABC prime time interview, there was always a Scientology handler right there.”

In particular, two figures were involved in driving them apart, she said.

“DM [David Miscavige] facilitated my divorce with MJ,” she said, claiming that Miscavige and a Scientologist attorney, John P. Coale, pressured her to file for divorce.

“I was calling Dave, asking, what do I do? He was a huge MJ fan. He was all over that,” she said. She was told to make sure that Jackson didn’t file for divorce first, because it would give him an advantage in court.

“One morning I got a call from John Coale. He said, ‘Michael’s going to make a move. He’s going to file.’ So I filed.”

She explained that she felt pressured to be the first to file for divorce, but then regretted it.

John P. Coale is not only a well known Scientologist attorney, he made a name for himself suing tobacco companies in the 1980s, and has also made news as a political operator. He’s married to TV journalist Greta Van Susteren, who joined the church as a result of marrying him in 1988.

(Lisa mentioned that she thought it was unusual that a TV journalist would be a Scientologist, when founder L. Ron Hubbard had such disdain for the media. But she said that Miscavige told her that Van Susteren “helped Scientology with Fox News.” Van Susteren left Fox News the year after my conversation with Lisa, and she has historically been very tight-lipped about her Scientology involvement.)

I spoke with Coale this past Friday, after letting him know what Lisa had told me. He had a different version of events.

“First of all, I never told her to love or unlove Mr. Jackson. This is 30 years ago,” he said.

And he added it was “absurd” that he would have told Lisa to file for divorce before Jackson. The reason?

“There was no contest.”

Coale said he vividly remembered a lunch he had with Johnnie Cochran, who represented Jackson.

“What do you want to do? I asked him. They don’t have any children. They each have their own money. There’s no joint property. There was nothing to fight over. So that was it and we ate lunch. There was never any contest,” Coale said. “It was a great lunch. Johnnie Cochran was a really great guy. It’s a shame he died. He was a great lawyer and great guy. And that’s what he would do. There was nothing to fight about.”

Coale suggested that Lisa might have confused him for another lawyer handling the case. “That was what I did with Cochran. She had other lawyers who wrote up the papers. I don’t know what happened there,” he said. “I never advised her about what to do with the relationship with Michael Jackson. I don’t know if anyone else did.”

As for Miscavige, Coale said he never talked to the church leader about the Presley-Jackson matter at the time.

“I’ve known him for years, but I’ve probably talked to him under ten times,” Coale said. “It’s probably been six or seven years since I saw him.”

In 2015, nineteen years after her divorce, Lisa told me she believed that Miscavige was behind the effort to drive her away from Jackson, and she likened it to what she had read that Miscavige had done in Tom Cruise’s marriages.

“I know how in love they were,” she said, referring to Cruise and Nicole Kidman, who split in 2000. “But they were driven apart.”

Scientology’s reputation for indoctrination and control was pretty legendary, and celebrities have come forward to detail it in the past. But I wondered about her family’s involvement in Scientology’s “technology,” the arcane past-life therapy that it sold at considerable prices.

“My mom’s not Clear. She takes courses and reads books, but she’s not involved,” she said, suggesting that Priscilla had not applied herself to making it to the higher steps on what Scientology calls its “Bridge to Total Freedom.”

Lisa herself had gone nearly to the top of the Bridge, reaching OT 7.

“Operating Thetan Level Seven” is the second highest “auditing level,” and the most grueling, requiring years for some to finish it.

“I never finished it. I quit after three months,” she said. “It was bullshit. It was just about control. It was just a way of getting more money.”

And the other celebrities she’d met in Scientology? I was curious what kind of relationship she had with them.

Tom Cruise?

“I fucking hate Tom. I met him 20 years ago. I said I never want to be in a room with him again.”

John Travolta?

“John is my last Scientology friend. Kelly [Preston] kind of monitors us. John and I get unruly if we’re together. John is renting my house in Hawaii right now.”

(Preston died of cancer in 2020.) I asked what Lisa meant by “unruly,” and she described late nights with Travolta talking about what the rest of the world thought about Scientology, which the church considers a forbidden exercise.

“I told him about the HBO thing. He had no idea. I told him that Debbie Cook was gone. He had no idea. He has no Internet or email. He’s so sheltered. All he knows is what they tell him. He’s smart but sheltered.”

Shelly Miscavige?

“She was a force to be reckoned with. I don’t know what exactly went down. I do feel that she really cared about him [Dave]. But I think she stepped on his feet.”

The wife of Scientology leader David Miscavige, Shelly vanished from the international management base near Hemet in 2005, and was seen at the funeral of her father in the summer of 2007, and not since. But Lisa said she agreed with former Scientology spokesman Mike Rinder and other former executives who said Shelly was being held at a small mountain compound in the San Bernardino Mountains.

“She is at that place at Arrowhead. She’s under 24/7 guard.”

Lisa said she was having dinner with Miscavige after Shelly’s disappearance, and noticed he was eating off the same plate as his “communicator,” Laurisse Stuckenbrock. When she asked where Shelly was, he said “Compilations.”

(Miscavige’s response was a reference to a specific kind of work done in Scientology, and not a particular location. It was a response intended to convey that Shelly was on a special mission somewhere.)

And Miscavige himself?

“While I was beginning to realize how fucked up everything was, and how many criminals there were, I had dinner with him at Nobu four years ago in London. Listening to him talk about how great Scientology was doing was like hearing Hitler talking about how he has chimneys and smoke coming out of everywhere. All he could talk about was Tom or buildings. A four-hour dinner.”

Several times during our conversation, Lisa said that things had changed after 2013, when Leah Remini’s defection from Scientology had become public.

“My mom is still friends with [a Scientology attorney who] told her that Dave is so paranoid now, nobody sees him. Nobody sees him. He’s going into an underground bunker period,” she said, with a laugh, making a reference to the name of my website.

“He’s going into that bunker phase.”

Last week, I sent a lengthy and detailed message to Scientology spokeswoman Karin Pouw, asking for responses to Lisa’s assertions about the church, about David Miscavige, Shelly Miscavige, and what she had to say about her treatment in the church at the hands of her mother Priscilla Presley.

I am still waiting for a response.

 
In 2013, I was in New Braunfels, Texas to cover a court hearing in a lawsuit filed against Scientology by Monique Rathbun, the wife of former Scientology official Marty Rathbun.

At the time, Marty and former Scientology spokesman Mike Rinder had pointed out to me that Lisa was in town that night, performing on her “Storm & Grace” tour. Mike joked about going to the concert to see if we could get in.

Now, in 2015, Lisa told me that Scientology was actually very concerned about that.

“OSA called my security guys. ‘These guys are planning on coming,’ they said. They meant Mike, Marty, and you.”

Lisa said her security guys were very worried about it, but she said what was the worst that could happen?

“Let’s say they pay a hundred bucks for the meet-and-greet. I’m not going to be rude. I’ll shake their hands and say hi.”

She said she even tried to call Miscavige about it, asking him to calm down the OSA operatives. But she was told that “after the Leah thing,” he wasn’t talking to anyone.

I first started noticing that something seemed to be up with Lisa when she released a single in April 2012 that contained lyrics suggesting she might be pushing Scientology away. She followed that up a month later with an album, Storm & Grace, that contained lyrics that seemed unambiguous. And in interviews at that time she talked about getting rid of people she called “nuts” from her life.

Now, in 2015, she told me I had been right.

From 2007 to 2015, Lisa said, she was carefully asking questions, looking into what was being said about Scientology, all of the things that eventually came out in a documentary like Alex Gibney’s HBO documentary Going Clear. (Full disclosure: I appear in the film.)

“For the last eight years, I’ve been putting together everything that was in that special,” she said.

In order to do that, she was questioning her close friend Ron Miscavige, who had escaped from Int Base in 2012. And also Roanne Horwich, another close friend who had escaped from the base that same year. Roanne is the daughter of Diana Hubbard, the last of L. Ron Hubbard’s children who are still involved in the Scientology organization.

But Lisa said she had to proceed very cautiously.

“While I was questioning Ron and Roanne, my mom and daughter were still in. I had to be real careful. I didn’t want to get them in trouble.”

She said that she reached out for information to other people who “were not technically declared.” In other words, people who had quietly left Scientology without raising the ire of the church, which declared enemies “suppressive persons,” and then often targeted them with harassment.

Lisa said she cultivated sources who were still flying “under the radar” and appeared to the church to be members in good standing, but who could tell her about what outsiders said about Scientology.

She says that’s how she first learned about “The Hole,” and it helped her make up her mind to leave Scientology. “No way, that’s not why I joined this,” she said about the bizarre office-prison.

Miscavige had created it in 2004 to punish top executives of Scientology’s Sea Org by locking them into a set of offices in a double-wide trailer at Int Base, the large compound near Hemet.

The existence of the Hole was revealed in a 2009 expose by the Tampa Bay Times, and it highlighted how ruthlessly Miscavige disciplined his underlings. Some of his top lieutenants had literally spent years in confinement, forced to accuse each other of disloyalty to Miscavige in brutal “seances.”

Learning about The Hole was one of the things Lisa said she had been doing for several years, investigating what was really going on in Scientology from the three sources she really trusted.

Besides Ron and Roanne, the third source was Arthur Hubbard, 64, son of L. Ron Hubbard, an artist who lived in Los Angeles.

“Arthur was my best friend since I was 16,” she said.

It’s particularly interesting that two of her sources for information about Scientology’s controversies were members of the Hubbard family itself.

Roanne Horwich is L. Ron Hubbard’s granddaughter. (She declined to be interviewed for this story.) And Arthur Hubbard is L. Ron’s youngest child. (He didn’t return a request for an interview.)

“It’s sad. Roanne was living like a gardener at the base, and she was treated like shit. Her mother, Diana, got totally screamed at. She writes the events for Miscavige, she writes those and gets screamed at. There is a whole family that’s been broken apart,” Lisa said.

She had asked Arthur, why doesn’t the family unite and mutiny? She mentioned to me that she’d talked to him about it just the day before. But inertia was preventing anything from happening.

“Arthur’s always like, ‘OK, beatings, The Hole, OK. But you need a smoking gun.’”

But that’s why, she added, the police report from Wisconsin that she had delivered to the Los Angeles Times was so important.

“It is a smoking gun.”

 
For Lisa, the final showdown with Scientology took place in October 2014.

That month, she heard from Ron Miscavige that he had traveled from Wisconsin to Florida in order to be reunited with his two daughters for the first time since he had escaped from Scientology’s Int Base in 2012.

But when he approached his daughter Denise Gentile’s house (Denise was David Miscavige’s twin), he had been told that he wasn’t going to be allowed to see her or her younger sister, Lori Verneuille, on Dave’s orders.

“Ron was heartbroken. He and I had previous conversations, and he wasn’t going to write a book. But now I knew he was really upset,” Lisa said. (Ron told me the same thing, that he wasn’t planning on writing a book after his escape until he was prevented from seeing his daughters. Then he began work on what would become his 2016 memoir, Ruthless: Scientology, My Son David Miscavige, and Me. Ron died in 2021 at 85 years old.)

Incensed by how Ron was being treated, Lisa decided to go to Florida herself.

“I was just going to go there and see if it’s as bad as everyone said. So I went to the headquarters in Clearwater.”

She wanted to talk to David Miscavige and ask him directly why he wasn’t allowing his father to visit Dave’s two sisters.

And she wanted me to understand that she had previously considered David Miscavige a good friend.

“He and I used to talk for hours and hours,” she said. “But since the Leah thing [referring to Leah’s public defection in 2013], he was real careful who he talked to. I had to be super careful.”

That October 2014, she went to the Flag Land Base.

“I was there looking for closure,” she said.

Then, she got a phone call.

“It just so happens Ron called me. I told him I was on my way. He said, ‘Can I help you? I’m here. What the fuck are you doing there?’”

Ron was still in Florida, and he was confused about what Lisa had in mind, she explained. But she admitted that she wasn’t too sure herself.

“I don’t fucking know, I told him. I’m here with a wand checking for bugs in the hotel room. I don’t know.”

Lisa, her husband Michael Lockwood, her son Ben Keough and other members of their entourage had checked into the Fort Harrison Hotel, the centerpiece of Scientology’s “spiritual mecca.” And she was still trying to figure out what she was going to do there.

“I just know that I started to self-destruct because this thing [Scientology] is corrupt. I needed closure.”

Ron asked if there was anything he could do, but she asked him if he had Scientology private investigators tailing him. Yes, he answered. That made Lisa wary.

“They were being followed. He said he wanted to get together, but I told him no, not right now.”

She said that Ron was skeptical she’d even be allowed in to see David Miscavige when she went to his offices.

“He said, ‘The obvious is going to happen. You’re going to get to their door, and they’re going to slam it in your face. Is there anything I can do to help?’”

But Lisa said she wasn’t going to back down.

“Dave is too fucking scared to talk to me. I’m in the belly of the beast. It was his terrain, but I was obviously not afraid. He’s afraid,” she said.

She made her first attempt to see Miscavige, going across the air bridge from the Fort Harrison Hotel to the Flag Building, a city-block sized edifice which had been opened just the year before. She asked to be shown to the offices of the Religious Technology Center, the nominally controlling sub-organization of the Scientology movement which counts David Miscavige as its chairman. (Scientologists often refer to Miscavige as “C.O.B.”, for chairman of the board.)

She was let in to the office by a Sea Org staffer who had a Blackberry and an earpiece, Lisa remembered, and she recalled that the woman’s name was Joanna.

Joanna said that Miscavige wasn’t there. But Lisa saw cameras, and she assumed he was watching. She picked out a camera and spoke to it directly.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Are you throwing everyone in The Hole? You just made the biggest mistake of your life, you just broke up your own family,” she said to the camera, assuming that Dave was watching. “Somebody needs to stop you.”

After her initial visit to the office, she says she was called at the hotel and asked to come back in.

“They called me back in. They said, ‘we have a problem — you can’t be here if you’re in touch with Ron Sr. He’s a declared SP.’ So Ron, who had saved Dave’s life by getting him into Scientology when he was 9 years old, Ron is now a declared SP,” she said, referring to Ron first bringing his family into Scientology in the late 1960s in order to find a cure for young Dave’s asthma.

What about Roanne, she asked? Yes, Roanne was a declared SP as well and Lisa shouldn’t be associating with her.

Lisa said she was told that Denise and Lori, Dave’s sisters, were waiting to talk with her.

“Give me 20 minutes,” she said. She left the offices and called Arthur. He suggested that she at least find out what the sisters had to tell her.

So she went back in, with her husband Michael Lockwood in tow. She remembered passing the camera again, and this time said to it, “OK, buddy, action. This is all for you,” again with the assumption that Dave was watching.

She and Lockwood found a place to sit. Then Denise and Lori were shown in by Joanna, the Sea Org staffer.

“Denise starts screaming at me. I’d met her before. I wouldn’t say we were friends. She’s screaming about how Ron had beat her mother. How he would drink when he was looking over the kids.”

Lisa said that Denise and Lori were also screaming shocking allegations about their older brother, Ronnie Jr.

(Denise and Lori made similar allegations in a 2016 letter to ABC News to protest the publication of Ron’s book, a letter which Scientology has posted online.)

“I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. I remained completely unemotional while Denise was screaming all kinds of crazy shit. It was all a show for Dave. I kind of had a smile on my face the whole time.”

Denise’s rant culminated with her telling Lisa to keep out of their family matters.

“It’s none of your fucking business!” Denise screamed at maximum volume.

“I’m done, Denise. Good job,” Lisa said she replied. “I tried to be as calm as possible.”

She looked at the Sea Org woman, Joanna, who had shown them all in.

“I looked over at his little henchwoman. ‘That was not a two-way conversation,’ I said.”

She said Joanna replied, “They’re public and we don’t have any control over them.” (She meant that Denise and Lori weren’t Sea Org — they were “publics” — and so she couldn’t tell them what to do.)

Lisa said she told the Sea Org officer, “That was supposed to handle me? If that was on YouTube, do you think anyone would ever walk in here again?”

She and Lockwood went back to the Fort Harrison Hotel, and her son Ben was there. (She said that Ben wasn’t a Scientologist.)

Lisa went back again to the office the next day. She walked in and told Joanna, “Turn the cameras on. Have him watch what I have to say.”

She then addressed Joanna: “I at least need you to acknowledge the fact that was a tiny iota insane,” Lisa remembers telling her. “This is the SS, Dave is Hitler. I didn’t join this. I want nothing to do with this. My family will have my back.”

When Joanna asked her what she had told her family, Lisa said she responded, “None of your fucking business what I tell them.”

She said Joanna replied, “You need to go into confessional now and get your overts off.”

In other words, the Sea Org official was trying to “handle” Lisa’s “upset” by putting the onus on her to confess to bad acts or negative thoughts (“overts”) in order to convince her that she was at fault for what was happening.

“I told her ‘Fuck you. You’re trying to shut me the fuck up and you’re not going to do it.’ She told me that I could leave. ‘Fine, I’m leaving. And when I walk out that door, you’re never seeing me again.’ As I stood up and walked out, she said she would let me know if they declared me. ‘I’ll let the whole world know if you do,’ I said.”

Lisa said that Scientologists at the base helped her pack, and that “everyone was civil.”

“But I’ve had PIs on me ever since,” she said, referring to the past six months before our conversation.

She said in that ensuing time she had been told that she had, indeed, been declared a “Suppressive Person” by Scientology.

“Declared an SP for trying to keep DM from breaking up his own family? They’re completely insane,” she said.

After the confrontation, Lisa said she took her family to Disneyworld. Ron Miscavige went to visit Mike Rinder, who lived not far from the Flag base. Ron called her telling her that he was being watched intently by Scientology’s private investigators.

(Also, Ron’s wife Becky Bigelow was with him. I spoke to her recently, and she says that Lisa’s version of what happened matches her own memory of it.)

Lisa told me that she talked to both her mother Priscilla and her daughter Riley about the encounter, and told them that she needed them to side with her against the church.

“Mom, I know you love doing your courses. But you’re going to have to have my fucking back,” she says she told Priscilla.

When I asked specifically about it later in the conversation, Lisa confirmed that when she broke with Scientology for good in 2014, she took Priscilla and Riley out with her. “They walked when I did.”

She said that she had also convinced her mother to watch Going Clear, the HBO documentary that had premiered just a month before our conversation.

Mike Rinder, the former Scientology spokesman who recently put out a book about his experiences, A Billion Years: My Escape From a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology, tells me he also spoke to Lisa about her attempted showdown with Miscavige shortly after it happened.

“What you are saying matches precisely with what she was saying to me,” Rinder tells me.

“That meeting with Denise and Lori, she went on and on about, ‘What c***s they were,’ and, ‘If Dave thought sending his ugly sisters to see me is going to take care of this, he’s crazy.’ Lisa was really over-the-top upset about the whole thing,” Rinder says.

She had called Rinder after they had reached a house in the Nashville area that she was renting at the time.

“Riley was there with her and got on the phone. I had never spoken to her in my life. The first thing she said to me was, ‘You’ve got to take these motherfuckers down.’ I was thinking in my head, wow, that’s quite an introduction to Riley,” Rinder says.

Like her mother, Riley was upset about how Scientology had handled the matter, and wanted the organization’s abuses exposed, Rinder explains.

(Later, I saw signs that suggested that both Priscilla and Riley may have gone back into Scientology. I sent requests for comment with detailed descriptions of Lisa’s assertions to attorneys for both Priscilla and Riley.)

Soon after the attempted confrontation with Miscavige at the Flag Building, Lisa said she hired a “bad ass lawyer,” who then obtained the police report about the two private investigators who were arrested while stalking Ron Miscavige in Wisconsin the year before, in 2013.

She sat on it for a few months, and she says it was Arthur Hubbard who convinced her to get the information out to the public.

In his book, Rinder revealed that he suggested to Lisa’s attorney that she should deliver the documents to Kim Christensen at the LA Times, resulting in the April 8, 2015 bombshell.

Lisa’s fingerprints were nowhere to be seen, however. I asked her why she wasn’t following Leah Remini’s lead and being more public about leaving Scientology and opposing David Miscavige.

“The actual reason is, I have two nannies. They’re both Scientologists. My children are so in love with them. And I have a security executive guy who works with me, and he’s a Scientologist.”

She worried about her children being “destroyed” if they were to lose the nannies. (The twin girls were 6 at the time of this interview.) “That’s the only thing holding me back. Believe me, when I want to go, I go.” She told me that she did plan to go public about Scientology once that situation had changed.

She also told me that in the meantime, she thought she could do just as much damage from behind the scenes, with the LA Times story as a prime example.

And her goal of going after David Miscavige?

“Getting the tax-exempt status revoked. That’s the only thing you can do,” she said. Scientology had famously bullied the IRS into giving it tax-free status in 1993, and until that was taken away, she said, it would be business as usual for Miscavige.

I asked if she had thought about talking to government officials about it directly. “No,” she answered.

If she was still maintaining a low profile publicly, inside Scientology her departure was already being talked about, she said.

“I’m a suppressive person, and I’m the reason my dad died and MJ died. That’s what’s being said inside Scientology.”

She said she was being followed, but she believed that as long as she didn’t go public, she would be spared the kind of harassment that Scientology was well known for.

“I don’t want them on me. They scare me,” she said.

And it was David Miscavige that she said she was most concerned about.

“He gave me all that information about his family and then let me walk out? You have to be joking,” she said. “I’m being followed. I don’t know what he’s going to do. He’s going to lose his shit at some point.”

I told her I thought Miscavige was even more scared of her.

“He should be. I have a hell of a lot of information on him.”

 
After that lengthy conversation on April 15, 2015, I had one more substantial phone call with Lisa later that year after I published a story on July 10 about a Scientology daycare where the son of the operator was accused of molesting the children. Scientology’s “ethics officers” had convinced the parents not to cooperate with law enforcement in order to bury the problem.

Lisa’s godchild was among the alleged victims, and she thanked me for making the story public. I took the opportunity to point out that Ron Miscavige’s book was going to be coming out at some point, and that it would probably contain references to her attempted showdown with Miscavige.

I told Lisa that I intended to publish a story about that of my own, but hold back that the details had come from her. She said she didn’t mind. It was very clear that she wanted the information about Scientology’s abuses she’d witnessed to come out. (My story about her battles with Miscavige came out the following April.)

That July 2015 conversation was the last I heard from her.

Before too long, Ron Miscavige said he had also stopped hearing from her.

Over the next few years, Lisa’s life appeared to become a mix of litigation, substance abuse, and personal tragedy as she went through years of a nasty divorce and custody battle with Lockwood, and then lost Ben Keough, her son, to suicide in 2020. He was 28.

Increasingly, I saw signs that Priscilla and Riley were involved with the church again. Had Lisa gone back in as well?

This past November, there was a stunning development when the prosecutors in the forcible rape trial of Scientology celebrity and That ’70s Show actor Danny Masterson revealed that they were planning to call Lisa as a witness to describe what amounted to obstruction of justice by the Church of Scientology.

One of the three women accusing Masterson of rape, who goes by the name Jane Doe 1, alleged that the actor had attacked her in April 2003, and that she had subsequently informed Scientology about it. She also asked the church for permission to violate Scientology policy and report Masterson to the LAPD. She ended up doing so in June 2004.

Lisa would testify, Deputy DA Reinhold Mueller told Judge Charlaine Olmedo on November 8, that she was instructed by Scientology to dissuade Jane Doe 1, a close personal friend of hers, from going to the police.

Mueller also revealed that Lisa’s attorney had warned that if they asked her about this on the witness stand, he would advise that she take the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination.

In other words, Lisa’s own attorney realized that she would be testifying not only to a crime committed by Scientology, but one she had taken part in herself.

Mueller said he told the attorney too much time had passed for there to be legal exposure for Lisa, but he was willing to grant her immunity for her cooperation. With that agreement Lisa then came down to the DA’s office and was interviewed and signed a statement.

But Judge Olmedo ruled that the testimony about Scientology’s obstruction was more appropriate for the civil harassment lawsuit filed by the Masterson accusers, and less relevant in a criminal trial about his guilt or innocence. She ruled that Lisa couldn’t testify about it, and prosecutors decided not to call her at all. (The trial ended in a mistrial on November 30 when jurors were unable to come to unanimous verdicts on all three counts of forcible rape.)

However, the fact that Lisa was even contemplating testifying about Scientology using her to commit a crime was powerful evidence that she was still out.

I texted her at that point, hoping that she might finally be ready to talk again after seven years. I got no reply.

On Thursday, January 12, 2023, she went into cardiac arrest and died after being rushed to a hospital. She was 54.

Almost immediately, I began seeing questions about her death and her association with Scientology, and that she was at least theoretically still a potential witness in Masterson’s re-trial, which is scheduled to begin jury selection on March 29.

While I understand the reason people are wondering about that timing, it’s important to remember that Elvis Presley’s mother died of a heart attack at the age 46 in 1958. Elvis was 42 when he died of cardiac arrest in 1977. That heredity, and Lisa’s extensive drug history, didn’t require a conspiracy to explain her untimely demise.

But her sudden death was deeply unsettling. I felt fortunate to have had the interactions with her that I did.

She had wanted Scientology and David Miscavige — whom she’d compared to Hitler — exposed.

And I wanted the world to know, she had been a fighter.

— Tony Ortega

 
——————–

Technology Cocktail

“Some facts are completely known. The first of these is that the individual himself is a spirit controlling a body via a mind. The second of these is that the thetan is capable of making space, energy, mass and time. The third of these is that the thetan is separable from the body without the phenomena of death, and can handle and control a body from well outside it. The fourth of these is that the thetan does not care to remember the life which he has just lived, after he has parted from the body and the mind. The fifth of these is that a person dying always exteriorizes. The sixth of these is that a person having exteriorized then returns to a planet and procures, usually, another body of the same type of race as before.” — L. Ron Hubbard, 1956

 
——————–

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 as Danny faces a potential sentence of 45 years to life in prison. NOW WITH TRIAL INDEX.

 
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THE PODCAST: How many have you heard?

— The Underground Bunker Podcast

[1] Marc Headley [2] Claire Headley [3] Jeffrey Augustine [4] Bruce Hines [5] Sunny Pereira [6] Pete Griffiths [7] Geoff Levin [8] Patty Moher [9] Marc Headley [10] Jefferson Hawkins [11] Michelle ‘Emma’ Ryan [12] Paulette Cooper [13] Jesse Prince [14] Mark Bunker [15] Jon Atack [16] Mirriam Francis [17] Bruce Hines on MSH

— SPECIAL: The best TV show on Scientology you never got to see

[1] Phil Jones [2] Derek Bloch [3] Carol Nyburg [4] Katrina Reyes [5] Jamie DeWolf

— SPECIAL: Your Proprietor’s updates on the Danny Masterson trial

[1] Sep 21 [2] Sep 28 [3] Oct 4 [4] Oct 10 [5] Oct 11: Day One [6] Oct 12: Day Two [7] Oct 13: Day Three [8] Oct 17: Day Four [9] Oct 18: Day Five [10] Oct 19: Day Six [11] Special interview with Chris Shelton, Oct 19 [12] Oct 20: Day Seven [13] Oct 21: Day Eight [14] First week in review, with Jeffrey Augustine [15] Oct 24: Day Nine [16] Oct 25: Day Ten [17] Oct 27: Day Eleven [18] Oct 28: Day Twelve [19] Second week in review, with Jeffrey Augustine [20] Halloween special [21] Nov 2: Day Thirteen [22] Nov 3: Day Fourteen [23] Nov 4: Day Fifteen [24] Third week in review [25] Nov 5, Saturday special [26] Nov 6, Sunday special [27] Nov 7, Day Sixteen [28] Lisa Marie Presley breaking news [29] Nov 8, Day Seventeen [30] Nov 9, Day Eighteen [31] Nov 10, Day Nineteen

 
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Source Code

“Had the most fiendish idea the other day. I’m going to write a science fiction story (I still do, you know). I got a wonderful idea of writing about a government scientist who goes mad, you see, and the security is so terrific that nobody can find out what he’s doing, see? Not even his own boss, because the security is so terrific, you know? And when he orders materials he can’t tell anybody in the materiel department what it’s for because, of course, it’s so secret. You see, his security is very great. And he goes ahead and he builds up this thing which makes space solid. See, space becomes totally solid. See? And then puts it over the light lines to all the government offices everywhere. And of course, all the space in all government offices, complete with personnel, gets totally solid. And the last person that’s left is J. Edgar Spoofer. And he tries to explain it to this guy, that this guy doesn’t have the right to go ahead and do this in any direction and that he’s going to arrest him. But the guy tells J. Edgar Spoofer, ‘But look, you’re supposed to safeguard security in the government. And it says right here that my work is under total security and all actions I perform are under total security, so therefore, you’re violating your own order.’ So J. Edgar Spoofer steps back and lets the entirety of the Department of Justice and his office get totally solid. And everybody lived happily ever after.” — L. Ron Hubbard, January 30, 1957

 
——————–

Avast, Ye Mateys

“Celebrity Center doing very well. GI Affluence Trend since last SEPT! How do you like that! Hats off and a highly commended to Diana H., Yvonne Gillham and all the crew! Asho moving out in front with a high trend GI! Ira Chaleff and our Asho crew and USGO doing very well and USLO getting in there too! Very nice work and good teamwork by US offices! Asho Fnd not doing too badly but needs its own C/O. And good old AOLA still soaring into its Affluence Trend and all but Booksales normal or Affluence or Power GDSes, meaning its a near clean sweep of rising GDSes! It will be a $100,000 GI unless it overloads. The place must be simply bulging the walls. Fred Hare and our AOLA crew have recently been highly commended several times and are again. They need all the support they can get. I think Pac Plan should be revised to get Alex and Dave out there to give Fred a hand without changing anything they’ve got going but put in the Prod Org System. Wonderful to see what our people are doing and what they can do. This and all the good case gains aboard and in the field have me all cheered up!” — The Commodore, January 30, 1971

 
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Overheard in the FreeZone

“Scientology just doesn’t achieve what it promises. It’s a borderline scam. It’s super cool and interesting and mind opening to new ideas and a different way of viewing life too, but Hubbard was outpointy. Many Scios are outpointy. The tech doesn’t cure aberrations or insanity, if anything it exacerbates it. The whole religion you could say handles the wrong why. The why Hubbard sells is engrams, then entities on the higher levels — handle those and the problems don’t go away, because they are the wrong whys. Occasionally they are the right why, so he alters the importance of these targets and says that everyone must do this tech all the time because it will handle everything. Hubbard engages in major alter importance salestalk. His religion was really a political movement taking on the corrupt western world, and possibly a super entertaining game of his to take over earth, which back then I would have supported even if I knew the engram stuff didn’t really work because we need people who are fighting the corrupt system. So I defs like that part of it. Even now if people get involved with the church they learn that big pharma is bad, the gov is not to be trusted, conspiracy theories, etc, etc. This is great stuff. But I’m only a half a Scio now in the same way that I’m half a Christian. I just know too much dodgy stuff about these religions to say I believe in them or fully support them. Hubbard chose Miscavige to assist him, remember that, and Miscavige didn’t have his body taken over by an alien thetan, that’s utterly ridiculous imaginary rubbish which Captain Bill spurts out. So the tech didn’t work on him. In fact the better imagination you have the better the auditing tech works on you. Makes you wonder.”

 
——————–

Past is Prologue

2002: BBC News reported that Tom Cruise took time from promoting his latest movie to lobby the American ambassador to Germany on behalf of Scientology. “He met with US ambassador Dan Coats while in the country promoting his new movie Vanilla Sky with co-star and girlfriend Penelope Cruz. Germany refuses to recognise Scientology as a legitimate church, claiming it is a fake religion based on making money from its followers. Scientology was put under official scrutiny in Germany in 1997, followed by France which outlawed it as a cult. Following Cruise’s hour-long meeting with Mr. Coats the star signed autographs and chatted to embassy staff, who remarked on how friendly and patient he was. Mr. Coats later attended the German premiere of Vanilla Sky, but would not comment on the meeting.”

 
——————–

Random Howdy

“If any kid ever needed a hickory switch it was L Ron Hubbard.

 
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Full Court Press: What we’re watching at the Underground Bunker

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Mistrial declared November 30. Retrial scheduled, jury selection begins March 29.
— ‘Lafayette Ronald Hubbard’ (a/k/a Justin Craig), aggravated assault, plus drug charges: Grand jury indictments include charges from an assault while in custody. Plea deadline scheduled for December 16.
— Jay and Jeff Spina, Medicare fraud: Jay sentenced to 9 years in prison. Jeff scheduled to time served with three years supervised release, restitution of $9.7 million.
— Rizza Islam, Medi-Cal fraud: Trial scheduled for March 1 in Los Angeles
— David Gentile, GPB Capital, fraud: Next pretrial hearing December 9.
— 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. Hearing November 17 to argue the arbitration motions, awaiting ruling.
— 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 at least through February 7.
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Case settled ahead of scheduled Dec 6 trial.
— 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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SCIENTOLOGY: FAIR GAME

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?

 
——————–
THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] We wondered what was in that new Scientology app: Now we know because we got in!
[TWO years ago] Scientology in Russia, a series by historian Chris Owen, part 3: The current crackdown
[THREE years ago] SCIENTOLOGY FORCES RELIGIOUS ARBITRATION ON VALERIE HANEY IN KIDNAPPING LAWSUIT
[FOUR years ago] Scientology targets Disney with anti-‘Aftermath’ rally, attendees number in the tens
[FIVE years ago] A private eye comes clean: ‘Scientology is a disgrace to the world’
[SIX years ago] Putting back a family ripped apart by Scientology can be easier said than done
[SEVEN years ago] L. Ron Hubbard’s magic chalk, and other Scientology miracles at the ’07 Birthday Event
[EIGHT years ago] Another Secret Lives leak: L. Ron Hubbard enjoyed humiliating people under hypnosis
[NINE years ago] Jefferson Hawkins finishes off our series on Scientology ethics with a reprieve
[TEN years ago] Scientology’s Atlanta Drug Rehab Crumbling: Executive Director Mary Rieser Out
[ELEVEN years ago] Death of a Scientologist: Why Annie Broeker, Famous in the Church, Had to Die in Secret

 
——————–

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on January 30, 2023 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

TMZ broke the news earlier today that Lisa Marie Presley was rushed to hospital after what appears to be a cardiac arrest. Now, this evening, it is being reported that she has died. She was 54.

We were hoping to hear news that she had pulled through. The [...]]]>

TMZ broke the news earlier today that Lisa Marie Presley was rushed to hospital after what appears to be a cardiac arrest. Now, this evening, it is being reported that she has died. She was 54.

We were hoping to hear news that she had pulled through. The singer, daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, was seen just Tuesday night at the Golden Globe Awards awards with her mother as they were there to see Austin Butler take home a statue for portraying Elvis.

Lisa Marie was a frequent presence in our pages because of her rather epic journey out of Scientology in 2014, and then the dramatic way she made news during the Danny Masterson trial in November.

While we wait for more news about her condition, we will briefly summarize those stories and direct you to where you can get the full narratives.

Priscilla Presley was lured into Scientology after the death of Elvis in 1977. They were no longer married, but she was still deeply affected by his death and it made her vulnerable to an appeal by John Travolta, according to Travolta’s former Scientology handler, Spanky Taylor.

Priscilla then raised Lisa Marie in Scientology, but then beginning in 2012 we noticed that she was beginning to drop some pretty obvious hints in her lyrics that she was souring on the group. That became even more clear with the release of her album Storm & Grace that year.

That was also the year that Ron Miscavige, father of Scientology leader David Miscavige, made his clever escape from the secretive Scientology headquarters known as Int Base near Hemet, California. A couple of years later, in 2014, Ron attempted to visit his two daughters in Florida, but he was turned away. They had been instructed by their brother David to cut their father out of their lives.

Ron told us this incensed Lisa Marie, with whom he was very close, and she attempted to have showdown over it with Miscavige at Scientology’s “spiritual mecca” in Clearwater, Florida. Rather than show up himself, Miscavige sent his two sisters to hurl abuse at Lisa Marie about their father. Ron told us Lisa Marie then went back to her hotel and announced to the others with her that she was now no longer a Scientologist. Read our full story about this here.

For good measure, she then made sure a hugely critical news story about Miscavige landed in the pages of the Los Angeles Times in 2015.

After that, Lisa Marie got caught up in a years-long and brutal legal battle with her ex-husband, musician Michael Lockwood, and there were reports that she was having more struggles with substance abuse.

Ron told us before he died in 2021 that Lisa Marie had stopped communicating with him.

This year, there was another bombshell involving Lisa Marie and Scientology. During the Danny Masterson trial, prosecutors informed the court that they had asked her to testify because she had been a close friend with Jane Doe 1.

Jane Doe 1 testified that she had been raped by Masterson in 2003, and that she was considering defying Scientology policy and reporting the incident to the police.

Lisa Marie was being asked to testify that Scientology had asked her to dissuade Jane Doe 1 from going to the police.

Deputy DA Reinhold Mueller told the court that Lisa Marie’s attorney had said that if they asked her about that on the stand, he would advise her to take the Fifth Amendment — because it also implicated Lisa Marie in a crime, and not just Scientology. Mueller said he granted her immunity to testify.

But Judge Olmedo ruled that such testimony was more about Scientology than about Danny Masterson and so it didn’t belong in a criminal trial. The prosecutors then chose not to call Lisa Marie at all.

Here’s how we called it that afternoon at the courthouse.

We are very sorry to hear that Lisa Marie has passed away.

Technology Cocktail

“When the Queen asked me to tip my cap and leave England as an insidious and Communist influence intensely disrupting the very best plans of the Home Secretary, I might have gone straight back to America. However, the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C. has never been in better shape. With His Nibs as Executive Administrator the situation is under good control…I have a habit of turning up where I am needed or turning up data when it is needed, and as England is not yet in perfect shape there at Notting Hill Gate and as enough British brass has interceded on my behalf to permit me on occasion to pop into London, it seemed to me that I had better spend my time setting up an emergency station for Scientology in a country that wasn’t likely to get atom bombed. So here I am in Dublin, Eire, ten days and one completed office in operation deep.” — L. Ron Hubbard, 1956

 
——————–

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 as Danny faces a potential sentence of 45 years to life in prison. NOW WITH TRIAL INDEX.

 
——————–

THE PODCAST: How many have you heard?

— The Underground Bunker Podcast

[1] Marc Headley [2] Claire Headley [3] Jeffrey Augustine [4] Bruce Hines [5] Sunny Pereira [6] Pete Griffiths [7] Geoff Levin [8] Patty Moher [9] Marc Headley [10] Jefferson Hawkins [11] Michelle ‘Emma’ Ryan [12] Paulette Cooper [13] Jesse Prince [14] Mark Bunker [15] Jon Atack [16] Mirriam Francis [17] Bruce Hines on MSH

— SPECIAL: The best TV show on Scientology you never got to see

[1] Phil Jones [2] Derek Bloch [3] Carol Nyburg [4] Katrina Reyes [5] Jamie DeWolf

— SPECIAL: Your Proprietor’s updates on the Danny Masterson trial

[1] Sep 21 [2] Sep 28 [3] Oct 4 [4] Oct 10 [5] Oct 11: Day One [6] Oct 12: Day Two [7] Oct 13: Day Three [8] Oct 17: Day Four [9] Oct 18: Day Five [10] Oct 19: Day Six [11] Special interview with Chris Shelton, Oct 19 [12] Oct 20: Day Seven [13] Oct 21: Day Eight [14] First week in review, with Jeffrey Augustine [15] Oct 24: Day Nine [16] Oct 25: Day Ten [17] Oct 27: Day Eleven [18] Oct 28: Day Twelve [19] Second week in review, with Jeffrey Augustine [20] Halloween special [21] Nov 2: Day Thirteen [22] Nov 3: Day Fourteen [23] Nov 4: Day Fifteen [24] Third week in review [25] Nov 5, Saturday special [26] Nov 6, Sunday special [27] Nov 7, Day Sixteen [28] Lisa Marie Presley breaking news [29] Nov 8, Day Seventeen [30] Nov 9, Day Eighteen [31] Nov 10, Day Nineteen

 
——————–

Source Code

“Orgs are in the very new, for this universe, business of setting people free. SPs will find all manner of reasons not to, for this is what they, with their own crimes, fear. Thus it follows that they cut dissem lines, corrupt tech, suppress and confuse orgs, persuade people to be inactive and resort to other shifts, all quite ‘reasonable’ and ‘logical’ as to why this must be the way it is; so be alert to this and go ahead and set people free. It’s done with org services well delivered, on-policy, with standard tech. So just do it, man, do it!” — L. Ron Hubbard, January 13, 1983

 
——————–

Avast, Ye Mateys

“Starboard Watch is assigned Non-Existence for slowness in coming to Fire Drill on 9 Jan 69 and treating it as a joke. The F/MAA is to discover who in Starboard considers drills a joke and throw the joker or jokers overboard, which is a very big joke in this cool weather and cold water.” — The Commodore, January 13, 1969

 
——————–

Overheard in the FreeZone

“Money is what guarantees your survival. With money you can buy a congressman, bribe judges, hire a hitman. Just because a government is run by criminals is no reason to walk away. Ethics needs to be put in. A government that was in ethics and did what was optimum across 8 dynamics would benefit everyone.”

 
——————–

Past is Prologue

1999: Plans were announced this week for John Travolta’s film project Battlefield Earth, based on the book by L. Ron Hubbard. From the Toronto Sun: “‘There are so many things I wish, but I really believe in the joy of life. We are here to enjoy life. And I wish that on people. I want to encourage it and inspire it.’ Earning $20-million-per-movie paycheques assists in his quest to inspire and encourage. So does, he maintains, Scientology. He’s been an often-publicized member of the organization since the ’70s. So, talk about coincidence. Another wish might come true. He might be able do what he’s wanted to do since he became a Scientologist. That is make a movie version of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s 1982 novel, Battlefield Earth. Travolta has yearned to play the alien ruler of Battlefield Earth. The project could cost more than $60 million. And some insiders say that studios are anxious about the Scientology connection, and the prospect of having their very recognizable star dressed as an unrecognizable alien.”

 
——————–

Random Howdy

“I’m still waiting for someone to do the obvious KFC shoop with the KSW and L Ron as the Colonel. Preferably on a bucket.”

 
——————–

Full Court Press: What we’re watching at the Underground Bunker

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Mistrial declared November 30. Status conference scheduled January 10, retrial scheduled March 27.

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. Hearing November 17 to argue the arbitration motions, awaiting ruling.
— 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 at least through February 7.
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Case settled ahead of scheduled Dec 6 trial.
— 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.

 
——————–

SCIENTOLOGY: FAIR GAME

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?

 
——————–
THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] Masterson’s victims, already on edge, have to deal with Danny’s aggressive process servers
[TWO years ago] More social media gold: Post-riot, it’s clear that Scientology is the planet’s only hope!
[THREE years ago] Scientology auditing, infiltrated and explained: The ‘Reckless Ben’ team’s 4th video
[FOUR years ago] How businesses that run on Scientology principles find Scientologist employees
[FIVE years ago] Ten years ago, all hell broke loose for Tom Cruise and the Church of Scientology
[SIX years ago] DONE DEAL: Billboard contract signed for site near Scientology’s Los Angeles ‘Big Blue’ HQ
[SEVEN years ago] DOX: Government disclosure shows extent of Scientology’s reliance on cheap foreign labor
[EIGHT years ago] What Howard Stern should have asked Kirstie Alley about Scientology
[NINE years ago] VIDEO: Scientology’s New Year’s Eve celebration — ‘2014 belongs to us’
[TEN years ago] Did the Headleys And Their Lawsuit Torpedo the FBI Investigation of Scientology?
[ELEVEN years ago] How Scientology Spied on Tom Cruise

 
——————–

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on January 13, 2023 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

 This week, the two sides in the upcoming Danny Masterson rape trial have been arguing over what evidence would be allowed, and which witnesses would be called. Yesterday, Judge Charlaine Olmedo issued some rulings in the case, denying a delay that Masterson had asked for, but also denying an expert witness for the prosecution.

But not [...]]]>

 
This week, the two sides in the upcoming Danny Masterson rape trial have been arguing over what evidence would be allowed, and which witnesses would be called. Yesterday, Judge Charlaine Olmedo issued some rulings in the case, denying a delay that Masterson had asked for, but also denying an expert witness for the prosecution.

But not everything played out in open court before the judge, and we have now learned that there’s a bombshell waiting to go off once the trial starts.

The Underground Bunker has learned that the prosecution has notified Masterson’s defense team that it intends to call Lisa Marie Presley as a witness in the trial.

Before this week, we had been looking into whether Presley might be involved in the case, based in part on what was said at the preliminary hearing held last year, the first time the three alleged victims were allowed to testify.

During her testimony at the preliminary hearing last year, the alleged victim known as Jane Doe 1 referred multiple times to a “Lisa” as a friend. We have now determined that this was, in fact, a reference to Lisa Marie Presley.

“My friend Lisa had someone named Luke who lived and worked with her who was close to Danny…Luke Watson,” Jane Doe 1 testified last year.

Watson and Presley dated briefly in 1998-1999, and they were part of an extended Scientologist clique that included Masterson and Jane Doe 1.

Jane Doe 1 testified that the night of her attack on April 25, 2003, after she had felt suspiciously intoxicated from a drink and Masterson had insisted she get in his jacuzzi, she was feeling ill. At that point, she testified, Watson and Masterson argued over what to do with her as she began saying she needed to throw up.

“It’s better that I do it, really,” Watson told Masterson, she testified. And at that point, Masterson said something that implied Watson understood what might be at stake.

“Oh my God, dude. She is my homie. I wouldn’t. I would never,” Masterson said, according to Jane Doe 1’s testimony.

She said that Masterson then led Jane Doe 1 upstairs to a bathroom in his house. put his finger down her throat, and then showered her off before beginning to sexually assault her while she struggled to remain conscious.

After she was attacked by Masterson, Jane Doe 1 testified that he admonished her not to tell anyone what had happened, including their friend Lisa.

When I first came to, he was saying: “It’s good. You like this. I’ll tell you what you’re not going to do. You — you can do this any time. But you’re not going to tell fucking Paige. You’re not going to tell fucking Lisa. You’re not going to fucking tell anybody.”

At the time of the alleged attack, in 2003, Jane Doe 1 and Presley were both, like Masterson himself, longtime Scientologists who had grown up in the church.

Jane Doe 1 is no longer a Scientologist. And in 2016, we reported that Lisa Marie had made a dramatic exit from the church after trying to confront leader David Miscavige over his treatment of his own father, Ron Miscavige.

But this is the first time that Presley has been publicly connected to this case, and her appearance on the witness stand should turn what already promises to be heavy media coverage into a feeding frenzy.

Masterson, the That ’70s Show actor and Scientology celebrity, is facing charges that he forcibly raped three women, all Scientologists at the time, between 2001 and 2003. He’s been charged under California’s strict “One Strike” law, and if he’s convicted of all three rapes he faces 45 years to life in prison. Jury selection in his trial is scheduled to begin in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

Lisa Marie is, of course, the daughter of Elvis Presley, who wanted nothing to do with Scientology and was vocal about it. But when he died in 1977, his young former wife, Priscilla, was drawn into Scientology at that point after reaching out to John Travolta for help. Lisa Marie was nine years old when her famous father died.

Lisa Marie was then raised in Scientology and became one of its most visible and reliable celebrities. But like Leah Remini, it appears that Lisa Marie’s journey out of Scientology took several years.

In April 2012, we first noticed that she had released a single with lyrics that suggested she was pushing Scientology away. She followed that up with an album a month later that was even more explicit about her split with the church.

That was also the year that Ron Miscavige made his escape from the Sea Org and life working under his own son, Scientology leader David Miscavige. Ron, who died last year, told us that he and Lisa Marie were very close, and she was very concerned about what he was going through.

He told us that he shared with her the shocking news when local police in Wisconsin where he was living told him that they had arrested a private investigator duo who had been surveilling him, and with a small arsenal in their car.

But what really set off Lisa Marie, he told us, was when he attempted to see his two daughters, David Miscavige’s sisters, in Florida, and was told they refused to see him. Ron said that Lisa Marie was incensed that David Miscavige would rip apart his own family, following Scientology’s toxic policy of “disconnection.”

At that point, in October 2014, Lisa Marie went to Scientology’s Flag Land Base in Clearwater, Florida, determined to have a showdown with Miscavige. Instead, he sent his two sisters to have a confrontation with her.

Ron told us that at that point, Lisa Marie said that she stormed out and told her family that she was no longer a Scientologist. Then, she did something that Mike Rinder has just confirmed in his new book, A Billion Years: My Escape from a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology: On behalf of Lisa Marie, Rinder passed along the police reports from the Wisconsin arrest to the Los Angeles Times for a blockbuster story about how David Miscavige was paying private eyes $10,000 a week to follow his own father.

As we said in 2016, Lisa Marie had gone on the warpath with David Miscavige.

But since then, she has gone through a very difficult time, with a rancorous divorce and custody battle, as well as the shocking 2020 suicide of her son Ben Keough, and if she has remained critical of Scientology, it has been difficult to assess.

Now, she may appear in one of the most high profile, contentious events in Scientology history.

We don’t yet know why the prosecution wants to call her, or what she might testify about. But we are anxious to find out.

Technology Cocktail

“OUT-ETHICS: An action or situation in which an individual is involved contrary to the ideals and best interests of his group. An act or situation or relationship contrary to the ethics standards, codes or ideals of the group or other members of the group. An act of omission or commission by an individual that could or has reduced the general effectiveness of a group or its other members. An individual act of omission or commission which impedes the general well-being of a group or impedes it in achieving its goals.” — L. Ron Hubbard, 1972

 
——————–

THE PODCAST: How many have you heard?

— The Underground Bunker Podcast

[1] Marc Headley [2] Claire Headley [3] Jeffrey Augustine [4] Bruce Hines [5] Sunny Pereira [6] Pete Griffiths [7] Geoff Levin [8] Patty Moher [9] Marc Headley [10] Jefferson Hawkins [11] Michelle ‘Emma’ Ryan [12] Paulette Cooper [13] Jesse Prince [14] Mark Bunker [15] Jon Atack

— SPECIAL: The best TV show on Scientology you never got to see

[1] Phil Jones [2] Derek Bloch [3] Carol Nyburg [4] Katrina Reyes [5] Jamie DeWolf

— SPECIAL: Your Proprietor’s updates

[1] Sep 21 [2] Sep 28 [3] Oct 4

— The Underground Bunker Podcast on YouTube

[1] Marc Headley

 
——————–

Source Code

“The most serious barrier that an auditor has to overcome in Security Checking is not necessarily his own case, but a courage in asking . . to ask the questions. You know, that’s kind of a raw, mean, brassy sort of a thing to do. You sit down. Here’s this nice young girl. Everybody knows she’s a virgin. Everybody knows this. And you’re in very good ARC with her and everything is going to go along fine. And then you say to her, crassly and meanly, ‘Have you ever committed any carnal sins of any character or another? Have you ever been to bed in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong man?’ And put it mildly, this is a startling question. But since I’ve started security checking, I haven’t found any virgins.” — L. Ron Hubbard, October 5, 1961

 
——————–

Avast, Ye Mateys

“The LRH Comm Correction Form will be used on any flagrant departures from the standard scene. Not only is it a sign of hat-dump if data is withheld on the grounds that a question is Dev T, it is also a sign of gross hat-dump if the LRH Comm is involved in an excessive amount of running around to get straightforward data. Any action that is Dev T is of course handled as such, and rightly. Getting data is NOT Dev T. Co-ordination requires co-operation.” — LRH Pers Comm, October 5, 1971

 
——————–

Overheard in the FreeZone

“You can’t measure time in years to another universe, it’s another universe outside the time reference of this universe. So basically incident zero occurs in this universe and that’s it. It’s out-ethics to evaluate incidents to run. The processes quite simply run a person into a network of implant stations which programs people into cycles of action operating across the entire tone scale.”

Past is Prologue

1996: Hud Nordin reported a second appearance of the Scientology Chicken on the Conan O’Brien show. “The famous Scientology Chicken, Johnson, made his second appearance on NBC’s Conan O’Brien show, on Tuesday October 8 (broadcast early morning, October 9). The plot was about the same, the animated chicken is invited out to entertain the kids and fails to do anything but harp on L Ron Hubbard, Dianetics and scientology. This time, when pressed, Johnson’s aborted attempt at a story was about a boy named Tom, and a girl named Nicole, and a pie made out of… Scientology berries!”

 
——————–

Random Howdy

“It will take a Snowball of Theta to save the planet from the Hairball of Entheta that is growing bigger in Basement Cat’s belly by the day.”

 
——————–

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: Grand jury indictments include charges from an assault while in custody. Arraigned on August 29.
— Jay and Jeff Spina, Medicare fraud: Jay sentenced to 9 years in prison. Jeff scheduled to be sentenced on Oct 28.

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. Awaiting ruling on arbitration motions.
— 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.
— 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.

 
——————–

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.

SCIENTOLOGY: FAIR GAME

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] US Supreme Court denies Valerie Haney; CA court gets letters on Scientology’s ‘neutrality’
[TWO years ago] SCIENTOLOGY BLACK OPS, Ep 9: Director Paul Haggis responds to a lawsuit’s rape allegations
[THREE years ago] Fight Scientology, and you can end up paying the price for years and years
[FOUR years ago] Buried in US archives, a stunning indictment of Scientology and prediction of the future
[FIVE years ago] Never before seen: Video of a woman moments after achieving superhuman Scientology powers
[SIX years ago] DRONE FLYOVER: Scientology’s secret saucer-looking underground vault in Northern California
[SEVEN years ago] VIDEO LEAK: Scientology’s New Year’s Eve 2006, when Leah Remini was still a front-row celeb!
[EIGHT years ago] Sunday Funnies: Scientology wants your child, even if it’s not yet born!
[NINE years ago] Claire Headley Gets Us Prepped for Scientology’s OT Levels!
[TEN years ago] Oregon Dentist ordered to pay $348,000 after pressuring employee to attend Scientology symposium
[ELEVEN years ago] Johnny Depp and Vanity Fair: Confused About Scientology, Or Just Trolling?

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on October 5, 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

 Lisa Marie Presley and her ex-husband, music producer Michael Lockwood, are scheduled to begin their divorce trial on August 3, and Lockwood has filed a trial brief in which he accuses Presley of using Scientology “Fair Game” tactics against him in the grueling war between the two.

The Blast today posted news of the document, but [...]]]>

 
Lisa Marie Presley and her ex-husband, music producer Michael Lockwood, are scheduled to begin their divorce trial on August 3, and Lockwood has filed a trial brief in which he accuses Presley of using Scientology “Fair Game” tactics against him in the grueling war between the two.

The Blast today posted news of the document, but we thought you’d want to go through it yourself. Much of it is dealing with the details of how the custody-sharing guidelines have been set down; Lockwood is asking the court to award 50-50 custody after a six month increase from the 21 hours a week of time with his twin 11-year-old daughters Harper and Finley that he’s getting now.

We reported in 2016 that Lisa Marie Presley had left Scientology in 2014 after attempting to have a showdown with Scientology leader David Miscavige, something that was reported also by David’s father, Ron Miscavige, in his 2016 book Ruthless: Scientology, My Son David Miscavige, and Me.

In his trial brief Lockwood is saying that Presley, who grew up in Scientology “continues to employ a central principle” of Scientology, namely Fair Game, the practice by the church to harass and attempt to destroy its perceived enemies. That statement is ambiguous about whether Presley has actually gone back into the church since her 2014 split. So is his other allegation, that she called him an “SP” in a text to her daughter Riley. We’ve found plenty of ex-Scientologists who use that terminology.

Anyway, we’re sure the document will spark plenty of debate about whether Lisa Marie is in or out. Here’s the key paragraph…

Petitioner was raised as a Scientologist and continues to employ a central principle of Scientology: “Fair Game” or “Fair Gaming.” Scientologists employ this tactic against perceived enemies to punish and harass them by any means possible (Wikipedia defines “Fair Game” as private investigations, character assassination, and legal action against perceived enemies and states that it is “a core religious practice” of the church)”. Petitioner responded to a text message from her older daughter in May 2016 referring to Respondent as an “SP” (according to Wikipedia, a “Suppressive Person”) by saying “I’ve known this all along I just need to make absolutely sure he won’t get to take ur (sic) sisters every other week n (sic) get joint custody which courts automatically grant! That’s what I’ve been doing all this time.” (Respondent’s Exhibit 1). Various Petitioner’s text messages talk about “a plan.” Consequently, Respondent was followed by private investigators and surveiled, as well as maiigned in the previous DCFS investigation and Dependency Court proceeding without any legitimate basis, and Petitioner continues to assert these debunked allegations.

The document also refers to the July 12 suicide of Presley’s son Benjamin Keough, and suggests that Lisa Marie may be prone to a relapse of her drug addictions because of it.

Petitioner has been in rehabilitation facilities for drug or alcohol issues at least five times and attended outpatient rehabilitation until 2018, but has not participated in a twelve step program. Petitioner admitted that as recently as October 2016 she took 20 to 80 Oxycodone tablets, then used cocaine in order to stop using Oxycodone. Respondent does not know whether Petitioner is sober at this time, but photographs in the media indicate that Petitioner has smoked marijuana and drank beer since her last rehabilitation stint (see Respondent’s Exhibits 64, 56-63) and the strong possibility of relapse exists, especially in light of the most recent events.

The Blast also reported that Lockwood plans to call Leah Remini as a witness to explain Scientology Fair Game to the jury. Um, wow.

Here’s the rest of the document. Let us know what stands out to you…

Presley v. Lockwood: Respondent's Trial Brief by Tony Ortega on Scribd

 
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Source Code

“The Rock has such terrific significances connected with it: violations, survival, not to survive, thisa, thata, the other thing, identifications, cross-references, see file B, see file A 1,002,642, cross-reference Navy Department, you get the idea. Bulletin of War, Space Command, planet Exnoo, figure-figure-figure-figure, think-think-think-think-think-think, figure-figure-figure-figure, thought-thought-thought-thought, thought, significance-significance-significance-significance… And when he looks at this particular piece of matter, energy, space and time which is all it’s conceived of, he doesn’t conceive of matter, energy, space and time. He thinks, Cross-reference: Space Command, 8,000,000,682, general order to all torpedo-men. Following: pursuant to the orders of the admiral… See? Now, this unfortunately cross-references with Order of the Day, Monastery Platitude, Mount Xenu. There shall be peace. Which conflicts with, Dear, I know you are dedicated to holy orders, but I need a new pair of shoes. Which in itself is very vastly in conflict with Order of the Mount: Honor thy father and thy mother. Wait a minute, how’d that get in there? And that’s why the preclear’s so baffled.” — L. Ron Hubbard, July 25, 1958

Overheard in the FreeZone

“An Ethics Court was held on Andy Nolch, conductor of The Indie Scientology Podcast, in absentia, because he is in prison in Australia. Andy’s crime is point 15 of the General Crimes as listed in the first edition of the Introduction to Scientology Ethics book: ’15. Causing severe and disreputable disturbances resulting in disrepute.’ Andy’s previous arrest and the latest incarceration for violation of court orders and on drug possession charges caused severe disturbance and disrepute to the field and to field Scientologists that he interviewed in his podcast. The recommendations are that Andy Nolch should not to be trained or processed on anything other than PTS technology and drug rehabilitation tech. Is assigned the condition of Treason.”

 
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Random Howdy

“I prefer to think of D.M. as Theon Greyjoy.”

 
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Full Court Press: What we’re watching at the Underground Bunker

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Arraignment scheduled for September 18.
— Jay Spina, Medicare fraud: Sentencing is set for August 27 in White Plains, NY
— Hanan and Rizza Islam and other family members, Medi-Cal fraud: Next pretrial conference set for Jan 12 in Los Angeles

Civil litigation:
— Luis and Rocio Garcia v. Scientology: Oral arguments set for August 30 at the Eleventh Circuit
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ Hearing on motion for reconsideration set for August 11
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: Sept 4 (CSI/RTC demurrer against Riales, Masterson demurrer), Oct 7-19 (motions to compel arbitration)
— Jane Doe v. Scientology (in Miami): Jane Doe dismissed the lawsuit on May 15 after the Clearwater Police dropped their criminal investigation of her allegations.
— Matt and Kathy Feschbach bankruptcy appeal: Oral arguments were heard on March 11 in Jacksonville
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Amended complaint filed, trial set for Nov 9, 2021

 
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Scientology’s celebrities, ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and more!

We’ve been building landing pages about David Miscavige’s favorite playthings, including celebrities and ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and we’re hoping you’ll join in and help us gather as much information as we can about them. Head on over and help us with links and photos and comments.

Scientology’s celebrities, from A to Z! Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

Scientology’s ‘Ideal Orgs,’ from one end of the planet to the other! Help us build up pages about each these worldwide locations!

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 our weekly series. How many have you read?

 
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THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] For once, a target of Scientology gladhanding did his homework and said no thanks
[TWO years ago] 50 years ago today, Scientology was banned in the UK — Here’s why it was a bad move
[THREE years ago] The Rathbuns hire a lawyer, and Ray Jeffrey answers questions about his legal salvo
[FOUR years ago] Why does Scientology have no sense of humor? Because seriousness is a sacrament
[FIVE years ago] A video response to Scientology’s crass celebrities, Jenna and Bodhi Elfman
[SIX years ago] Garcia federal fraud lawsuit survives another challenge by Scientology
[SEVEN years ago] Scientologists Warned about Facebook “Entheta” After Leah Remini’s Departure
[EIGHT years ago] Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise’s Split Becomes an Advertisement

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on July 25, 2020 at 21:00

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, 1995-2019 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2019), 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, 14 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

 Yesterday, The Daily Beast published a story written by us that looked at Kelly Preston’s involvement in Scientology. We had talked to numerous former Scientologists with firsthand knowledge about what a “hardcore” and “strict” member of the church Preston was.

An OT 8, Preston would have been “cause over matter, energy, space, and time,” an “operating [...]]]>

 
Yesterday, The Daily Beast published a story written by us that looked at Kelly Preston’s involvement in Scientology. We had talked to numerous former Scientologists with firsthand knowledge about what a “hardcore” and “strict” member of the church Preston was.

An OT 8, Preston would have been “cause over matter, energy, space, and time,” an “operating thetan” with godlike powers.

Sadly, she died of breast cancer on July 12 at the age of 57, and the world learned about it from an Instagram post written by her husband, actor John Travolta.

In the story, we talked to Bruce Hines and Mike Rinder about how common it is for Scientologists to turn to auditing to battle serious ailments while they trust in the “technology” of L. Ron Hubbard.

In his Instagram post, however, Travolta thanked the staff at MD Anderson Cancer Center, suggesting that Preston had sought out legitimate medical treatments for her illness.

Perhaps the most surprising thing in the article, however, was the church’s response: “There is nothing in Scientology that says an individual at any level is impervious to disease, and there is nothing in the religion that says anything about ‘curing cancer.’”

It’s almost like they think we can’t simply look these things up in L. Ron Hubbard’s lectures or something.

Anyway, we not only talked to a lot of people while preparing that piece, we actually gathered more material than we could fit in a story that was focused on Kelly Preston and her Scientology involvement.

There was another angle we worked on that didn’t fit for the The Daily Beast article, and so we thought we’d put it together for a piece here at the Bunker.

At the end of our story, both Spanky Taylor and Karen Pressley pointed to how much tragedy John Travolta has been through, with the loss of his son Jett and his wife Kelly, and they wondered when it would be enough to make him think twice about his involvement in Scientology.

And several of the people we talked to all suggested that actually, there is someone with a close connection to Travolta who might have the influence on him to make him finally break away from the church.

That person is Lisa Marie Presley.

Several former Scientologists who were close to Presley say that she and Travolta share a special bond. They enjoyed getting together for all-night, wine-soaked fat-chewing sessions which Preston, we’re told, didn’t necessarily approve of. Some of these meetings continued to occur even after Presley left Scientology in October 2014.

“Lisa would get drunk with John and tell him about Miscavige,” one of our sources tells us, which we also heard from a completely different friend close to Presley.

We first reported Presley’s 2014 break with church leader David Miscavige at The Underground Bunker in 2016, and Ron Miscavige, David’s father who made a 2012 escape from the Sea Org, also described Presley’s defection in his 2016 book Ruthless: Scientology, My Son David Miscavige, and Me.

Since then, Lisa Marie’s life has gone through the chaos of a messy divorce with fourth husband music producer Michael Lockwood and a custody fight over their 11-year-old twins, Finley and Harper. And most recently, the death of her 27-year-old son Benjamin Keough, who ended his life with a gunshot on July 12 at his mother’s Calabasas estate.

Presley is reportedly inconsolable over the death of her son.

“I think Lisa Marie Presley needs John Travolta right now as much as John Travolta needs Lisa Marie Presley,” Ron Miscavige tells us.

“I had heard that Lisa Marie and John have a connection,” Spanky Taylor tells us. “I was told that she was going to encourage John to see ‘Going Clear.’ I know that she saw it.”

Multiple former Scientologists with close ties to Presley say that in 2015, after her split with the church, she encouraged Travolta to use her house in Hawaii so he could be alone and “be who you are,” Presley told her friends. (She put that house on the market later that year.)

Presley was encouraging Travolta not only to reconsider his position in a church that is notorious for its homophobia, but also to come out publicly.

“Lisa said she told him, ‘Why do you let them control you? You can come out. It’s a different time’,” our source says.

Tom DeVocht is a former top Sea Org official who appeared in the movie “Going Clear,” where he described what it was like to be one of Scientology leader David Miscavige’s closest confidants. We asked him what Miscavige had told him about Travolta.

“Travolta was ‘the faggot.’ In his terms, that’s how he said it,” DeVocht says. “This was when [the 2000 movie] ‘Battlefield Earth’ was being made, and Dave said that Travolta was in a relationship with a producer of the movie. I don’t know if that’s true, but that’s what Miscavige said.”

DeVocht, like the others, points out that Preston was actually the more strict, committed Scientologist of the two, and shielded Travolta from negative information about the church.

Without that influence, will he finally have a real chance to break away?

That’s what we heard from Karen Pressley and many of the others.

“John has lost a son and a wife in relatively close proximity. He’s hurting badly. If Lisa Marie could spend time with John now, she could probably influence him out of Scientology,” she says.

 
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Bonus items from our tipsters

Mark Bunker might like to ask Clearwater Downtown Development Board member Shahab Emrani about kicking in money to finance a new Ideal Org in Hawaii, but the DDB won’t allow it. It’s against the rules!

 
Meanwhile, in swinging London…

 
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Source Code

“I got in a silly cycle. I don’t know, a trillion, trillennia, trillennia, trillennia ago. And every time they had a war, why, I went out. I would either be a pilot in, or commander of, or somebody connected with an interceptor squadron on the outside of the capital. Societies used to last longer than they do now. And it wasn’t anything for a society to go a billion years without much change. But, every time the society would get into trouble, usually with the same adversaries, why, that was the drop of the hat. That was the signal. The whistle had gone and you would go down and snappily report to the Seventeenth Interceptor Squadron, which had in charge of it the protection of the capital, don’t you see? And the enemy would come over and you would take off in an interceptor and you would go up to the center of the airport and you would either shoot down the attacking plane or be shot down and always at the center of the same airport — for a billion years. ” — L. Ron Hubbard, July 20, 1961

 
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Overheard in the FreeZone

“We have auditors who see the Tech as a business, as money making machine and disagree on who is who and what is what. Which Ls are the original, which are the OT levels, etc. We have auditors who invent processes, who acknowledge usurpers, auditors who practice the Code of Silence and cover for each other, who lie. And we also see PCs sometimes who are not qualified or are illegal and are nevertheless audited for the sake of money and later we see the results. Or PCs who just wanted a status but not work hard on the level. Is that the way the independent field is supposed to operate? If so, then those who think so, deserve what they get.”

 
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Random Howdy

“Seeing as how Louanne and vaLLarrr are dead in the head, that makes you the last Internet canary clam in the coal mine, Marco. How’s the 2-pack-a-day anti-cancer therapy working out?”

 
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Full Court Press: What we’re watching at the Underground Bunker

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Arraignment scheduled for September 18.
— Jay Spina, Medicare fraud: Sentencing is set for August 27 in White Plains, NY
— Hanan and Rizza Islam and other family members, Medi-Cal fraud: Next pretrial conference set for Jan 12 in Los Angeles

Civil litigation:
— Luis and Rocio Garcia v. Scientology: Oral arguments set for August 30 at the Eleventh Circuit
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ Hearing on motion for reconsideration set for August 11
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: Sept 4 (CSI/RTC demurrer against Riales, Masterson demurrer), Oct 7-19 (motions to compel arbitration)
— Jane Doe v. Scientology (in Miami): Jane Doe dismissed the lawsuit on May 15 after the Clearwater Police dropped their criminal investigation of her allegations.
— Matt and Kathy Feschbach bankruptcy appeal: Oral arguments were heard on March 11 in Jacksonville
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Amended complaint filed, trial set for Nov 9, 2021

 
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Scientology’s celebrities, ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and more!

We’ve been building landing pages about David Miscavige’s favorite playthings, including celebrities and ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and we’re hoping you’ll join in and help us gather as much information as we can about them. Head on over and help us with links and photos and comments.

Scientology’s celebrities, from A to Z! Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

Scientology’s ‘Ideal Orgs,’ from one end of the planet to the other! Help us build up pages about each these worldwide locations!

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 our weekly series. How many have you read?

 
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THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] Scientology failed to destroy Sylvia DeWall, but its latest letter to her is simply bizarre
[THREE years ago] Tommy Davis’s Hollywood experiment is apparently over as he moves to Splitsville
[FOUR years ago] BILLBOARD UP IN FLORIDA: Scientology ‘disconnection’ on view near Clearwater ‘mecca’
[FIVE years ago] Stacy Murphy is still dead, but Oklahoma gives the Scientology rehab that killed her new life
[SIX years ago] Sunday Funnies: Scientology has only its ‘humanitarians’ to help it refurbish eyesores
[SEVEN years ago] Leah Remini’s Friend, TV’s Michelle Visage, Says Scientologists Are “Scattering Like Roaches”
[EIGHT years ago] Stacy Dawn Murphy, 20: Another Death at Scientology’s Flagship Narconon Drug Treatment Center in Oklahoma
[NINE years ago] Scientology Loves Making Fun of Itself, Apparently

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on July 20, 2020 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, 1995-2019 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2019), 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, 14 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

 We had just finished writing a story late last night about the shocking suicide death of Lisa Marie Presley’s 27-year-old son Benjamin Keough when we were blindsided by the news that Kelly Preston, 57, has died of breast cancer. We didn’t even know she was sick.

Immediately after the news of Keough’s death began to spread [...]]]>

 
We had just finished writing a story late last night about the shocking suicide death of Lisa Marie Presley’s 27-year-old son Benjamin Keough when we were blindsided by the news that Kelly Preston, 57, has died of breast cancer. We didn’t even know she was sick.

Immediately after the news of Keough’s death began to spread yesterday, we were hearing from readers who wanted to know what his involvement in Scientology was, and we have some background on that and a report from a close family friend who tells us that just two months ago they heard Benjamin complaining about how much kids who grew up in Scientology were “fucked up” by it.

Preston’s death, meanwhile, catches us by surprise in part because of the timing. Her husband John Travolta reported in an Instagram post last night that she had been fighting breast cancer for two years, and he thanked the medical team at MD Anderson, a cancer hospital based in Houston but which also has facilities in Arizona, New Jersey, and Jacksonville.

We are not sure what to make of it, but our old friend Clay Irwin snapped a photo of Travolta Thursday night in downtown Clearwater, and we’d been looking for the opportunity do something with it but other stories had come up. Here’s Clay’s photo…

[CORRECTION: Clay now tells us this photo was taken on Friday night July 3, not Thursday July 9]

 
Travolta is a pilot and owns planes that enable him to cross the country at pretty much any time, so he could easily have been with his wife this weekend after being in Clearwater Thursday the week before, so we’ll wait to hear about what transpired the last few days in their lives.

[CORRECTION: Clay tells us this photo was taken a week earlier. This still has us wondering about Travolta being in Clearwater at this time, but it wasn’t so close to Kelly’s death as we originally thought. We regret the error.]

After the death of their son Jett in 2009, Travolta was extremely grief stricken, and we learned later that Scientology put auditors in his home for the next two years to help him get through it — but it was also suspected that they were there to make sure that he didn’t ditch the church after such a traumatic episode.

We can’t help wondering if that helps explain why he might be spending time in Scientology’s spiritual mecca as his wife lay dying. Travolta is a major ornament for Scientology, even if leader David Miscavige doesn’t think of him the way he does his best pal, Tom Cruise. A notorious homophobe, Miscavige nevertheless can’t afford to lose Travolta and have him come out publicly against Scientology, so the church will expend enormous effort to keep him in after this latest blow.

And then there’s the suicide death of a young man who grew up in Scientology.

To put Benjamin Keough’s death in context, allow us to remind you what’s been going on with his mother Lisa Marie Presley and Scientology.

For a 2016 story about Lisa Marie, we developed a source very close to her who told us the incredible tale of how she finally left Scientology for good after attempting to have an October 2014 showdown with church leader David Miscavige at Scientology’s “Spiritual Mecca,” the Flag Land Base in Clearwater, Florida.

Miscavige chickened out and sent his two sisters, Denise and Lori, to face Lisa Marie in his stead. What ensued was a wild scene, our source told us, as Miscavige’s sisters ranted about their own father and brother (Ron Sr. and Ronnie Jr.) in a bizarre screaming session that was somehow intended to convince Lisa Marie that David Miscavige was justified in “disconnecting” from his own dad.

Instead, it had the opposite effect and convinced Lisa Marie to finally and utterly cut ties with David Miscavige and Scientology, which she had been brought up in by her mother Priscilla. When she got back to her hotel that day, she told her family members with her, “I’m no longer a Scientologist.”

It was Lisa Marie, we reported, who then vowed to expose Miscavige, and she did so by having an attorney deliver a police report to the Los Angeles Times. The police report detailed how Miscavige had paid a father-son team of well-armed spies to follow his father Ron in his Wisconsin town. The police report included the detail that when it appeared that Ron began having a heart attack while the spies were tailing him and they asked Miscavige what to do, he told them to do nothing: “If he dies, he dies,” Miscavige reportedly said. The story in the LA Times went off like a nuclear bomb, and until our 2016 piece few knew that it was Lisa Marie who had so deftly made sure it landed with as much impact as possible.

Lisa Marie was going after Miscavige and had pulled her entire family out of Scientology, our source told us. She was loaded for a big fight.

But since then, Lisa Marie’s life turned upside down. She and her fourth husband, music producer Michael Lockwood, have been locked in a bitter divorce and custody fight over their 11-year-old twins, Finley and Harper. Lisa Marie once again went into rehab with a recurring drug addiction, and has now reportedly got clean again. And it was becoming clear, we reported, that actress Riley Keough, Lisa Marie’s daughter, was back in Scientology. (Priscilla, meanwhile, has claimed through representatives that she never left the church, but our source was adamant that Lisa Marie had pulled her mother out with the rest of her family in 2014.)

More recently, we weren’t sure if Lisa Marie herself hadn’t been pulled back in as a result of the tumultuous couple of years she’s been through. But our sources told us they still believed that Lisa Marie had not gone back to Miscavige, and that Lisa Marie seemed to be feeling more confident going into the divorce trial with Lockwood, which is scheduled to begin soon.

But now, our source says, Lisa Marie is inconsolable. Yesterday morning Lisa Marie’s son and Riley’s younger brother Benjamin Keough, 27, ended his life with a firearm in Calabasas, California.

When news of his death started spreading yesterday afternoon, we began receiving questions from readers who wanted to know if Benjamin had been a Scientologist. He was certainly raised in it, just like his sister and his mother and his father Danny Keough, Lisa Marie’s first husband, who is still an ardent church member. And Scientology publications show that Benjamin completed the “Purification Rundown” at the end of 2013.

Another source who was close to the family and specifically Benjamin, having known him since he was four years old, tells us that he was definitely out of Scientology and badmouthed it to his friends. Just this past May, they tell us, “Ben had been talking about how fucked up kids get in Scientology.” They also told us that Ben struggled with alcohol and drugs, and had recently been in rehab (a non-Scientology program), battling his own addictions. This source also points out that Benjamin had been staying at his mother’s home in Calabasas, but we haven’t seen any of the news sources covering this indicate whether he shot himself in his mother’s own home. [UPDATE: This has been confirmed, that Benjamin died at his mother’s estate, but she was apparently not there at the time, thankfully.]

Our original source, who had been very close to Benjamin as a boy, answered the question about his Scientology involvement this way: “The important thing is that the entire family was shaped by Scientology, and it’s paying the price because of it.” They said that Scientology’s involvement in their lives had meant what it does for so many other families: a destabilizing force between parents and children, and of course no chance of proper mental health care.

Lisa Marie had brought her entire family out of Scientology in 2014 after her attempted showdown with Miscavige. We found solid evidence that Riley is associating with Scientology celebrities today, which seemed to confirm what we’d heard, that she was back in. Each of our best sources on the family tells us they have a hard time believing that Lisa Marie herself has gone back to Miscavige after the way she rejected him in 2014, even with the chaos she’s been through in recent years. And our new source tells us that Benjamin, at least, was definitely out of Scientology.

And one thing our original source says they know without any doubt, and that’s Lisa Marie’s connection to her son.

“Ben was her baby. More than Riley. More than the twins. This will be beyond inconceivable for her. I really worry that it might be too much for her,” our source says.

 
——————–

Source Code

“Faith is a very fascinating subject. Faith can be artificially installed. You can take a person as a clinical experiment, hypnotize him and install the Great God Motaw. You tell him that the Great God Motaw is now taking care of his life, safeguarding him, looking after his concerns, will see that the future is all arranged for him, will see that all goes well and that everybody loves him, and will, beyond everything else, give him absolutely correct data every time he asks for it. The Great God Motaw, installed in such a circuit, more or less takes the whole computer, moves it over, and now he has the Great God Motaw sitting there. You can even install it so that the Great God Motaw has sonic, which is strictly hallucination.” — L. Ron Hubbard, July 13, 1950

 
——————–

Overheard in the FreeZone

“You don’t turn someone who is seeking to rehabilitate himself to the authorities. Otherwise, there is no point in being a church, don’t you think? Involving HCO, OSA, etc, that’s perfectly OK and, in fact, expected for the protection of the group and to really get to the bottom of the situation. But the whole idea besides protecting the group first is to rehabilitate. I don’t see how the ‘authorities’ are going to rehabilitate anybody. Throwing somebody in jail and locking the door hasn’t rehabilitated anybody as far as I know. Do you know of anybody who did? There are ways to deal with any situation with the correct Ethics tools and to take full responsibility for scene (with every dynamic involved) without playing the cop. We are ministers, not police officers. We are a Church, not a police enforcement agency.”

 
——————–

Random Howdy

“Scientologists believe that the Narconon treatment can cure you of alcoholism and once completed you can drink in safety again. In fact from what I’ve read they sometimes make you drink before you leave to prove this.”

 
——————–

Full Court Press: What we’re watching at the Underground Bunker

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Arraignment scheduled for September 18.
— Jay Spina, Medicare fraud: Sentencing is set for August 27 in White Plains, NY
— Hanan and Rizza Islam and other family members, Medi-Cal fraud: Next pretrial conference set for January 12 in Los Angeles

Civil litigation:
— Luis and Rocio Garcia v. Scientology: Oral arguments set for August 30 at the Eleventh Circuit
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ Hearing on motion for reconsideration set for August 11
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: Sept 4 (CSI/RTC demurrer against Riales, Masterson demurrer), Oct 7-19 (motions to compel arbitration)
— Jane Doe v. Scientology (in Miami): Jane Doe dismissed the lawsuit on May 15 after the Clearwater Police dropped their criminal investigation of her allegations.
— Matt and Kathy Feschbach bankruptcy appeal: Oral arguments were heard on March 11 in Jacksonville
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Amended complaint filed, trial set for Nov 9, 2021

 
——————–

Scientology’s celebrities, ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and more!

We’ve been building landing pages about David Miscavige’s favorite playthings, including celebrities and ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and we’re hoping you’ll join in and help us gather as much information as we can about them. Head on over and help us with links and photos and comments.

Scientology’s celebrities, from A to Z! Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

Scientology’s ‘Ideal Orgs,’ from one end of the planet to the other! Help us build up pages about each these worldwide locations!

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 our weekly series. How many have you read?

 
——————–

THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] Scientology’s targeting of children is only getting more blatant as the church struggles
[TWO years ago] Scientology scrambles to keep Miscavige out of forced-abortion trial
[THREE years ago] Pastor’s ‘premature’ announcement of July 22 event causes A&E to cancel ‘Aftermath’ taping
[FOUR years ago] Hey, thetan: Scientology has a few questions for you
[FIVE years ago] Hey, Star magazine, why is Tom Cruise afraid of Aussie journo Bryan Seymour?
[SIX years ago] Sunday Funnies: Scientology lets slip the reason it still produces L. Ron Hubbard’s bad fiction
[SEVEN years ago] Leaving Scientology: Jon Atack Navigates the Labyrinth of Paranoia
[EIGHT years ago] Scientology Gets a Smooch from the L.A. Times
[NINE years ago] Scientology’s Spy Program: Anatomy of a Covert Operation

 
——————–

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on July 13, 2020 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, 1995-2019 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2019), 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, 14 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

Dear readers, we find ourselves in an unusual situation, and after several weeks of frustration we’ve decided that writing about it and letting you into what is happening might help us figure out what to do next.

Some time ago we obtained a fairly amazing document.

It is a “Knowledge Report,” [...]]]>

Dear readers, we find ourselves in an unusual situation, and after several weeks of frustration we’ve decided that writing about it and letting you into what is happening might help us figure out what to do next.

Some time ago we obtained a fairly amazing document.

It is a “Knowledge Report,” something that our readers are very familiar with, particularly those who were in the Church of Scientology.

Scientology is a snitching culture. It’s an interrogation culture. And all Scientologists know that if they see someone breaking the rules — even their own loved ones — they are expected to write up a report about it which is known as a “Knowledge Report” or “KR” for short.

Leah Remini has talked about how natural it was, for example, to write a KR about her own husband, turning him in for doing something “out-ethics,” Scientology jargon for doing something against regulations.

Over the years, we’ve shown you many KRs, including some written about Leah Remini by her friends when they realized that she was beginning to slip away from the church.

So, KRs are pretty familiar to us. But this one was truly stunning.

It is a Knowledge Report written by Priscilla Presley around the year 2000, and the person she is turning in for out-ethics is her own daughter, Lisa Marie Presley.

It’s a five page document, and it’s fascinating not only for the things Priscilla accuses her daughter of doing, but that it is so wrapped up in Scientology lingo.

It’s amazing to see Priscilla Presley talking like any other L. Ron Hubbard-obsessed Scientologist about “gains” and “nattering” and “cycles of action” and “things that shouldn’t be.”

At the time, both Lisa Marie and Priscilla were heavily involved in Scientology. (We’ve detailed how Lisa Marie subsequently pulled away from the church and broke away entirely in 2014. We believe that Priscilla also left at that time, but she has denied it in press reports.)

The KR was written during the brief time that Lisa Marie was engaged to musician John Oszajca. Priscilla was still seeing producer Marco Garibaldi (they broke up in 2006).

Priscilla’s concerns are mainly that Lisa Marie is not very loyal, that she is gabby with outsiders and says things that make Priscilla very uncomfortable. In other words, the document seems to mainly reflect the concerns of a mother who is unhappy that her famous child is not more considerate about her feelings.

Nothing in the document is particularly outrageous. We find it mostly interesting because it’s so instructive to see a Scientology celebrity using the Scientology lingo and caught up in the mindset. So often we find that people seem to be under the impression that celebrities involved in Scientology aren’t indoctrinated the way other members are. So this document really addresses that well.

So why don’t we show it to you?

Well, see, that’s where the frustration comes in.

We learned that another news organization also got a copy of this document, and when they approached the church and Priscilla’s representatives for comment, they were singed with angry lawyer letters threatening to sue for invasion of privacy.

We think an invasion of privacy claim would be tough to prove in court for a public person like Priscilla Presley, but we figured it would be a good idea to make our own attempts to get a response from the church and Priscilla’s attorney, Marty Singer.

We have tried, dear readers. We have sent emails to church spokeswoman Karin Pouw and to church attorney Gary Soter. We left a voice message for Soter, making sure his associate understood why we were asking. We did the same with Singer, calling him on his private cell number, as well as leaving messages with his office.

The response? Nothing. No callbacks. No emails. No angry letters threatening to sue us over publishing this document.

We’re feeling stuck. It’s difficult for us to publish a document knowing that Priscilla has threatened another organization with a lawsuit over it. Would she sue us? We just don’t know — her attorney won’t get back to us.

Got any suggestions?

 
——————–

Bonus items from our tipsters

Meanwhile, in Canada…

 
——————–

Source Code

“You know, a fellow’s walking down the street and a thought flashes through his mind that maybe some of his behavior is not entirely masculine, maybe it is slightly effeminate. In other words, the datum is there ‘Maybe I’m a girl.’ Well, it’s, you see, it’s very nebulous. You know, maybe he’s just playing a game with himself of worry, something. We come along, we pat him on the shoulder, he tells us what he’s worried about. We don’t even have to tell him ‘You’re not a girl,’ see? I mean, he just tells us what he was worried about, he — boom! See, it’s gone that quick.” — L. Ron Hubbard, October 25, 1956

 
——————–

Overheard in the FreeZone

“You know, with more and more of us dying and coming back (Revenimus?), I wonder if you could actually get away with a business catering to this need? Somebody’d have to store your crap for a couple of decades, and then you’d have to give your passphrase to get it back. ‘Theta-Store Inc.’ Motto: ‘We got your crap. Come get it back.’ Yeah, I’m definitely on to something here!”

 
——————–

Random Howdy

“I’ll have you know I read each and every comment very carefully and that there are a myriad of reasons for why I may upvote them…or not.”

 
——————–

Scientology’s celebrities, ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and more!

We’ve been building landing pages about David Miscavige’s favorite playthings, including celebrities and ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and we’re hoping you’ll join in and help us gather as much information as we can about them. Head on over and help us with links and photos and comments.

Scientology’s celebrities, from A to Z! Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

Scientology’s ‘Ideal Orgs,’ from one end of the planet to the other! Help us build up pages about each these worldwide locations!

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 our weekly series. How many have you read?

 
——————–

THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] A Scientology ‘Fair Game’ tactic from way back: Sexually degrading harassment
[TWO years ago] Chris Owen: How one country, at least, is savaging Scientology’s privacy nightmare
[THREE years ago] Until the spaceships arrive, Scientologists measure cosmic success in framed glory
[FOUR years ago] Jon Atack: Scientology’s ‘past lives’ don’t pass the giggle test
[FIVE years ago] Jon Atack: Scientology and hypnotism — even some ex-members can’t admit its central role
[SIX years ago] Scientology Moves to Dismiss Garcia Fraud Lawsuit On a Question of Jurisdiction
[SEVEN years ago] Tom Cruise Sues, UK Scientologists Sue, Narconon Is Sued: It’s a Legal Free-For-All!!
[EIGHT years ago] Scientology Responds in Typical Fashion to South Park Investigation Documents
[TEN years ago] ‘Crash’ Director Paul Haggis Ditches Scientology

 
——————–

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on October 25, 2019 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, 1995-2018 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2018), 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, 14 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

In 2016, we had a wild story to tell you about Lisa Marie Presley. Through excellent sourcing, we learned that not only had Lisa Marie distanced herself from the Scientology she had grown up in, but she attempted to have a personal showdown with Scientology leader David Miscavige in [...]]]>

In 2016, we had a wild story to tell you about Lisa Marie Presley. Through excellent sourcing, we learned that not only had Lisa Marie distanced herself from the Scientology she had grown up in, but she attempted to have a personal showdown with Scientology leader David Miscavige in Florida in October 2014.

He chickened out of that encounter, sending his two sisters instead, which resulted in an explosive confrontation between the two Miscavige women and Lisa Marie, who was shocked to be treated that way in Scientology’s spiritual mecca, the Flag Land Base in Clearwater, Florida.

She went back to her hotel that day and told her family that she was no longer a Scientologist.

Lisa Marie had actually been pulling away from Scientology for years by then. In 2012, we noted that lyrics in an album she put out that year seemed pretty unambiguous about how she was pushing her Scientology handlers away.

And our sources were also very clear that after that attempted confrontation in 2014, Lisa Marie walked away from Scientology with her mother, Priscilla Presley, and her older daughter, Riley Keough.

But soon after that, Lisa Marie’s life went into turmoil. As she has revealed recently, she fell victim to a severe opioid addiction, and she also went through a hellish divorce with Michael Lockwood that had them fighting in court over her finances. She ended up doing very well in court and seems to be past her addiction problems, and also, she has said, she is now getting therapy.

And that’s one of the reasons we believe that she, and her mother, are still out of Scientology despite some rumors to the contrary.

But not long after our 2016 story, we did begin hearing that Riley Keough had slipped back into Scientology. And now, we’ve seen some photographs which strongly suggest that is the case.

Riley just turned 30 and she’s having a great career as an actress. (We thought she was terrific in the 2018 HBO film Paterno.) And, as a young actress, she naturally has a pretty healthy Instagram thing going on.

Here she is with one of her closest friends, Jadan Huter, from Jadan’s Instagram account…

 
And here’s another one of the two of them from Riley’s account…

 
And here, clearly, is another photo from the same location, on Jadan’s account, which not only includes the two of them but also, on the right, actress Alanna Masterson, whose character was recently killed off from The Walking Dead.

 
Now, it’s probably not unusual that a couple of young, successful actresses like Riley Keough and Alanna Masterson are spending a vacation together, except when you factor in that Alanna is a hardcore Scientologist who is so dedicated to the church she disconnected from her own father, former Scientologist and Australian rugby star, Joe Reaiche. (She’s also the younger half-sister of Danny Masterson.)

So our sources are telling us that Riley spending time with Alanna and posing for photos with her that she probably knew would be posted on Instagram is a pretty sure sign that she’s back in the church.

What a bummer.

 
——————–

HowdyCon 2019 in Los Angeles

THURSDAY NIGHT OPPORTUNITY: This year’s HowdyCon is in Los Angeles. People tend to come in starting on Thursday, and that evening we will have a casual get-together at a watering hole. But we also want to point out that Cathy Schenkelberg’s “Squeeze My Cans” will be running at the Hollywood Fringe, and we encourage HowdyCon attendees to see her show on Thursday night, June 20. Tickets and more dates available here.

Friday night June 21 we will be having an event in a theater (like we did on Saturday night last year in Chicago). There will not be a charge to attend this event, but if you want to attend, you need to RSVP with your proprietor at tonyo94 AT gmail.

On Saturday, we are joining forces with Janis Gillham Grady, who is having a reunion in honor of the late Bill Franks. Originally, we thought this event might take place in Riverside, but instead it’s in the Los Angeles area. If you wish to attend the reunion, you will need to RSVP with Janis (janisgrady AT gmail), and there will be a small contribution she’s asking for in order to help cover her costs.

HOTEL: Janis tells us she’s worked out a deal with Hampton Inn and Suites, at 7501 North Glenoaks Blvd, Burbank, (818) 768-1106. We have a $159 nightly rate for June 19 to 22. Note: You need to ask for the “family reunion” special rate.

 
——————–

Scientology’s celebrities, ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and more!

We’ve been building landing pages about David Miscavige’s favorite playthings, including celebrities and ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and we’re hoping you’ll join in and help us gather as much information as we can about them. Head on over and help us with links and photos and comments.

Scientology’s celebrities, from A to Z! Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

Scientology’s ‘Ideal Orgs,’ from one end of the planet to the other! Help us build up pages about each these worldwide locations!

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 our weekly series. How many have you read?

 
——————–

THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] Testimony by the World’s First Real Clear, part two: ‘Scientology is designed to entrap people’
[TWO years ago] Leah Remini’s ‘Troublemaker’ will become a Lifetime movie: Who plays Tom Cruise?
[THREE years ago] NAFC names David Miscavige a witness in Scientology trial scheduled for October
[FOUR years ago] When Tom Cruise was one of Scientology’s biggest donors: A look back
[FIVE years ago] Ryan Hamilton makes it an even dozen federal lawsuits against Scientology’s rehab network

 
——————–

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on June 7, 2019 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, 1995-2018 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2018), 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, ten 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

 After the airing of the HBO documentary Leaving Neverland, we’ve been getting questions from readers about one of the odd moments in the film: The Gloved One’s marriage to Lisa Marie Presley in 1994, and whether it had anything to do with Scientology.

When the two got together, Jackson needed to counter his image problems after [...]]]>

 
After the airing of the HBO documentary Leaving Neverland, we’ve been getting questions from readers about one of the odd moments in the film: The Gloved One’s marriage to Lisa Marie Presley in 1994, and whether it had anything to do with Scientology.

When the two got together, Jackson needed to counter his image problems after a 1993 civil court accusation that he’d molested an 11-year-old boy, which he made go away with a $15 million settlement.

“I believed he didn’t do anything wrong, and that he was wrongly accused and, yes, I started falling for him,” Lisa Marie said for a book in 2003. “I wanted to save him. I felt that I could do it.”

Lisa Marie had been brought up in Scientology, and “saving” Michael meant getting him down to the Hollywood Celebrity Centre to introduce him to the ideas of L. Ron Hubbard.

And soon after their marriage, that’s exactly what she did.

Sunny Pereira worked there at the time, and had been stationed as a “Staff Section Officer,” she tells us, which put her in charge of training and processing the Celebrity Centre staff.

“I was supervising people through courses, like a teacher, guiding them through their checksheets and doing auditing sessions on people,” she tells us.

By 1994, Sunny was only 21 but had already spent seven years in the Sea Org after signing its billion-year contract and working around the clock, 365 days a year.

Now she was in a position of some authority at one of the most prestigious locations in the Scientology world, and it was her job to make sure the staff was operating at peak efficiency.

We asked her for an example, and she told us about one of the “registrars” on the staff who wasn’t keeping up with her workload. Registrars, or “regges,” spend all day trying to convince Scientologists to sign up for auditing and fork over huge amounts of money. It’s one of the highest-pressure jobs in the building. And each morning, for a couple of hours, it was Sunny’s job to interrogate this woman to find out why she wasn’t keeping up with her financial quotas.

It was a demanding job, but it gave her a pretty unique perch to see how Scientology was dealing with its celebrities.

“Soon after Lisa Marie got married to Michael, she came into the org and talked to the President, Karen Hollander,” she tells us.

“The next thing I know, the Celebrity Centre was on lockdown. And the President’s wing was completely locked up for three days.”

The staff soon came to realize that Michael Jackson himself was in the building, and for three days Hollander and her inner staff took their shot at enlightening him on Scientology.

“Nobody could go in or out of the President’s office. Normally it’s open and I could go in there and talk to President’s Office staff as part of my job. But they have a way to lock down three floors and close the security gate of the parking lot,” Sunny says. “So that would provide a secure path through the underground parking garage directly to the President’s office on the first floor, without being seen.

“It was the only lockdown we ever had for a celebrity in the ten years I was there,” she says.

As part of the normal routine, Celebrity Centre staff were mustered three times a day, after each meal. The purpose was to update the staff on goings on and to give a pep talk to the staff. At one of these, the Commanding Officer Dave Petit informed everyone that Lisa Marie Presley had brought a special guest.

“We all knew it was Michael Jackson,” Sunny says.

Sunny added that under normal circumstances Scientology would have hesitated to allow a member to enroll in services with allegations of the nature that Michael Jackson was facing at the time. Scientology would have considered it a risk to get involved with him. However, she points out, Scientology always has loopholes.

But even with three days to work on him, President Hollander and her staff apparently didn’t have long term success with Jackson, who had been raised Jehovah’s Witness.

Sunny says she she didn’t see any evidence that he returned after those three days, and on January 18, 1996, Lisa Marie filed for divorce — under heavy pressure from the church, our sources close to her tell us.

 
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HowdyCon 2019 in Los Angeles

This year’s HowdyCon is in Los Angeles. People tend to come in starting on Thursday, and that evening we will have a casual get-together at a watering hole. We have something in mind, but for now we’re not giving out information about it.

Friday night we will be having an event in a theater (like we did on Saturday night last year in Chicago). There will not be a charge to attend this event, but if you want to attend, you need to RSVP with your proprietor at tonyo94 AT gmail.

On Saturday, we are joining forces with Janis Gillham Grady, who is having a reunion in honor of the late Bill Franks. Originally, we thought this event might take place in Riverside, but instead it’s in the Los Angeles area. If you wish to attend the reunion, you will need to RSVP with Janis (janisgrady AT gmail), and there will be a small contribution she’s asking for in order to help cover her costs.

HOTEL: Janis tells us she’s worked out a deal with Hampton Inn and Suites, at 7501 North Glenoaks Blvd, Burbank, (818) 768-1106. We have a $159 nightly rate for June 19 to 22.

 
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Scientology’s celebrities, ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and more!

We’ve been building landing pages about David Miscavige’s favorite playthings, including celebrities and ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and we’re hoping you’ll join in and help us gather as much information as we can about them. Head on over and help us with links and photos and comments.

Scientology’s celebrities, from A to Z! Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

Scientology’s ‘Ideal Orgs,’ from one end of the planet to the other! Help us build up pages about each these worldwide locations!

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 our weekly series. How many have you read?

 
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THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] Noted Scientology critic Arnie Lerma shoots and injures wife, then kills himself
[TWO years ago] Scientology goes into full smear mode in reaction to Leah Remini getting 2nd season
[THREE years ago] Monique Rathbun waives a response: Will the TX Supreme Court take up Scientology’s appeal?
[FOUR years ago] Another ‘Secret Lives’ outtake: The neighbor who knew L. Ron Hubbard and his first wife
[FIVE years ago] DOX: Monique Rathbun’s response to bid by Scientology to stop the Miscavige deposition
[SIX years ago] Former Executive’s Tell-All Adds to Scientology Rehab Program Meltdown
[SEVEN years ago] Scientology Sunday Funnies: RON the Encyclopedia — Get Yours Now!

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on March 18, 2019 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, 1995-2018 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2018), 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, ten 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