Louise Shekter &#8211; The Underground Bunker

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?

[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

——————–

“The possession of an object is necessary to its handling and control. The ability to have something is necessary to its nullification. In other words, if you want to take the danger out of something, you’d better be able to have it. Don’t try to stretch away and run away to the other end of Earth because some machine is going whirr-clang. Because there’s a guillotine somewhere that is going whirr-clang is no reason that you have to go to south Borneo. It might be if you’re trying to play the game of preserve the body, preserve the body, preserve the body, to take the body there. But I assure you, that if you run away from a guillotine, the next time you get beheaded it’ll hurt like hell. But if you didn’t run away from the guillotine there’s a distinct possibility that the guillotine wouldn’t clang. If it did it wouldn’t hurt. First, if it did clang it wouldn’t hurt, or it wouldn’t even drop, or it would disappear, or you probably have the ability to simply mock up a body someplace else. In other words, you could vanish if you could be there. But not if you ran away.” — L. Ron Hubbard, March 25, 1957

——————–

“WEDDING: The Wedding of Diana Hubbard and Jon Horwich went off beautifully. The reception at the hotel was extremely nice. They will go on a honeymoon to the states on April 15. It is planned to have a second ceremony at Jon Horwich’s home. PARTY: There will be a party with the same band aboard on the evening of 3 April for those who did not attend the reception yesterday evening.” — The Commodore, March 25, 1971

——————–

“Scientology was created for the most part by one person, and it’s the first technology of its kind and only one to truly make people’s lives better. Any other form of therapy or knowledge is limited in its application whereas Scientology has few limits. When one tries to accept changes to the tech, we’re dealing then with other people’s realities and cases dependent on where they are on the Tone Scale and how much training they themselves have had. LRH spent thirty years developing, trying, and testing Scientology. It is a study of the human mind. Altering it means changing that which works to that which MIGHT work. It’s not practical when we have the answers in front of us.”

——————–

2000: Mrshowbiz published an interview with Scientology celebrity Jenna Elfman this week. “My husband has been a Scientologist for years, and I kept hearing him talk about Dianetics. And I said, ‘What is Dianetics?’ So he gave me the book. And he said there’s a course you can take and you just have to read parts of it. And then one day I ran into a situation that made me like, frazzled. I was spending the night at my now-husband, boyfriend-at-the-time’s house. I was so used to the alarm that it didn’t wake me up, and I woke up an hour and a half after I was supposed to be there. I got in the car and I was all frazzled and starting to cry and was rushed, and I couldn’t think. Then I went, Wait a minute — that’s purely reactive and insane. Look, you’re in the car, you can’t get there any faster. So just turn the music on, enjoy. And I went da-da-da, da-da-da and got a lot more analytical about the situation. When I got there, I said, ‘I’m very sorry I’m late. The alarm didn’t wake me up.’ And they said, ‘That’s fine. We’re not going to get to you for another few hours.’ Like, wow! I went, This is great. It’s just very simple: Scientology helps me live my life better.”

——————–

“You know, I actually try not to swear on here. And If I’m in mixed company I try to do the same. Even though I’m an old punk I do have fairly good manners, and I have the scars from my mother’s fingernails digging into the fleshy part of my arm when I didn’t to prove it.”

——————–

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. Next pretrial hearing: Feb 16.

— ‘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 Feb 13.
— Rizza Islam, Medi-Cal fraud: Trial scheduled for March 1 in Los Angeles
— David Gentile, GPB Capital, fraud: Next status conference Feb 13.

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: March 15, 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.
— 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.

——————–

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.

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.

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] Danny Masterson accusers to CA Supremes: Stop Scientology from harming Valerie Haney!
[TWO years ago] Another records request from Scientology shows how Mark Bunker drives them nuts
[THREE years ago] The million-dollar donors keeping Scientology flush, New Year’s 2020 edition
[FOUR years ago] Scientology, naturally, is trying to capitalize on the New Zealand mosque massacre
[FIVE years ago] The Ideal Org grift isn’t complete until Scientology’s ‘Birthday Game’ is won
[SIX years ago] ‘God of Pop’ Kuba Ka on meeting Scientology’s David Miscavige: ‘Like an emperor or the Pope’
[SEVEN years ago] Attorney for Scientology’s drug rehab centers threatens lawyer running anti-Narconon website
[EIGHT years ago] ‘Going Clear’: Marty Rathbun on what he was thinking during his key moment in Gibney’s film
[NINE years ago] Lawyer Vance Woodward sues Scientology over his time in the church — here’s the complaint
[TEN years ago] A SMERSH Madness Update: Time for the Bracket Finals to Begin!
[ELEVEN years ago] Scientology Sunday Funnies: RON the Encyclopedia — THE VIDEO!

——————–

Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley (1952-2019) did not see his daughter Stephanie in his final 5,667 days.
Valerie Haney has not seen her mother Lynne in 2,979 days.
Katrina Reyes has not seen her mother Yelena in 3,484 days
Sylvia Wagner DeWall has not seen her brother Randy in 3,034 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his grandson Leo in 2,024 days.
Geoff Levin has not seen his son Collin and daughter Savannah in 1,915 days.
Christie Collbran has not seen her mother Liz King in 5,219 days.
Clarissa Adams has not seen her parents Walter and Irmin Huber in 3,090 days.
Doug Kramer has not seen his parents Linda and Norm in 2,195 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 4,672 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 3,984 days.
Dylan Gill has not seen his father Russell in 12,550 days.
Melissa Paris has not seen her father Jean-Francois in 8,469 days.
Valeska Paris has not seen her brother Raphael in 4,637 days.
Mirriam Francis has not seen her brother Ben in 4,218 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 4,479 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 3,515 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy and daughter Jessica in 3,231 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 2,795 days.
Julian Wain has not seen his brother Joseph or mother Susan in 1,110 days.
Charley Updegrove has not seen his son Toby in 2,285 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 6,836 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 3,967 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 4,305 days.
Roger Weller has not seen his daughter Alyssa in 9,160 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 4,279 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 2,635 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin and daughter Taryn in 6,938 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 3,044 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis in 3,442 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 3,318 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 2,901 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike and daughter Emily in 3,396 days.
Mary Jane Barry has not seen her daughter Samantha in 3,650 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 14,759 days.

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on March 25, 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, 1995-2022 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2022), 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

What Scientology’s nutty ‘OT 3’ — the Xenu tale — taught one member about Sea Org slavery

Louise Shekter — Fri, 03 Jun 2022 11:00:15 +0000

[An artist’s conception of Xenu from HBO’s ‘Going Clear’]

Summer 1984, Advanced Org Los Angeles. Alone in the small study room, heart pounding, mind overflowing with anticipation, I flipped open the folder containing the auditing instructions for OT 3, the secret level of Scientology known as the “Wall of Fire.” Finally, finally, after sixteen years in Scientology, ten of which were spent toiling as a devoted Sea Org member, all was revealed. This was the ultimate reward for my service. Sadly, it did not come while I was actually in the Sea Org. I had been on an extended leave of absence since 1979, and now five years later I was paying for my OT levels as a public Scientologist.

The first surprise was that the top page, entitled simply “Data (1)” and undated, was in L. Ron Hubbard’s own handwriting. Of that, there could be no doubt. I was intimately familiar with the elongated, oversize flowering scrawl filling the foolscap pages, as if the writing was too big for the page, the same way the man himself was larger than life. For five years on the Flagship Apollo, in my capacity as one of LRH’s personal Staff Aides, I had been the recipient of frequent handwritten communications from “the Commodore” as he was called in the Sea Org. Sometimes these were “despatches” – handwritten orders – addressed to me, filling entire pages. Often, he added a few notes at the bottom of one of my own proposals, with a “Very Well Done” from him being the absolute prize. On occasion a Daily Report from a crew member was forwarded to me, annotated by him for further action.

I had been fond of the old man. It pleased me to see his handwriting again. It was an instant throwback to the early seventies. My last in-person conversation with him was back in November 1975 in Florida, nearly ten years prior. But in these words on the page, it now seemed as if he was writing to me personally, once again. A flood of recollections and emotions came washing over me.

________

The second, and far more astonishing surprise, was the content of this OT 3 material. He was telling a fantastical space opera tale which seemed straight out of Star Wars, although I knew that the OT III material had been written a decade before that famous epic first hit the theaters in 1977. I also knew of course that LRH had been a science fiction writer before developing Dianetics and Scientology. But this time he was, it seemed, deathly serious.

When I first read the OT 3 story, and learned of the existence of body thetans, the unseen victims of this mass implant tragedy of 75 million years ago, I approached it with suspended disbelief. I now know that there are some who, upon reading the materials, abruptly walk out on Scientology never to look back. But that was not me. I was in way too deep by that point. I now think that it was my years-long personal relationship with Hubbard, and my ten years in the Sea Org, which led me to give him the benefit of the doubt, until I could try out for myself the auditing he prescribed. I had no information to indicate that anything Hubbard had said or done was fraudulent in either purpose or execution. We knew nothing then about his shady past and fake biographical stories. Even though contrary and negative information had been available before the Internet in a few books and emerging court case records, never would I have even been admitted onto the OT levels in the first place if I had been poking around anti-Scientology sources.

What I knew of LRH was the man with whom I engaged personally on a daily basis for five years, save when he was away from his ship between December 1972 and September 1973. He was larger than life, charismatic, and he was like a father figure to me, generally kind and cheerful in his public persona, even though on occasion we could hear his temper flare through the glass doors of his office. I knew he cared, and he was deeply engaged in supervising the auditing which went on aboard ship.

I had no reason to suspect duplicity, deliberate fabrication, or madness. All of that would come later, much later.

I also knew of Scientology what I had myself experienced through auditing and training. I had achieved what I considered a few undeniable gains in my past auditing. I had studied the basics of the lower levels of the subject, and found them credible and scientific sounding. Who was to argue against the importance of communication skills, or the goal of a Clear, a human mind relieved of its aberrations?

So I dutifully audited my OT 3 level without trouble. I mentally scanned areas of my body as instructed, until I felt an area of pressure or pain, and yes (of course!) the meter read on those. Then I ran Incident 2 and Incident 1 as instructed. The meter reads were small and not always reliable but I plowed through it. When it was over I attested to “no more BTs.” The materials do not give any other end result, but LRH does say laconically about the BTs, “They hold you back.” Yes, I did feel lighter somehow.

But soon, on the long drive home to Canada, I was worried that I suddenly felt more BTs around me. Had I maybe missed a few and attested prematurely? Would I be affected by these foreign entities warping my thinking and behavior, now that I knew of their existence? I mentioned none of this to my husband, who had also earlier completed the level, since it was even too secret to be discussed aloud with one’s partner. Eventually, I settled down and resolutely asserted to myself that, BTs or no BTs, I was responsible for my thoughts and actions. I left OT 3 behind me. Little did I know that I need not have worried about having falsely attested. In the ensuing years, all subsequent OT levels would be concerned with auditing and getting rid of yet more BTs.

_________

The third surprise, the one that hit me right in the gut, the one that would soon turn my life on its head, was this statement:

“When through with his crime, loyal officers (to the people) captured him after six years of battle and put him in an electronic mountain trap where he still is”. [Emphasis mine]

The “him,” the object of this sentence, was the Galactic Lord named Xenu, ruler of the Confederation of 76 planets, the evildoer who had “solved” overpopulation 75 million years ago in this sector of the galaxy by electronically implanting millions of beings with false information and then packaging them and bringing them to Earth, making our planet the ultimate dump site for captive, mentally damaged and incapacitated spirits.

Loyal Officers. This was the first time I ever heard the term.

So this, at last, was what the Sea Org was all about. I had already dedicated an entire decade of my life, from 1969 to 1979, to serving diligently, almost fanatically, in the Sea Org, without ever knowing of the existence of the Xenu story, and as I now realized, without full knowledge of what the Sea Org was actually about. But suddenly, it all made sense to me, on a very personal level. Put simply, the Sea Org was a band of returned Loyal Officers. That explained its familiar motto, “We Come Back.”

We, the loyal officers, had come back to help LRH, through safeguarding and delivering the OT levels, to rid this planet of its curse. That was also the meaning of the Sea Org’s stated purpose of “putting in ethics.” This was for me the major life changing result of doing OT 3, far more than the auditing itself.

The ramifications of this origin story were astounding, on a personal level. In the story, Xenu is representative of established authority, whereas we the loyal officers are loyal to the people who were being oppressed by the regime, and we are fighting the malevolent authorities on their behalf.

This positioning provided immediate relief from any concern we might have had, as Sea Org members, about the numerous enemies of Scientology among the authorities, be they government or mental health. In this origin story, Xenu is representative of established political authority, whereas we the loyal officers are loyal to the people who were being oppressed by the regime, and we are fighting the malevolent authorities on their behalf. We were the underdogs. And we were the good guys. That was reassuring, given my five years living on a ship which had been harassed and chased away from country to country as undesirable, to the point of being stoned by an angry mob in Madeira.

The Xenu story also explained how it was that I had been allowed to join the Sea Org right off the street and been promptly sent to Flag. Once there, I received no particular indoctrination into the purpose or mission of the Sea Org. It was assumed that if I had somehow found my way there, then I belonged there, despite the fact that I was not privy to the OT III story. “A being knows” was a common saying in the Sea Org. I may not have known it, as the term was never used in the Sea Org due to its confidential nature, but I was a Loyal Officer, and I had found my way home.

__________

Astonishing as it may seem now, two years later I rejoined the Sea Org after a seven year absence, this time at the so-called Int Base in Hemet, which had since become the pinnacle of the Scientology world. This was the result of a confluence of factors, itself quite a story.

It then took four years of intense abuse, physical, emotional and mental, inflicted on me and my two children, before the whole edifice finally collapsed like a house of cards, and I was strong enough to dare to literally walk out on the Sea Org, and eventually, to reject the whole belief system of Scientology.

One day, sometime after I had left the Sea Org, I suddenly realized that Scientology is actually a cult of demonic possession. Obviously and undeniably. That was the end of it for me. As a lapsed Catholic, I knew that the faith of my childhood had shed its obsession with exorcising demons, and the evil deeds arising from that belief, long ago back in the Middle Ages. Why would I want to believe such medieval nonsense?

As for the Sea Org, here I had been once again operating as an executive right at the top of the totem pole, and I saw that it was populated by fanatics. Loyal officer or no, I could no longer countenance participating in the evils of this group. I will have much more to say about these tumultuous four years between 1986 and 1990, which culminated in my break from the Sea Org, although my life would remain captive for another decade for the love of my children. It has been a very long road to freedom.

Now, at last clear of eye and free of mind, I have come to regard the Sea Org as a modern day secret society. Its most shocking and reprehensible aspect, for me, is the fact that the bulk of today’s Sea Org members, most of whom have not had the opportunity to reach OT 3, are actively denied the opportunity to learn the true nature of the group to which they are devoting their lives. Just like I was.

— Louise Shekter

——————–

Sign up for a daily email when we post a new story on Scientology.

Did you know you can get an email every morning when we post our daily Scientology story? We know some of the folks who come to the Underground Bunker aren’t here to talk about the politics of the day, and that’s why we created a daily politics feature over at our other blog, The Lowdown, and we ask readers to take their political discussions over there. And if you drop us a line at tonyo94 AT gmail, we’ll put you on the list so you get a morning reminder that a new Scientology story has been posted — and only for our Scientology stories.

——————–

“One of the things which I am very pleased to announce immediately is that we have seldom failed in recent months to raise the intelligence quotient of any individual undergoing 25 hours of processing, at least 10 points. And for those who have undergone as much as 75 hours of processing, we have raised it as much as 35 points and consider it routine 25 points. This is something that has never happened before, and therefore it is an important thing that we take a look at this. According to psychology, this is an impossibility — completely impossible.” — L. Ron Hubbard, June 3, 1955

——————–

“Commodore’s Transport is transferred to Div IV, Transport Section. Ship’s boats, all cars aboard are included in its activities. Des Popham and Arthur Hubbard are transferred to this Transport Section. The 1st Mate is now responsible for care and routine checks on vehicles as well as lifeboats, their lowering gear, sleds and motor handling.” — The Commodore, June 3, 1970

——————–

“We have made it clear from the onset that we are Scientologists who are all about Ron’s brand. If people want to hear lies about the Founder, or natter about other Scientologists or staff — then this is not the place to frequent. If they do want to hear about standard delivery in the field, the training of auditors, the unsnarling of out-tech, and the resolution and debunking of technical and administrative arbitraries, then yes, we can provide information.”

——————–

1998: Scientology attorney Kendrick Moxon threatened ex-member Charlotte Kates this week, accusing her of keeping a copy of the Philadelphia org’s mailing list. “At a time when you were acting for the Church of Scientology of Pennsylvania, you received a copy of the Church’s mailing list of parishioners for the purpose of inputting it into a computer for the Church’s use. Thereafter, you renounced membership in the Church, and purported to return the mailing list. This is to formally put you on notice that any retention of the mailing list constitutes theft, conversion and potentially other crimes and torts. Provision of the list or any part of it to third parties not authorized to receive the list also constitutes conversion, conspiracy and other crimes and torts.”

——————–

“There’s no shortage of angry disaffected white people in this country. It’s scary.”

——————–

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

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Next pretrial conference June 30. Trial scheduled for October 11.
— ‘Lafayette Ronald Hubbard’ (a/k/a Justin Craig), aggravated assault, plus drug charges: Last hearing was on January 18, referred to grand jury. Additional charges also referred to grand jury after January 5 assault while in jail.
— Jay and Jeff Spina, Medicare fraud: Jay sentenced to 9 years in prison. Jeff’s sentencing to be scheduled.
— Rizza Islam and other family members, Medi-Cal fraud: Pretrial conference June 9 in Los Angeles
— David Gentile, GPB Capital, fraud: Next pretrial conference set for June 2.

— Joseph ‘Ben’ Barton, Medicare fraud: Pleaded guilty, awaiting sentencing.
— 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.
— Luis and Rocio Garcia v. Scientology: Eleventh Circuit affirmed ruling granting Scientology’s motion for arbitration. Garcias considering next move.
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ Valerie’s motion for reconsideration denied on March 15.
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: Appellate court removes requirement of arbitration on January 19, case remanded back to Superior Court. Next hearing scheduled for June 29.
— 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.

——————–

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.

Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

——————–
THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] Not only did Scientology get PPP loans: Check out these Scientologists who got bailouts too!
[TWO years ago] Kirstie Alley lets her Scientology hang out and fans react with predictable hilarity
[THREE years ago] Reader, can you help this father who wants to keep his son out of Scientology?
[FOUR years ago] The US government continues to fret over how other countries treat Scientology
[FIVE years ago] Scientology to federal court: A judge calling our members directly? Are you nuts?
[SIX years ago] ‘Ross & Carrie’ conclude their Scientology investigation by calling it ‘ridiculously creepy’
[SEVEN years ago] Scientology routed: What the national press hasn’t figured out about the Trout Run defeat
[EIGHT years ago] Federal judge again declines to intervene for Ken Dandar, but leaves a door open
[NINE years ago] L. Ron Hubbard Intends to Rid You Of a 43-Trillion-Year-Old Implant. What Was That Like?
[TEN years ago] Scientology Wins a Major Award Again! Galaxy Press Vindicated!
[ELEVEN years ago] Jan Eastgate, Scientology Official, Arrested in Australia for Covering Up Sexual Abuse Claims

——————–

Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley (1952-2019) did not see his daughter Stephanie in his final 5,667 days.
Valerie Haney has not seen her mother Lynne in 2,684 days.
Katrina Reyes has not seen her mother Yelena in 3,189 days
Sylvia Wagner DeWall has not seen her brother Randy in 2,739 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his grandson Leo in 1,729 days.
Geoff Levin has not seen his son Collin and daughter Savannah in 1,620 days.
Christie Collbran has not seen her mother Liz King in 4,926 days.
Clarissa Adams has not seen her parents Walter and Irmin Huber in 2,795 days.
Carol Nyburg has not seen her daughter Nancy in 3,569 days.
Doug Kramer has not seen his parents Linda and Norm in 1,900 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 4,373 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 3,689 days.
Dylan Gill has not seen his father Russell in 12,255 days.
Melissa Paris has not seen her father Jean-Francois in 8,174 days.
Valeska Paris has not seen her brother Raphael in 4,342 days.
Mirriam Francis has not seen her brother Ben in 3,922 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 4,184 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 3,220 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy and daughter Jessica in 2,935 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 2,460 days.
Julian Wain has not seen his brother Joseph or mother Susan in 815 days.
Charley Updegrove has not seen his son Toby in 1,990 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 6,541 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 3,690 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 4,010 days.
Roger Weller has not seen his daughter Alyssa in 8,865 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 3,984 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 2,340 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin and daughter Taryn in 6,643 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 2,749 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis in 3,147 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 3,023 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 2,606 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike and daughter Emily in 3,101 days.
Mary Jane Barry has not seen her daughter Samantha in 3,355 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 14,464 days.

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on June 3, 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.

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)

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.

How Scientology’s ardent followers prove their loyalty with blind (or near-sighted) obedience

Louise Shekter — Mon, 09 May 2022 11:00:33 +0000

Yacht Apollo, mid 1971. Seated uncomfortably on the edge of the red leather armchair across from L. Ron Hubbard’s desk reserved for his visitors during one-on-one conferences, I am fumbling miserably as LRH is quizzing me about the meaning of the word “resources.” While he is training me along with the rest of his Aides to conduct evaluations of failing organizations, with a view to improving their statistics via a tailor-made program, one important step of the process is to identify what resources are available to help improve the local situation.

He’s asking me to use the word in sentences. Trouble is, the word only brings to mind the phrase “natural resources,” which somehow stuck from my school geography lessons in resource-rich Quebec. What he wants to hear about are things like: capable staff members, money available, an active field of Scientologists, whatever the org might have going for itself. After a couple tries, exasperated, he finally lets out: “Will you get off this natural resources kick!”

I must be looking pretty befuddled by this time. Then he squints, as he often does when he’s figuring something out, and he says pointedly: “Where are your glasses?” Oops. Busted. “In my office” I say sheepishly. “Go get them,” he says imperiously, so I run to my cubicle down the hall, then I come back to my quizzing chair, glasses on my nose as always, and the meeting comes to a smoother conclusion.

While this interaction seems so trivial, there is an iceberg of unsaid facts and feelings lying underneath, which is probably why the memory has stayed with me so sharply.

It all has to do with the loaded subject of eyesight in Scientology.

On June 20, 1971, LRH issued an important technical bulletin titled “The Supreme Test of a C/S.” (A C/S is a Case Supervisor who oversees the processing sessions being done on a preclear — a “pc” — by an auditor.) In it, LRH stated:

…perception reduces in ratio to overts. Accept that fact as it’s true. If you run O/W on an auditor regarding the pc he is to audit, the auditor will give a perfect session to that pc. Why? He can confront because he can see.

He followed that shortly thereafter with HCOB “Dianetics, Beginning a PC on”…

Lack of perception (sight, hearing, etc.) comes from overts and improves when Flow 2 is done on any of the above or any R3R.

(Definitions: ”Overts,” short for “overt acts,” are transgressions against the group mores, basically the Scientologese equivalent of sins. An overt that is not disclosed becomes a “withhold,” hence “O/W.” “Flow 2” means addressing not what was done to oneself but what one did to others – overts, using the “Routine 3 Revised” R3R Dianetic process. For example, addressing not the pain one feels but the pain one inflicted on others.)

Although directed to technical personnel and loaded with technical jargon, these sweeping statements actually applied to every single Scientologist, the categorical message in plain English being: “If you have poor eyesight, it’s because of your overts.” So who would want to be wearing glasses after that? Might as well walk around with a sticker declaring “Sinner” stuck to your nose. Soft contact lenses, a recent invention, were not known to me and in any case would not have been available. So I had decided to try to live without my glasses as a bold experiment. I had been in Scientology for well over a year now, and I had received Dianetics auditing which addressed my myopia. So, what if my eyesight had improved, I reasoned?

It had not, as I quickly discovered, bumbling around the halls and stairways on the ship, feeling disoriented and yes, rather stupid. So after this debacle of a conference with LRH, I promptly resumed wearing my glasses, overts be damned. Certainly, LRH knew in our meeting the reason why I was suddenly without my glasses, and I knew that he knew. It was terribly awkward, but I was just grateful that he didn’t bring it up. I also recall that I was not the only one on board who tried to ditch the glasses for a time, but my memory is too fuzzy on this for me to name names.

The truth is, I started wearing glasses as a child, and I wear them to this day. No amount of auditing all the way up to OT III changed that fact. Yet the prospect of improving my eyesight was in fact a big part of what drew me to investigate Dianetics in the first place. While in Denmark on a summer student trip, in that fateful 1969 year, I met a young American actor, who had come across Dianetics and raved about it. He said that a large percent of illnesses were due to mental aberrations, and that Dianetics could handle these, and that it could even improve poor eyesight. I was immediately attracted to that prospect, because when I pondered my catalogue of ills, pains and disabilities, I concluded that I was a rather healthy and happy human being in no particular need of improvement, save for this one glaring deficiency. My new friend brought me over to visit the Athena Sea Org station ship in northern Denmark, where my life would take the sharp U-turn into the Sea Org I would come to bitterly regret.

Auspicious timing is in large part what caused me to stick around on the Athena long enough to get well and truly hooked. Dianetics had been around since 1950, but in mid-1969 it was back in vogue. In May of that year LRH had re-packaged it into a relatively easy series of bulletins named “Hubbard Standard Dianetics Course” or HSDC. One didn’t even need to crack open the rather obtuse tome, Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health. In fact I didn’t actually read that book from cover to cover until 1976. As soon as I arrived on board, I was placed on full time study on the HSDC, which was for a time the practice for all new recruits, and a good one it was, as the studies peaked my interest. One had to study the printed materials, then do “Training Routines” (communication drills) and e-metering drills, then one had to repeat the whole process, for the course had a “three times through” requirement. One would then practice as the auditor on a fellow student before graduating.

I never got to that practice auditing part before I was transferred to the flag ship Apollo, a month later. But I did read in the technical bulletins tantalizing little gems such as these, in HCO Bulletin of 24 April 1969 “Dianetic Use”:

Tiredness, unwanted sensations, bizarre pains and aches, bad hearing or sight also routinely respond to Dianetic processing….Withered limbs, skin blotches and rashes and even blindness and deafness have all responded to Dianetics.

On the Apollo, I was not able to complete my HSDC course as other training priorities took precedence. But I did receive my first Dianetic auditing. One started by making, in session with the auditor, a list of “AESPs”: attitudes, emotions, sensations and pains, which would then be addressed with Dianetic processes. I don’t recall that a whole lot came up, but I did have an item on poor eyesight which I wanted to handle. I also don’t recall the outcome of those sessions, but suffice it to say that by the time I attested to Dianetics Completion, my glasses remained firmly planted on my nose, as evidenced by photos of me taken in these years. Later I attested to the state of Natural Clear. Still no change in eyesight. Then came OT III. I attested with contact lenses conveniently concealing my myopia.

As an aside, Rod Keller has compiled for the Bunker a fun gallery of Scientologists attesting to completion of various processes, including OT levels, with glasses on.

In the 1980s, LRH developed the “False Purpose Rundown” or FPRD, which intensively addressed past overts and the evil purposes behind them, on the whole time track of past lives. This auditing became a mainstay of the RPF and auditing in general, and I received a fair bit of it, and still the glasses stayed on. I can confidently say that whatever gains I may or may not have had in my decades as an active Scientologist, improved eyesight was never one of them.

Yes, this is contrary to repeated assertions by Hubbard dating all the way back to the original Dianetics book published in 1950, assertions still proclaimed as fact in these 1971 bulletins quoted above. On page 11 of Dianetics, we find these sweeping statements:

Glasses are seen on noses everywhere around, even on children. The majority of these spectacles are perched on the face in an effort to correct a condition which the body itself is fighting to uncorrect again. Eyesight, when the stage of glasses is entered (not because of glasses), is deteriorating on the psycho-somatic principle. And this observation is about as irresponsible as a statement that when apples fall out of trees they usually obey gravity. One of the incidental things which happen to a clear is that his eyesight, if it had been bad as an aberree, generally improves markedly, and with some slight attention will recover optimum perception in time.

In the 1950s LRH continued to make this type of absolutist statement. In the Dianetics Auditors Bulletin volume 2 number 7 of January 1952, transcribed from an audio tape of an auditing session held in LRH’s Wichita home, LRH addresses eyesight in his preclear and has the following to say:

If you have hit the real cause of having to wear glasses dead center, the change is instantaneous. If you are merely unburdening the problems of the preclear, his eyesight will get better gradually, up to a point. At that point any further improvement is dependent upon hitting the central computations on glasses. This obtains by running regret, blame, sympathy, etc.

LRH then has this exchange with the preclear (Emphasis ours):

LRH: Will you be audited when you get home?
Preclear: Yes.
LRH: And will you have a copy of this tape?
Preclear: Yes.
LRH: Make certain your auditor listens to it before running you. You are only three or four hours from taking your glasses off for keeps.

Did LRH believe the claims he was making? Perry Chapdelaine was a staff member at the short-lived Wichita Foundation in 1951-52. He had this to say in an interview with Russell Miller, quoted in his book Bare-Faced Messiah: (page 196)

The problem for many people involved in Dianetics was that they accepted every word Hubbard said as literal truth, rather than a framework around which you could do things. I remember at a lecture one night he told people if they did this or that they would no longer need to wear glasses and that they would be able to throw them away forever. He pointed to a big bowl at the bottom of the steps leading up to the rostrum and at the end of the lecture people were throwing their glasses into this bowl. Don Purcell was one of them. Hubbard thought it was a great joke. He told me about it afterwards, making a snide remark about Purcell and describing how he took off his glasses, threw them into the bowl and groped his way out of the lecture hall. Hubbard was laughing that people would do something like that just because of what he said. Of course, it didn’t work. Like everyone else, Purcell had a new pair of glasses in a couple days.

In May 1957, LRH devoted an entire Professional Auditor’s Bulletin, number 111, titled “Eyesight and Glasses,” to this subject. It makes for interesting reading. It involves gold disks that the thetan (the spirit) holds in front of his physical eyeballs to perceive the world.

It seems I was in good company when it comes to people in Hubbard’s immediate entourage having misgivings about wearing glasses in his presence. Even his own son Nibs (L. Ron Hubbard Jr., later Ron DeWolf) who worked alongside Ron between 1952 and 1959, had this to say in his unpublished 1972 essay posted in the Underground Bunker:

I had poor eyesight and I had to wear my glasses all the time, which I still do. Through Dianetic auditing they tried to get me to remove my glasses, but when I did so, I got migraine headaches. So despite Dianetics, I had to continue to wear my glasses secretly to keep from upsetting my father. He didn’t want others to see that Dianetics and Scientology hadn’t improved my eyesight as he had claimed it could for everyone else. I didn’t wear them in public until after I left Scientology.

And fast forward to the 70’s, Yvonne Gillham Jentzsch had a similar problem, according to her daughter Janis’ book Commodore’s Messenger Book 2 (p 496):

Mum’s eyesight was not very good. … She had some pinhole perforated screened glasses designed to improve her eyesight. Because LRH said one had bad eyesight due to overts and how auditing improves eyesight, she did not want people to know her eyesight was poor, which would reflect poorly on Scientology and Hubbard.

There is a remarkable consistency in these reports and they illustrate an important mechanism in Scientology. It goes like this. You are very invested in Scientology, either by virtue of having contributed much time and money to advancing to its higher levels of ability, or by virtue of having devoted your life to it through a staff contract or a Sea Org commitment. You believe that Scientology works and you must continue believing it to validate your choices. You then believe that your eyesight should improve under Scientology processing, because the tech says so, and the tech also says that it always works when correctly applied. Those statements are self-referential. Therefore if your eyesight does not improve, you are the one at fault. LRH has provided a convenient explanation. Your own overts, your past misdeeds, are causing your inability to see well. Other wordings for this deficiency are: poor perception, poor confront. The responsibility for your predicament then, has conveniently shifted from Hubbard and his tech to you, the preclear or pre-OT. You will be reluctant however to state publicly within the Scientology community that you have failed to achieve a desired result, because that would reflect poorly on you, and worse it would reflect poorly on Scientology and Hubbard, and that would be considered an ethics offense. You are truly in a “prison of belief,” as Lawrence Wright put it, caught in a web of false assumptions and conclusions about yourself and the world, and all the while subject to intense group pressure to maintain the con.

Could it be that the mechanism illustrated by this graphic example of a common human deficiency, poor eyesight, might apply across the boards in Scientology, whether your disability is a cognitive problem such as dyslexia, a mental issue such as depression, a chronic illness such as asthma or worse, even cancer?

Worse, could it be that the same mechanism applies not only in the case of deficiencies, but also of failures to achieve promised or advertised super-human abilities? Sobering thought.

For my part, I was in grade school when my teacher noticed I couldn’t read the blackboard from the front row. The day I put on my first pair of glasses was a glorious epiphany. I lived right on the south shore of the half mile-wide Saint-Lawrence river, and suddenly I could make out all the details of the ships and installations of the Port of Montreal across the river. The oldest girl of six kids, as a child I took refuge from my chaotic family life in books. I often read at night hiding under the covers with a flashlight, the beginnings of a lifelong book addiction. When I got caught on occasion, my mother would say “You’ll tear your eyes out reading in the dark like that.”

Thankfully, the myth that reading in low light can damage the eyes has been thoroughly debunked by research. But my mother and L. Ron Hubbard shared one thing in common in the fifties: neither of them knew absolutely the first thing about what causes poor eyesight, despite being thoroughly opinionated about it. But at least my mother did not despise and disparage those in the professions who were trying to figure this out, nor inject pseudo-science gobbledygook into the void to substitute for lack of knowledge.

— Louise Shekter

Also by Louise Shekter:

Feb 2: Another crucial Scientology eyewitness coming forward, starting today at the Bunker
Feb 6: Shekter: How Scientology intervened in an intimate affair of the heart
Feb 17: Shekter: The proposition that threatened to upend my Scientology billion-year commitment
Feb 23: Shekter: A trial by storm for Scientology’s most dedicated still resonates today
Mar 2: Rough seas? Tough cookie, sailor. In Scientology, you upchuck at your own peril
Mar 21: Quentin Hubbard’s suicide: A Scientology-based explanation so insane it might be true
Apr 4: How Scientology’s notorious prison program, the RPF, got its birth at sea
Apr 28: How a decaying landmark became Scientology’s legendary Hollywood Celebrity Centre

——————–

Sign up for a daily email when we post a new story on Scientology.

——————–

“The US in a Masterpiece has officially stated it has no responsibility for its money. They can say that twice. The scoop is that genius Nixon’s Federal Reserve Board lowered bank rates in the US, causing US investment money to flee to Europe. Nazi bankers caught the ball so deftly tossed to them by their US agents and began a smash attack on the dollar. Exchange is still 3.8 francs to a dollar in Switzerland. It should be 4.3. Costing us our shirts. We don’t dare deposit and lose. Somebody in the US Federal Reserve is working very hard for his Iron Cross First Class.” — L. Ron Hubbard, May 9, 1971

——————–

“ALL CREW: Please submit to me knowledge reports on any injustices that you may know about. Injustices must be righted. Thank you.” — Lt. Cmdr. Diana Hubbard, May 9, 1969

——————–

“I realize now what I am exhibiting with all my wins; unbelievable, incredible, so many wins in such a short time… are all happening for a specific reason. That reason is, I am exhibiting a complete and accurate alignment of my basic purpose. My basic purpose on the whole track is to communicate Ron’s discoveries. To explain what the tech does for a spirit in a way that is easy for anyone to understand.”

——————–

2001: “Barb” protested in downtown Hemet, California. “We decided to stake out a busy intersection in downtown Hemet. Hundreds of people drove by and read my sign, ‘Scientology, the ‘church’ with a Body Count-www.xenu.net.’ One guy stopped, told me he was a cab driver who picked up a couple at Gold who wanted to leave. His cab was chased. He also gave someone a ride out to Happy Valley and got inside the gate, but wasn’t allowed to linger once he discharged his passenger. I gave him a Xenu flier that had an insert provided by Keith, ‘Scientology Hurts People.'”

——————–

“David Miscavige is a South Philly street punk: rude, lewd, and crude. He wants to be Vito Genovese but he’s John Gotti instead. All flash and bravado with no real depth or vision.”

——————–

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

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Next pretrial conference May 31. Trial scheduled for August 29.
— ‘Lafayette Ronald Hubbard’ (a/k/a Justin Craig), aggravated assault, plus drug charges: Last hearing was on January 18, referred to grand jury. Additional charges also referred to grand jury after January 5 assault while in jail.
— Jay and Jeff Spina, Medicare fraud: Jay sentenced to 9 years in prison. Jeff’s sentencing to be scheduled.
— Rizza Islam and other family members, Medi-Cal fraud: Pretrial conference May 20 in Los Angeles
— David Gentile, GPB Capital, fraud: Next pretrial conference set for May 5.
— Joseph ‘Ben’ Barton, Medicare fraud: Pleaded guilty, awaiting sentencing.
— Yanti Mike Greene, Scientology private eye accused of contempt of court: Found guilty of criminal and civil contempt.

——————–

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.

Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

——————–
THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] The Scientologist and the superstar hacker: A stock market fable for our times
[TWO years ago] Dianetics at 70: Scientology’s bible, endorsing child molestation since May 9, 1950
[THREE years ago] Death in the Timor Sea: The darkest war secret of Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard
[FOUR years ago] Early witness Don Rogers on Hubbard and ‘prior lives’: ‘Nothing but a parlor hypnosis trick’
[FIVE years ago] Danny Masterson hires Michael Jackson criminal defense attorney Tom Mesereau in rape probe
[SIX years ago] 66 years ago, L. Ron Hubbard transubstantiated from pulp writer to god among men
[SEVEN years ago] Scientology answers Garcia motion: We are definitely a bona fide worldwide religion!
[EIGHT years ago] Ryan Hamilton adds Colorado in new lawsuits against Scientology’s rehab network
[NINE years ago] Lori Hodgson Defies Scientology’s “Disconnection,” Surprises Her Son in Texas

——————–

Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley (1952-2019) did not see his daughter Stephanie in his final 5,667 days.
Valerie Haney has not seen her mother Lynne in 2,659 days.
Katrina Reyes has not seen her mother Yelena in 3,164 days
Sylvia Wagner DeWall has not seen her brother Randy in 2,714 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his grandson Leo in 1,704 days.
Geoff Levin has not seen his son Collin and daughter Savannah in 1,595 days.
Christie Collbran has not seen her mother Liz King in 4,901 days.
Clarissa Adams has not seen her parents Walter and Irmin Huber in 2,770 days.
Carol Nyburg has not seen her daughter Nancy in 3,544 days.
Doug Kramer has not seen his parents Linda and Norm in 1,875 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 4,348 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 3,664 days.
Dylan Gill has not seen his father Russell in 12,230 days.
Melissa Paris has not seen her father Jean-Francois in 8,149 days.
Valeska Paris has not seen her brother Raphael in 4,317 days.
Mirriam Francis has not seen her brother Ben in 3,897 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 4,159 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 3,195 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy and daughter Jessica in 2,910 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 2,435 days.
Julian Wain has not seen his brother Joseph or mother Susan in 790 days.
Charley Updegrove has not seen his son Toby in 1,965 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 6,516 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 3,665 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 3,985 days.
Roger Weller has not seen his daughter Alyssa in 8,840 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 3,959 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 2,315 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin and daughter Taryn in 6,618 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 2,724 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis in 3,122 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 2,998 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 2,581 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike and daughter Emily in 3,076 days.
Mary Jane Barry has not seen her daughter Samantha in 3,330 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 14,439 days.

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on May 9, 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.

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.

How a decaying landmark became Scientology’s legendary Hollywood Celebrity Centre

Louise Shekter — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 11:00:51 +0000

Yacht Apollo, early 1974. “The Commodore says if you don’t handle this situation he’s going to punch you on the nose.”

I think it was Janis or her sister Terri who delivered this particular message, as usual without any social preamble such as a mere hello. I did a double take and clearly saw that she had dropped this nugget of verbal intimidation with a perfectly straight face. This was no joke. I knew that the messengers were trained to deliver every message with a tone of voice and demeanor which reflected the Commodore’s mood and intent. On this occasion, he meant business. And the business at hand was the recently acquired Fifield Manor in Los Angeles, known to this day as “the Manor.” I was in deep trouble, that much was clear, and I was sweating it.

It was my luck that LRH had recently transferred the entirety of the Estates Section within the Sea Organization under my care. This seismic change had occurred shortly after his return from the US in November 1973, seemingly by imperial decree – no published issue, no evaluation, no prior consultation with me. Estates now belonged in my Division 3, the Treasury Division, and no longer in Division 7, the Executive Division, where he evidently had been unhappy with their management. It was hard to argue against the fact that my aptly named Department 9, Records, Assets and Material, was a proper placement on the “org board” (as an organization chart is known in Scientologese) for these physical assets. I now literally owned every Sea Org building on three continents.

This added responsibility made the rest of my multiple and varied functions look like merely a side gig, despite the fact that I had barely been keeping my head above water. Denmark was in the process of buying buildings to operate the Advanced Org and to house its crew. The construction of the Saint Hill castle in East Grinstead was stalled. A couple of properties left over from earlier operations in Morocco still had to be disposed of. And in the LA area, known collectively as PAC (for Pacific Area Command), “estates” was a dog’s breakfast of small properties in sore shape and in bad downtown locations. Oh and all facilities and operations designated for the care and education of Sea Org children now fell under my purview. If I was secretly flattered by the confidence ‘the old man’ had shown me, I felt mostly fatalistic about the heap of trouble into which this new game was certain to land me.

The Fifield Manor was a case in point. Back in mid 1973, the Aides Council had met around the large conference table in CIC, our pompously named “Control and Information Center” tucked into the Apollo’s refurbished Hold Number One, to review and approve the purchase of the Manor for a cool million dollars, a sum unheard of in those days for a Sea Org property. We, the seven Commodore’s Staff Aides, were the ones responsible for green lighting the purchase, and LRH had approved it based on our recommendation.

It seems he had since developed a bad case of buyer’s remorse. The Fifield, the Commodore noted as soon as he came back aboard in the fall of 1973, was a white elephant, a designation which he took pains to explain: a rare, expensive and useless gift you couldn’t get rid of, and one that would soon eat you out of house and home.

The edifice began life in 1927 with the name Chateau Elysee, and it already had a salacious background when it first opened its doors. Its original owner, Nell Ince, sold it in 1943, and it was then converted to a luxury retirement home with the name Fifield Manor in 1951.

Although the Fifield had in turn been purchased by a mission with input from Yvonne Gillham, who had planned to relocate her Celebrity Center in this gracious building, this was not to be. Soon after the purchase, the Guardian’s Office had claimed the top two floors. There was a separate one story annex building on the grounds, into which the Advanced Org promptly moved. And the rest of the 80,000 square feet former hotel was taken over for staff berthing, which allowed three staff houses in the seedy downtown area to be sold off. LRH made it clear to me that strict space allocation planning was a necessary function, for any group would automatically occupy however much free space it found available. It was human nature. He was right.

The problem was that collectively, all the delivery organizations in the LA area who provided services to Scientologists (ASHO, AOLA and CC) were generating nowhere near enough income to support their own operations, let alone to maintain a huge and lavish older building just for housing their staff. In addition there were ancillary organizations to support, such as a station ship, a Publications Org and the Continental Management Office. Plus, collectively, this PAC area was expected to send large sums to Flag for its own support and for Sea Org Reserves.

LRH had a “bright idea” for handling this clearly unviable and unsustainable situation. A bright idea was a specialized term in Scientology’s “admin tech” of evaluations, denoting a clever scheme or solution to use existing resources to remedy a situation and bring it closer to an ideal scene. The bright idea then, was to convert the Manor into a money making hotel reserved for Scientologists who came to LA from out of town to receive their upper level training and auditing. And by installing the Celebrity Center on the ground floor, the building would also provide a venue for an income generating, public facing operation.

I was the IT girl to make this bright idea into a reality. But there were several moving parts in this grand scheme and as many potential pitfalls. I would have to first locate and acquire a separate building, centrally located and at an affordable price, dedicated solely to housing most of the 300+ strong contingent of Sea Org members in the LA area. Then these crew members would have to move their berthing out of the Manor and into this new building overnight, all without causing any disruption whatsoever to their respective org’s production statistics. That was understood as an absolute requirement in the Sea Org, and I for one was not interested in having a “stat crasher” label hanging around my neck from here on out.

Next, the rooms in the Manor would have to be cleaned up and furnished to receive guests, and meanwhile a promotional campaign would urgently be needed to invite Scientologists from outside the LA area to come and stay at the newly branded “Manor Hotel”. And an Estates Service Organization would have to be created from nothing and staffed up to cater to these guests, maintain and restore the property, and vigorously handle promotion and registration services to keep the place full and profitable, going forward.

Meanwhile, the main floor of the building would be set up to accommodate the Celebrity Center, which delivered Scientology training and auditing to local celebrities. That too would have to happen overnight without any service disruption. The CC would close its doors as usual at 10 PM one night in its old cramped building downtown, and would reopen the very next morning for business as usual in the new glamorous location. Little elves would take care of the moving all through the night.

The whole lot would be accomplished by two Flag missions, for which I wrote detailed mission orders. Once these MOs were approved and sent down to the Action Bureau, it would be their job to select, brief and fire the Missionnaires, and to “run” them, monitoring their progress on their specific targets via daily telex reports, while I kept an eye on happenings in LA.

The first surprise was that the Action Chief proposed sending my own husband as Chief Missionnaire of the berthing building mission. He had a track record on logistical missions and a knack for public relations, and he was familiar with LA, so objectively he was a good choice. But naturally that pitted the needs of my job against my personal life, and I hated to see him leave the ship for several weeks, when we had already endured so much separation for various reasons since our recent marriage. It was sort of like shooting myself in the foot. But so be it, I was desperate for success, and I approved it. In the event, he did an excellent job. He located and swiftly acquired the “Hollywood Inn” building right on Hollywood Boulevard, a former hotel going out of business, and moved all the crew berthing out of the Manor and into it. It was by no means luxurious but it was certainly a leap up from the old crew berthing houses in the unsafe downtown area, although certainly not as elegant as the short lived staff accomodations in the Manor. To this day, the place is still known as “the HI” and as far as I know it’s still used for Sea Org berthing. He also set up the PAC Estates Org, which was to continue taking care of various buildings on a more permanent basis.

The second mission was assigned to Rheva Spence. A diminutive Jewish New Yorker, with frizzy sandy hair, dark blue eyes and an impish smile, she was a “can do” firebrand. She was married to tall Texan cowboy Mitch Spence, who stood somewhere around 6’ 3” to her 5’0” or so, and the couple cut an impressive figure together. I thought her task was exceedingly difficult and I was worried. But I need not have been. In no time, she tore through the Manor and had it reset as a hotel. By the time she returned home to the Apollo several weeks later, the Manor Hotel was fully booked and occupied, with SO members in the new Hotel Organization providing the needed services. Her mission was assigned Affluence or Power, I do not recall which.

Meanwhile, the Celebrity Center Org was moved into the Manor, although I do not remember the logistics of who exactly deserves the credit for executing this tricky operation, besides obviously Yvonne herself and her CC staff. I think the elves turned out to be new recruits under the supervision of the newly formed Pac Estates Org.

As for me, I heaved a huge sigh of relief when it was all over and done. No kudos came my way, particularly, but my nose remained intact. I took that as a win. On the plus side, it meant that LRH had given me the problem to handle instead of by-passing me and doing it himself, despite the perceived urgency, which saved me from a lower ethics condition, and I had come through. And the Commodore’s threatening opening salvo turned out to be the only verbal abuse I ever endured from the irascible old man, who otherwise continued to refer to me as “honey”, as per his usual.

— Louise Shekter

In 1977, a few years after Louise’s involvement with the building, the Manor was included in the massive FBI raid that also targeted the Big Blue headquarters as well as church offices in Washington DC. It turned out that those top two floors of the Manor controlled by the Guardian’s Office were prime targets of the FBI’s search. Informant Michael Meisner had even drawn detailed pictures of the Fifield offices so agents would know where the most sensitive Snow White Program documents were stored. And some of the most important records used in the subsequent prosecution were found there. — ed.

——————–

Sign up for a daily email when we post a new story on Scientology.

——————–

“In the final analysis, everything is a postulate. Everything came about by postulates. We just could make postulates the end-all of everything, and we’re very safe on it. Everything rationalizes out very nicely. And postulates if treated as a topflight goal bring about a very, very fine condition on the part of the preclear. What are you trying to get him to do, in essence? Change his mind. He has a bad leg, he’s crippled; you won’t get that leg well unless he changes his mind about having to have a bad leg. Believe me, you won’t. The doctors can saw and hew and use axes and materia medica and Morris Fishbeins and everything else on him, and by George, his leg will not get well until he has made up his mind for his leg to get well.” — L. Ron Hubbard, April 28, 1954

——————–

“UK is in the mystic band. That’s the last stop this side of Hades, when an empire decides to go, Man. The basic law on this is: When dealing with unknown dangers over which he has no control and against which he has no defense, Man becomes mystic as to cause and effect. Reaching a population in that condition is quite a problem. It can be done, but only on the gradient of tiny cause and effect. By coaxing small reaches and giving very light effects it can be done.” — The Commodore, April 28, 1970

——————–

“I’ve decided to leave the other Scientology groups I belong to or have been added into. What I’ve been observing and why I’m actively leaving those other groups is while this group has seemed to come together out of common interest for the betterment of ourselves and other members with Ron 2.0 at the head, and now seems to be forming a high-level group, those other groups are filled with snakes in the grass luring people in on a pretext in order to influence and actively put people off doing not just new processes but any form of auditing.”

——————–

1997: The St. Petersburg Times published the results of a police survey on the problems of downtown Clearwater. Scientology was rated as worse than prostitutes. “The top six responses listed as the most important issues were: transients, traffic, drugs, parking, Scientologists and prostitutes. Other concerns included: redevelopment, traffic, safety, vacant buildings, opening more shops, landscaping and the general cleanliness of downtown. Many of the comments were complimentary toward police. In others, someone suggested merchants have a sticker to tell people they aren’t Scientologists, while someone else said having the Church of Scientology downtown helps reduce crime.”

——————–

“‘Malcolm In The Middle’ was so good I broke my rule for watching TV shows with Scientologists in them.”

——————–

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

Civil litigation:
— Luis and Rocio Garcia v. Scientology: Eleventh Circuit affirmed ruling granting Scientology’s motion for arbitration. Garcias considering next move.
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ Valerie’s motion for reconsideration denied on March 15.
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: Appellate court removes requirement of arbitration on January 19, case remanded back to Superior Court. Next hearing scheduled for June 29.
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Third amended complaint filed, trial set for June 28.
— Author Steve Cannane defamation trial: Trial concluded, Cannane victorious, awarded court costs. Appeal hearing held Aug 23-27. Awaiting a 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.

——————–

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.

Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

——————–
THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] Two Scientologists win seats on Los Angeles neighborhood council
[TWO years ago] Scientology admits that it numbers ‘tens of thousands’ not millions, as we’ve been saying
[THREE years ago] Leah Remini and Mike Rinder dare Scientology defenders to go on camera
[FOUR years ago] A new ex-Scientologist memoir provides a journey through extortion in the rank-and-file
[FIVE years ago] With Scientology at war in Clearwater, religious studies types still seeking its warm & fuzzy side
[SIX years ago] MONIQUE RATHBUN BLAMES FORMER ATTORNEYS AS SHE PLANS TO DROP LAWSUIT
[SEVEN years ago] Secretly taped Scientology executive complains about cheating on the ‘Survival Rundown’
[EIGHT years ago] Chris Shelton on the origins of Scientology’s notorious ‘Fair Game’ policy
[NINE years ago] Scientology Sunday Funnies: Baby We’re Amazed!
[ELEVEN years ago] Scientology Critics Find That Someone Wants Their Cellphone Records

——————–

Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley (1952-2019) did not see his daughter Stephanie in his final 5,667 days.
Valerie Haney has not seen her mother Lynne in 2,648 days.
Katrina Reyes has not seen her mother Yelena in 3,153 days
Sylvia Wagner DeWall has not seen her brother Randy in 2,703 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his grandson Leo in 1,693 days.
Geoff Levin has not seen his son Collin and daughter Savannah in 1,584 days.
Christie Collbran has not seen her mother Liz King in 4,891 days.
Clarissa Adams has not seen her parents Walter and Irmin Huber in 2,759 days.
Carol Nyburg has not seen her daughter Nancy in 3,533 days.
Doug Kramer has not seen his parents Linda and Norm in 1,864 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 4,337 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 3,653 days.
Dylan Gill has not seen his father Russell in 12,219 days.
Melissa Paris has not seen her father Jean-Francois in 8,138 days.
Valeska Paris has not seen her brother Raphael in 4,306 days.
Mirriam Francis has not seen her brother Ben in 3,886 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 4,148 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 3,184 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy and daughter Jessica in 2,899 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 2,424 days.
Julian Wain has not seen his brother Joseph or mother Susan in 779 days.
Charley Updegrove has not seen his son Toby in 1,954 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 6,505 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 3,654 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 3,974 days.
Roger Weller has not seen his daughter Alyssa in 8,829 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 3,948 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 2,304 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin and daughter Taryn in 6,607 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 2,713 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis in 3,111 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 2,987 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 2,570 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike and daughter Emily in 3,065 days.
Mary Jane Barry has not seen her daughter Samantha in 3,319 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 14,428 days.

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on April 28, 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.

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.

How Scientology’s notorious prison program, the RPF, got its birth at sea

Louise Shekter — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 11:00:56 +0000

[Commodore L. Ron Hubbard rechristens the Royal Scotman the Apollo in Corfu, 1968]

Flag Order 3434 landed in my in-basket as if with a resounding thud. I had gone to my promenade deck office to start my day on January 8, 1974. It sent chills of dread down my spine.

The order announcing the new “Rehabilitation Project Force” (RPF) was signed by L. Ron Hubbard, although as I would learn only much later, it had actually been penned by his Personal Communicator Ken Urquhart. We took LRH’s signature at face value, since we also on occasion had written issues which were ordered and approved by him and which came out under his name. At a minimum, there could be no doubt that the program was his wish and met with his approval.

When the new Flag Order came out of Mimeo, it was the talk of the ship. LRH was still not back on his feet full time but was alerted to the new Flag Order by messenger Jill, who was on messenger watch with me at the time. LRH had Jill get a copy of the Flag Order from Urq, so he could see what everyone was talking about. LRH’s response was to have Jill return to Urq and tell him That’s a very well done as she handed the issue back to him. (Janis Gillham Grady, Commodore’s Messenger, Book 2, emphasis in original)

I was lucky enough never to be assigned to the original RPF on the Flagship, from its immediate formation when the Flag Order was issued, until the Apollo crew moved ashore in September 1975. I kept my head down and did my best not to make waves, saved perhaps by the fact that I’d had the same job for three years now and knew the ropes.

My luck ran out in my later Sea Org days. I was assigned to the RPF twice, once at the Flag Land Base and once at the International Base in Hemet. That last broke my back, and I left the Sea Org shortly thereafter, having thoroughly exhausted my willingness to endure the abuse.

But I was well acquainted with the original RPF, because my husband was assigned to it for several months, in the early days of our marriage. He had arrived on board in 1972 as a paying Scientologist, with a burning desire to train as an auditor, which he did for a while. But of course as soon as he signed his Sea Org contract, that was not to be. He had experience in the arena of Public Relations so he was assigned to the Port Captain’s office, from which he was soon “busted to the RPF,” as the saying went, for an alleged fault which I frankly do not recall. Ironically, in the RPF he did get to study, audit, and be audited, at least in theory, five hours a day. “Read it, drill it, do it” was the motto in the RPF, where no official auditor certificates were required or tendered, but one did get to co-audit with a “twin.” That made the program tolerable for him.

The rest of it, not so much. RPF members bunked together in the cavernous forward hold of the ship, and were not allowed even to address regular crew members. It was at Mary Sue’s urging that an additional Flag Order in the 3434 series granted the privilege for married RPF members who were progressing well to spend one night per week with their spouse. Urquhart, being unmarried and seemingly without a romantic or sexual partner on board, had not thought of that. But in practice, my husband was on a day schedule, and I was on a night schedule, so we were like sun and moon. We’d get to spend a couple hours together in the early evening before I went back to work and he went to sleep in my bed, since he needed his seven hours to receive auditing, and I often needed to work till breakfast.

He did not criticize the program and he tended to make light of his predicament, partly because that was in his nature, but as I now realize, almost certainly because RPFers were severely cautioned against causing any “enturbulation” in the Scientology lingo, any upset whatsoever, to their spouses, lest the visiting privilege be promptly withdrawn.

He didn’t have to say a word. The stress he was undergoing was etched in his whole body. The ongoing trauma was palpable. His eyes were bloodshot, in addition to being afflicted with a chronic eczema type of rash. His breath was foul, whether through poor dental hygiene, bad food, or digestive issues. He was losing weight he did not need to lose. His hands were raw from the deck work and his face was burned from the sun. I felt so sorry for him that I resolved not to kick him while he was down, and to preserve the marriage in the hopes that we would live to see a better day. I am glad I made that choice. I would go to the canteen when I could and get him some treats which I could then sneak out to him on occasion, for he was not allowed to speak to me at all except on our couples’ night.

The genesis of the RPF is revealing in several ways.

The RPF was created shortly after Hubbard had a motorcycle accident where he broke an arm and some ribs but refused all medical treatment. Several persons who were attending him at that time have given detailed accounts of his chronically foul disposition. Being in constant pain, nothing and no one seemed right to him. He complained that his household unit staff were trying to kill him, that his Aides were not backing him up, and that the ship’s company was full of counter intention to his orders.

The actual event which triggered the formation of the RPF is very telling. It took place in an exchange between LRH and his Personal Communicator Urquhart in the prom deck foyer, where the Messengers on duty had their station, right outside LRH’s office, grandiosely known as his “research room.” Hubbard still had his arm in a sling at that point.

The Port Captain had been ordered to find the cause of a shore flap (upset with the locals). He wrote to LRH and informed him that the crew member who had caused the problem with the locals had not had much sleep and was extremely tired. When LRH saw the proposal [from the Port Captain – LS] he added an extra step: to handle the crew member’s “case on post,” and assigned this action to Urq, as the LRH Personal Communicator. Urq came up with a solution for “case on post.” Returning to his office, he sat down and wrote Flag Order 3434.” (Janis Gillham Grady, Commodore’s Messenger Book 2)

That raises the question — what is “case on post” in the Sea Org? One would expect the various negative emotions well defined in the Scientology materials to come under this heading: sadness, anger, fear, apathy and the like. Or perhaps anxiety that one did not have the skills or the resources to successfully complete an assignment and “make things go right.” Any personal excuse for not properly performing the duties on one’s post would qualify. Illness? Certainly since it was considered that most illness was of a psychosomatic nature. Really, anything short of the perfectly analytical disposition and superior ability of the “Clear” could theoretically be deemed to be case on post. In fact we in the Sea Org were all expected to behave like “Operating Thetans,” spirit super-beings, even though few of us had attained that lofty case level.

But what about fatigue from chronic or even short term sleep deprivation, as in this particular instance? And what if this fatigue was in fact generated by desperate attempts to meet unrealistic expectations from seniors all the way up the chain of command? And what if, as is proven by multiple research results, fatigue does correlate with errors and accidents? Here for instance is a report from Harvard Business Review. The title says it all: “Sleep Deficit: The Performance Killer.”

As any Sea Org member knows, an unstated expectation permeates the SO that the ability and willingness to endure sleep deprivation is the norm, as a sort of machismo embraced by the elite group who view their body as merely an annoying appendage. This toxic attitude is actually promulgated from the top down. LRH himself had been known for issuing orders of the type: “You may not go to sleep until such and such is done (or handled).”

Leave it to Urquhart then to come up with a clever solution to the case on post problem, as ordered by the boss. RPF members would essentially be placed in a sort of permanent liability condition so as to make reparations through hard menial labor, while they would co-audit five hours a day to handle their case until it no longer got in their way. That was the meaning of the “rehabilitation” in the title. Through this opportunity to give and receive intensive daily auditing, the RPF assignee would supposedly rise up above his irrational “reactive mind” into which he was mired, and would attain or regain a level of sanity and ability that would permit him or her to function adequately on a post. Safe to say, every person on board unquestioningly believed in the power of auditing to achieve these goals, or else they could not have called themselves Scientologists, let alone Sea Org members.

From an administrative viewpoint, the new Rehabilitation Project Force also had a couple of side benefits: The erring crew members would now be segregated from the new recruits who also worked on a “Deck Project Force” or a “Stewards Project Force” while completing their basic Sea Org training. And the RPF would unburden the Qualifications Division, which was supposed to provide auditing to staff but could never keep up, so that precious auditing hours could be reserved for the better performing crew members. All considered, the new RPF was theoretically a neat arrangement for all concerned.

Except that is for those unfortunate crew members assigned to it. It was by several orders of magnitude the most severe punishment scheme devised in the Sea Org’s history. Sure, in its early days starting in 1967 the Sea Org had lived through a “heavy ethics” phase. People were thrown overboard, most commonly students during the Class VIII course in 1968. And there were chain locker assignments, mimicking the traditional “brig,” a ship’s prison. But these were punctual and of short duration, even though they were no doubt traumatic to their victims. They lasted an hour or a few days and then done. There were also ethics lower conditions involving penalties, but these too could be completed within a few days.

By the time I joined the ship in October 1969, those bad old days were over, and ethics was relatively mild for several years, just as well or I would not have stayed on. If one fouled up badly, the usual penalty was to be bounced from one’s post and assigned to menial labor for a time. The sting of humiliation was the worst of it, but the unfortunate soon climbed up the rungs again, such was the demand for experienced executives. A Committee of Evidence could in theory be requested to fight to retain one’s post, but most didn’t bother.

The living and working conditions in the new RPF were intentionally made gruesome enough to encourage members to complete their program quickly and return to a post, and conversely to discourage struggling staff members from quitting their post and voluntarily heading for it, although some did. But most were assigned suddenly and against their will.

According to Grady, the original intention was for the RPF to take about one month maximum to complete. But that never happened, even in the early days. One of the first people assigned took three months to complete. Even the trained auditors who were among the early RPFers could not meet this timeline, let alone people who had to first learn the auditing techniques before starting to audit their assigned twin.

Soon the ranks of the Flag RPF swelled up, and we could see them literally running around the ship in their dark boiler suits, performing the most challenging and demeaning of tasks. No one seemed to be safe from assignment. Alex Sibirsky, who had been a rock star manager in the West US area, found his way there. As did Bob Thomas, former Deputy Guardian US, who was an early inmate called to Flag by the Hubbards specifically to do the RPF, despite not even being a Sea Org member. Even the ship’s captain Norman Starkey was soon bounced to the RPF. And LRH assigned his own son Quentin to it, to my utter horror.

In mid 1974, the Commodore decided to form a permanent troupe of musicians to entertain the locals, in an effort to improve our likeability in the ports we visited. The Apollo Stars were born, and were permitted to recruit several of their members from the ranks of the RPF, through “reprieves” granted to RPFers who happened to play an instrument. The musicians’ group grew in size and became a major conduit for RPF reprieves, my husband being one of them as I recall.

It was clear to me from the early days of the ship’s RPF that a chilling new institution had been created in the Sea Org. I personally felt relatively safe from it, yet I was very disturbed. Certainly I could not have imagined how destructive the RPF would be to me personally in the decades to come. Nor could I have understood then, as I do now, that its creation marked a profound turning point for the worse in Sea Org history, never to be reversed. Over time, the SO morphed from a group whose members were purely motivated to help LRH clear the planet, to one whose members were largely driven by fear of the dreaded RPF assignment.

In the early 2000s, soon after I left Scientology, I found myself with the sudden luxury of being able to reach out to other ex-Sea Org members I had served with, from my Apollo days, my Flag Land Base days, or my International Base days. These had been my only friends for most of my adult life, and I had been too ashamed of my past to make new friends.

I reached out to Ken Urquhart. Ken and I had bonded a little on the ship over music. He played splendidly on Diana Hubbard’s grand piano in the A deck lounge, almost daily. I admired that, as the only person I knew on board who was able to sustain a hobby outside of his post. Ken gave me several cassettes of piano sonatas by Mozart, his favorite composer. Ken sat with us at the Aides’ table every day for all those years. He was very reserved, although he had an impish sense of humor. He was tall and trim and had the most remarkable piercing blue eyes, and he was always impeccably dressed. I was rather in awe of him the whole time. From his perch as LRH’s Personal Communicator, he filtered all of our communications before passing them on to the old man. He seemed indispensable and invincible, secure in his incredibly hot seat so close to power.

So in the new century, after that past was far behind us, we met once in New York, and we traded stories. We were free to speak our truth now. He told me that on the ship, he had lived in fear that he would somehow trigger the wrath of the boss and be put out to pasture. It surprised me. That is how I had felt too, living in fear, and I surmised the rest of the Aides did also, for our heads could roll without recourse at any time, for any reason or none at all, from our capricious and mercurial commodore.

Ken talked about his childhood in Wales. It had been a sad and dramatic affair, with a rift having developed between his two parents, causing him to be separated from his mother at an early age. Here was a man who had grown up without a mother in a hostile environment. Here was a man who was brilliant, yet seemed uniquely cold.

Here was the man who had created the dreaded RPF, which had stolen two whole years of my life, as it did the lives of so many others.

We did not talk about the RPF. I understood by then that he, like the rest of us, had been both victim and perpetrator. But like Mary Sue Hubbard, he was a perpetrator on a grand scale, by virtue of his closeness and his loyalty to Hubbard. When he wrote the first RPF Flag Order in compliance to LRH, he could not have foreseen that his theoretically elegant “solution for case on post” would soon enough degenerate, far beyond its original design and purpose, into a ruthless tool to inflict hardship and abuse upon thousands of Sea Org members for decades to come. And so I was angry for a while after we met, but eventually I found myself forgiving him for those unintended consequences.

— Louise Shekter

——————–

Bonus items from our tipsters

How many ways can you invent to say “they gave us a big check.”

——————–

Sign up for a daily email when we post a new story on Scientology.

——————–

“A fellow made a postulate. He said, ‘I’m going to square this all up. To be a pirate. That’s what I’m going to do, I’m going to be a pirate.’ And a few trillennia later, he sees a pig going down the road with a ring in its snout. And he faints and has a heart attack. Everybody says, ‘Look at what the hot weather has done to him.’ No! The hot weather might have assisted all this, but who did it to him? He did it to himself Way back down the track he said, to be a pirate. And, of course, pirates wear rings in their noses. There it is. Who did it? He did it. Well now, you can’t go around condemning this person for having done it to himself…you don’t have to blame him if you can eradicate it. Well, all of these causations for his ‘misfortunes’ are initially and basically resident in the GPM. Now, those of yesteryear have actually far more force on him, than those of today. These items here in present time — oh, those items are terribly important. Maybe he’s sitting in something that says, ‘Women who look like beatniks.’ You know? Maybe that’s the oppterm, see…And his wife’s a very neatly dressed girl and everything else and he’s always calling her a beatnik and she never can figure it out and he never can figure it out. And here are these items here, a chronic present time problem…He knows, you see, that the source of his ulcerous condition, you see, is because he eats too much harsh food. No, no. That’s the somatic ‘all women are beatniks.’ And what does he have to be? He has to be a Turk in order to combat this in some aberrated way. Well, there’s his ulcers and there’s his opposition. And he begins to think the whole environment is against him when in actual fact it’s just ‘women are beatniks.’ He sees some uncombed hair, he gets ulcers. Bang, bang, just like that — one, two!” — L. Ron Hubbard, April 4, 1963

——————–

“ENEMY FINANCES: I found Scientologists do not know (and the world sure doesn’t) the size and state of the enemy. For years, our orgs have made more in a week than Swersh does in a year. Two years ago Swersh was 25,000 in debt with little income in sight. Last year it was far worse. Brock Chisholen their world leader, just died, very few key figures are left. Their mouthpiece ‘The Daily Mail’ has just folded and Peter Younghusband who caused the Rhodesian upset has been sacked. We have traced their origins to 2 years before Hitler and have traced the Nazi death camps and Nazi Philosophy to this group. There were not 200,000 members at their peak. So over the world we outnumber even their rank and file 25 to one at a very low estimate. We could buy all they own out of a week’s income and never miss it. Although a few skirmishes or even battles are still ahead of us, there is now no slightest question as to who is winning this war. The Nazi Psychiatrist and Nazi psychologist will most surely go the way of the dinosaur. No, there is no question now as to who will win this war. We will.” — The Commodore, April 4, 1971

——————–

“Now there is the problem of governments using the virus to impose totalitarian fascist states for the World Government. What are OTs going to do? (OT Kirstie Alley is commending Trump for defending the USA, flowing power to the power as described in the ‘Responsibility of Leaders Policy Letter.’) Is this a move for a One World Government, as predicted by Captain Bill Robertson in the early 90’s in his UFO Lecture? Is the solution to postulate a New Civilization? Who are the experts at postulating? The OTs. How many are aware of this?”

——————–

2001: Reuters reported that charges have been filed against Scientology to answer charges of extortion and invasion of privacy. “Investigating magistrate Renaud Van Ruymbeke also notified Marc Walter, a leader of Scientology in the Paris region, that he would face trial on the same charges, in addition to false advertising. However, Van Ruymbeke dropped charges against Martine Brochard, another Scientologist. The suit was filed by three former Scientologists who accused the church of using their names and addresses on its listings after they had left the movement. Court documents said two of the three plaintiffs had been bombarded with publicity material seeking money under false pretenses. A date for the trial was not immediately set.”

——————–

“Some of my greatest wins have come from applying the ‘you seem kind of tense’ back rub tech. Last thing we want is for the WOGs — a/k/a Women On Guard — to become aware of this wondrous technology.”

——————–

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

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Next pretrial conference May 31. Trial scheduled for August 29.
— ‘Lafayette Ronald Hubbard’ (a/k/a Justin Craig), aggravated assault, plus drug charges: Last hearing was on January 18, referred to grand jury. Additional charges also referred to grand jury after January 5 assault while in jail.
— Jay and Jeff Spina, Medicare fraud: Jay sentenced to 9 years in prison. Jeff’s sentencing to be scheduled.
— Rizza Islam and other family members, Medi-Cal fraud: Pretrial conference May 20 in Los Angeles
— David Gentile, GPB Capital, fraud: Next pretrial conference set for April 8.
— Joseph ‘Ben’ Barton, Medicare fraud: Pleaded guilty, awaiting sentencing.
— Yanti Mike Greene, Scientology private eye accused of contempt of court: Hearing held on February 15, awaiting ruling.

Civil litigation:
— Luis and Rocio Garcia v. Scientology: Eleventh Circuit affirmed ruling granting Scientology’s motion for arbitration. Garcias considering next move.
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ Valerie’s motion for reconsideration denied on March 15.
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: Appellate court removes requirement of arbitration on January 19, case remanded back to Superior Court. Scientology has said it will file an anti-SLAPP motion.
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Third amended complaint filed, trial set for June 28.
— Author Steve Cannane defamation trial: Trial concluded, Cannane victorious, awarded court costs. Appeal hearing held Aug 23-27. Awaiting a 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.

——————–

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.

Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

——————–
THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] Scientology social media: Does an E-meter count as a concealed weapon?
[TWO years ago] Scientology, stop being so stupid during the pandemic. We have some advice for you.
[THREE years ago] Scientology’s bogus ‘arbitration’: The Garcia appeal brief is here, and it’s a beauty
[FOUR years ago] Scientology cranks up its ‘noisy’ investigation of Leah Remini, and she fires back
[FIVE years ago] David Miscavige: Scientology TV launches by June 21, to show ‘planet’s coolest religion’
[SIX years ago] THE BILLBOARD IS UP: Scientology’s ‘disconnection’ on view in Los Angeles
[SEVEN years ago] ‘Going Clear’ subject Tom DeVocht visited by Burbank PD after suspicious anonymous tip
[EIGHT years ago] Video Vault: Hear L. Ron Hubbard unite Dianetics and Scientology in connubial bliss!
[NINE years ago] The Secret to Scientology’s “Wins” Revealed?
[TEN years ago] Mike Rinder on “The Hole,” Indoctrination, Confessions, and His Ultimate Escape

——————–

Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley (1952-2019) did not see his daughter Stephanie in his final 5,667 days.
Valerie Haney has not seen her mother Lynne in 2,624 days.
Katrina Reyes has not seen her mother Yelena in 3,129 days
Sylvia Wagner DeWall has not seen her brother Randy in 2,649 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his grandson Leo in 1,669 days.
Geoff Levin has not seen his son Collin and daughter Savannah in 1,560 days.
Christie Collbran has not seen her mother Liz King in 4,867 days.
Clarissa Adams has not seen her parents Walter and Irmin Huber in 2,735 days.
Carol Nyburg has not seen her daughter Nancy in 3,509 days.
Doug Kramer has not seen his parents Linda and Norm in 1,840 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 4,313 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 3,629 days.
Dylan Gill has not seen his father Russell in 12,195 days.
Melissa Paris has not seen her father Jean-Francois in 8,114 days.
Valeska Paris has not seen her brother Raphael in 4,282 days.
Mirriam Francis has not seen her brother Ben in 3,863 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 4,124 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 3,160 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy and daughter Jessica in 2,875 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 2,400 days.
Julian Wain has not seen his brother Joseph or mother Susan in 755 days.
Charley Updegrove has not seen his son Toby in 1,930 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 6,481 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 3,630 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 3,950 days.
Roger Weller has not seen his daughter Alyssa in 8,805 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 3,924 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 2,280 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin and daughter Taryn in 6,583 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 2,689 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis in 3,087 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 2,963 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 2,546 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike and daughter Emily in 3,041 days.
Mary Jane Barry has not seen her daughter Samantha in 3,295 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 14,404 days.

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on April 4, 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.

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.

Quentin Hubbard’s suicide: A Scientology-based explanation so insane it might be true

Louise Shekter — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 11:00:30 +0000

[Quentin Hubbard audits a preclear. Photo courtesy of Karen de la Carriere.]

Clearwater, October 1976. Every evening at the Fort Harrison Hotel’s Lemon Tree restaurant, which had been converted to the officers’ dining room, we get together for dinner. There are four of us sharing a booth along the wall, the seats and backs covered with shiny lemon green plastic.

There’s Karen De La Carriere, a brilliant Class XII auditor, who sits next to my husband. Across the table I sit next to Quentin Hubbard, also a Class XII auditor. My husband and I are honored to be in such company, and a bond develops between the four of us with easy conversation and good humor as we exchange the “skinny” about what’s going on at the base.

I am eight months pregnant. This is a rarity in the Sea Org. It is only since we left the Flagship Apollo and arrived at the new “Flag Land Base” last December that Sea Org women are allowed to bring a child into the word while remaining at the base. So I doubt that Quentin, who has spent the last eight years of his young life secluded on the Apollo, has ever seen a pregnant woman close up. He seems fascinated with the whole business. He likes to rub my tummy and feel the baby kicking energetically.

But one day, Quentin is a no show at dinner. I’ve seen him driving out of the garage in his big white car, which made me realize that he has grown into a man. He’s now 22. He’s not the first person at Flag who has recently disappeared, far from it. Since he’s LRH’s son, I assume he’s gone to join his family “over the rainbow.”. That’s our code phrase for whatever place Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard is occupying at the moment with his entourage. We do know that when we moved off the ship to Daytona, and from there to Clearwater last fall, a lot of our shipmates never joined us here, so we assume they’ve all gone “over the rainbow” too. In my imagination that probably means Southern California, since that is another epicenter of our Scientology world, and it’s warm there. LRH does not like cold climes.

So there was no goodbye, no indication that Quentin had other plans or that something momentous had occurred in his life. He just stopped showing up at dinner one day. I missed him. I knew better than to ask questions.

On October 27, late in the evening, our son was born. After a few days we took him home. “Home” to us was room 668 in the Fort Harrison, where my husband and I had acquired a tiny yellow crib and yellow changing table to take care of the new baby. By some quirk of karma, while I was CS-3 I had written a Flag Order which granted one month leave to every new mother in the Sea Org, since Sea Org units aside from the Apollo were allowed pregnancies. Lucky break. I had decided that while I was off post, I would take the opportunity to read my basic books. My post at the time was that of a Guardian Office Project member, and my project consisted of spending my days at the local library researching the names of persons who had been maligned by the St Petersburg Times, one of the arch enemies of the Church. (But that’s a story for another day).

So I was immersed in Dianetics one evening in November when a loud knock at the door got me up, and Karen stormed into my room. She didn’t mince words. “Quentin is dead,” she blurted out. We were both in shock. She had no further details that might help us process what had happened, then or in later days. I guessed that Karen knew more than she was letting on, for she was clever and well connected, but the unwritten rule was “need to know,” and I didn’t pry. A few days later, I learned that Quentin had been in his car in Las Vegas, and that it was probably a suicide since there was a hose running into the cab from the car’s exhaust.

I was devastated. A disturbing thought nagged at me, and when I eventually shared it with my husband, I found he’d had thoughts along the same lines. Could it be that Quentin, having found that he liked both of us, had decided he’d drop his body and assume the body of the baby I was carrying, about to be born? As devout Scientologists and loyal Sea Org members, we of course believed unquestioningly in the existence of past lives, and in the fact that as an OT, Quentin would be able to knowingly choose his next body and identity. There was nothing to be done about this, but there arose in me a welter of emotions, sorrow at Quentin’s death, empathy for the sadness and despair he must have felt yet hidden so well from us, yet also a strange calm that he had chosen his own path.

———–

I have never properly grieved Quentin, because so much about his life and his death was shrouded in mystery and deliberately hidden from his fellow Sea Org members. His death had a profound and lasting effect on me, just at the moment where I myself became a mother. Besides, a display of grief was not encouraged in Scientology, and even less in the Sea Org, where it would be labeled as “case on post” – since one was always on post. The attitude was, one session to run it out, and you should be fine, thanks to the miracle of Scientology auditing.

So now I have set out to better understand him, clawing at my own memories and dredging up every scrap of documented public information I could find, and from these two sources to write for him a proper eulogy, which he so richly deserved and was so resoundingly deprived of.

I arrived on the ship in October 1969 at age nineteen, and Quentin had moved aboard with his family in November 67, so he was always present in the background of my life aboard. We never got close, even though I was only four years older than he was, for we moved in different circles, he in tech and me in management. This made me appreciate him all the more when I did get to know him well in Clearwater.

Quentin was born in January 1954 in Phoenix, just a month before the Church of Scientology of California was incorporated. The family soon moved to Washington DC, then on to London, back to Washington in late 57 and then finally again to London, where Saint Hill Manor became the family home in 1959. Quentin was raised at Saint Hill, right in the midst of the action: Saint Hill Special Briefing Course, new Hubbard Guidance Center with the Power Processes, then Clearing Course. Quentin moved with his family onto the newly acquired Royal Scotsman in late 1967 in England. LRH had left Saint Hill in December 1966 to “research” the OT levels, and returned to captain the new ship down to the Mediterranean one year later. Safe to say that growing up, Quentin was steeped in the tech from a young age, and likely was a graduate of the first Class VIII course given on board in early 1968, made infamous by its overboarding penalties. The Scientology processes as they appeared over time, the organizations that were built up around these, and the Sea Org created to shield the founder and his groups from attacks, were all he knew of the world, all he would ever know.

My most vivid memories of Quentin were of him cruising along the prom deck, his arms extended out and swaying like airplane wings, with engine whooshing sounds to match. I often saw him do this from my nearby office, and I thought it was a bit strange. The boy wanted to fly airplanes, that is for certain. Unlike his two red-headed sisters, Quentin actually didn’t look quite as much like his father. He was closer in appearance, and perhaps in personality too, to his mother, with his pale narrow face, his gentle manner, and his ash brown hair.

But he was LRH’s oldest son from Mary Sue. His older half bother Nibs from LRH’s first marriage had spectacularly abandoned the movement around 1959 after devoting seven years of his life to it. He was in short order shot down in flames by his father and his step-mother’s Guardian Office, perhaps a strong cautionary tale for young Quentin, his would-be successor to the family enterprise.

Quentin became an advanced auditor at a remarkably young age, and that was his position on the ship almost throughout the six years I was there. In the fall of 1972, a spectacular event was held at the Hollywood Palladium with reportedly 3,800 Scientologists in attendance. Quentin, age 18, was featured as the poster child for the technical side of Scientology, with his sister Diana also featured. Safe to say, everyone in Scientology knew Quentin.

I have read many times the assertion that his father had said that Quentin was being primed to eventually take over the technical side of Scientology, but I actually never heard LRH say that in the years in which I was in close contact with him. He apparently said it to his messengers. Here’s Grady:

He had originally planned to have his oldest daughter, Diana, become the eventual leader over management and Quentin to oversee the technical side, however neither of them aspired towards doing such. His next solution was his faithful Messengers who he had known and trusted for years. (Janis Gillham Grady, Commodore’s Messenger, Book II)

Here is what we do know about a specific incident. First Russell Miller in Bare-Faced Messiah :

Quentin Hubbard, now twenty, began rehearsing with the dance troupe and enjoyed it so much he made the mistake of telling his father he would like to be a dancer. “Oh no you wouldn’t”, Hubbard replied. “I have other plans for you”. There was no further discussion, and Quentin was no longer allowed to perform. (p.325)

And Janis Gillham Grady, who was also a dancer in these early days of the Apollo Stars in addition to her messenger post, has this detail to add:

LRH asked the choreographer to let Quentin go because he had other plans for him. When she agreed, LRH told her, “I owe you one”. (Book II, emphasis in original).

I seems 1974 was a tough year for Quentin. First, he was assigned as Chairman on two different Committees of Evidence on fellow auditors, who were also his close friends. He felt forced to find them guilty and uphold their RFP assignment. (Grady Book II)

Then we have this heart rending incident recounted by unnamed ex Sea Org member interviewed by Lawrence Wright:

“You have to improve” he [LRH] barked at Quentin in front of the other auditors. “It doesn’t matter that you’re a Hubbard.” Quentin would sit there and smile, seemingly unfazed, as the others cringed for him. Privately, he confided, “Daddy doesn’t love me anymore.”

I was unaware of these events as they occurred in 1974, for the newly formed dancers’ troupe of the Apollo Stars musicians was the farthest thing from my cluttered mind, as were the troubles the auditors were experiencing. I do however vividly recall what happened shortly thereafter.

In late summer 1974, while we were at the dock in Funchal, Madeira, Quentin disappeared from the ship. There was huge concern and a search party went to look for him all along the long jetty and the treacherous rocky embankment which faced the ocean side. He eventually walked back on board on his own and went to his cabin.

Incredibly, I did not find out the true story until I read it in a book decades later, after I had left the Sea Org and gave myself permission to read whatever I liked, even though it occurred right under my nose as a Commodore’s Staff Aide, and even though I witnessed the unfolding of the drama. Quentin is missing, a search party is out, oh good, Quentin has been found — this was about as far as I got into the commotion. That is testimony to how preoccupied I was with my own post, and to how well information was hidden from the crew, even from us the higher-ups.

Arguably, Quentin’s difficulties could be considered a private, “case” matter, and so rightfully withheld from his shipmates. But the secrecy would also deprive him of the emotional support which might have done him a lot of good, for he was well liked on board.

Doreen ‘Doe’ Smith Gillham, who was the messenger on duty when Quentin returned, told the story after she left the Sea Org. Briefly, when Quentin returned, LRH send Doe to see his son. Quentin said he had swallowed a bottle of aspirin. LRH ordered him to drink a mustard drink, then he was confined to his cabin for three weeks while undergoing the recently developed “Introspection Rundown.” He was then assigned to the newly created Rehabilitation Project Force by his father, over his mother’s objections, “for this was not Quentin’s first attempt at suicide,” according to Janis Gillham Grady. (Grady, Book II).

It was very troubling for me to observe Quentin working on the decks with the RPF, as he was not exactly the “deck ape” type in terms of physique and fitness. No ethics order was published to clarify the cause for his assignment. I assumed it was related to his unauthorized disappearance in Funchal. How long he stayed in the RPF, I do not recall.

Sadly, Grady reports:

Quentin’s auditing in the RPF was thought to have handled him on being suicidal; however, he made another attempt later that year while on a leave of absence in San Francisco. He was hospitalized in a psychiatric ward until the Guardian’s Office found him, arranged his release and returned him to the ship. (Grady, Book II)

So much for Scientology having the tech to handle the insane and the clinically depressed. So much for compassion, to say nothing of fatherly love. So much for the perils of being closely related to the great L. Ron Hubbard.

When his parents and his siblings went west after the move ashore, Quentin remained in Clearwater, as an auditor in the Hubbard Guidance Center delivering services to paying Scientologists. It was at this time that I got to know him as a meal partner. He seemed light hearted until the very last evening.

Karen De La Carriere revealed in a 2013 video that Quentin had audited an “illegal pc” – someone who was not qualified to receive auditing – and had gotten into trouble. Dennis Erlich, the Cramming Officer who called in Quentin for correction the day before he left, published his account of the story in 1995.

Quentin: I think a lot of my father’s stuff doesn’t work. So I false report whenever I need to. Personally, I think my father’s crazy. [By this time, I had turned white and was sure that saliva was dripping out of my now cavernous mouth.]
Dennis: Uh…you know…I’m going to have to re- train you…don’t you? [hoping, beyond hope that it would be OK with him]
Quentin: That’s fine. [zoom goes the hand in the air]
Dennis: …from the bottom up?
Quentin: OK. [paying little attention now]
Dennis: Well… [glancing at my watch and praying it was dinnertime]… it’s almost four. Why don’t you come back tomorrow after I’ve had a chance to go over the folder more carefully [trying to give any excuse for delaying the ethics routing form and retrain order] . . . then we’ll get you started on your retrain. [said under my breath as he got up to leave]
Quentin: OK.

This exchange is both astounding and yet pure Quentin, as Erlich reports that Quentin was doing mock airplane gestures and noises all the while it took place. It would be quasi comedic if it were not so tragic. We will never know what was going through Quentin’s mind. Yet I recognize this precise moment. Whatever the trigger, suddenly you realize that you are done, and you wake up from the bad dream and the whole house of cards comes crashing down, and you are ready to say so and walk away, impervious to consequence.

If Quentin was willing, as he said matter-of-factly, to disregard the instructions to bring the CS-53 Correction List on his preclear to a floating needle, because he thought it didn’t work and would waste her expensive auditing hours, then he had already gone over the edge. If he was then willing to state that openly to the Cramming Officer, one can only assume he was aware of the consequences.

Was Quentin’s nonchalance for real or an act? Had he already decided to leave Scientology? Was this the instant where he made that decision? Was this about freeing himself from his father? He knew his statement would result in a cancellation of certifications and a complete retrain. He was facing one year or more of grueling full time study, 14 hours a day, with no time off and essentially no personal life. Was he casual because he never intended to submit to that, or simply because he was dissociated from reality at that point. Or perhaps he considered that full time study would give him a break from the intense pressures of auditing. Maybe he had he been deeply affected by the failures to improve of his difficult preclear, who was dying of cancer and held out her auditing as her last hope. Perhaps none of the above or a mixture of all of the above.

What is certain, is that Quentin blew the Sea Org the very next day or perhaps even the same evening, and never showed up in Cramming again. He just got in his car and drove off. As the son of LRH, who grew up in and with Scientology, as a Class XII auditor, this was the ultimate crime.

All along, even after I learned of his death in Las Vegas, I had assumed that Quentin was on his way to rejoin his family on the West Coast and ran into trouble of some kind, either personal or external. The truth was quite otherwise, as I found out post-Scientology

When Quentin “blew” from the Clearwater base, there ensued a massive hunt from the Guardian’s Office network to find him, unknown to me. At Flag itself, the Director of Internal Security Chuck Ohl (who was later to be my direct senior when I joined that branch of the GO) interviewed Karen to see if she could recall anything that might give a clue to his whereabouts or his intentions, since she had been his “twin” for mandatory daily auditor drills and so knew him well. Nothing there. Throughout the US, GO operatives were instructed to search all the usual places to find Quentin, dead or alive, including of course gay bars and air fields and flight schools.

Quentin had left a note saying he was heading for Area 51, the infamous and secret Air Force Base in the Nevada desert where high altitude spy planes had been secretly tested. Not surprisingly, there were also rumors of UFOs in the area. Is it any wonder that this area acted as a powerful magnet for the young man, who had been steeped during his whole life and his Scientology auditor training in a culture where space opera stories featured prominently as real past lives events?

After Quentin’s death, a messenger at the La Quinta ranch found letters which he had written to his father: “It sounded like Quentin had gone crazy. He was talking about people coming from outer space and what were we going to do about it.” Interestingly, the messenger knew that LRH had never replied to his son. (Miller)

We only know that Quentin went through St Louis, where he spent a day with aviation buffs, and got to ride in a corporate jet, as described by an eyewitness in an Underground Bunker report. Good for him. That seems to be the last time he was seen alive by anyone connected to Scientology.

But not only did Quentin want to die, he wanted to disappear utterly. He chose a telling spot to park his car for the last time, a side road at the end of a runway at the Las Vegas airport, from where he could see the planes land and take off. Before running the carbon monoxide tube into the cab with the engine running, he removed the license plate and hid it under some rocks nearby, and he stripped naked. Perhaps in his naivety he thought he would remain forever a John Doe and thus avoid causing a “PR flap” for Scientology. But he was soon discovered by police, unconscious with the car still running, so he did become a John Doe, lying in a coma in hospital for fifteen days, before he died, tragically alone. He was soon identified through his vehicle number, which linked him to his address at the Fort Harrison.

Then the GO set into motion an elaborate set of actions to “handle the situation.” Astonishingly, Quentin’s medical records were actually stolen from the hospital. A form signed by his parents was produced to authorize the release of the body, under the pretense that they were away in Ireland and could not attend – they were in fact at their ranch in La Quinta, California. The body was quickly cremated, and a Scientologist’s light plane was procured to spread Quentin’s ashes over the ocean. For anyone who asked, stories were put out that Quentin had been on holidays to take flying lessons and that he had died of encephalitis. Mary Sue reportedly asked for two additional autopsies and the cause of death was modified to “unknown.” Lies, deception, theft of documents, cover ups. Business as usual, then.

Quentin’s death was never publicly announced to Scientologists. A blow from the Sea Org, homosexuality, a suicide. It would all have been entirely too much of a stain. There was no memorial, there was no celebration of his life with family and friends. He was just gone. Rumors started up that he had been murdered. How convenient.

We have two eyewitness statements about Hubbard’s reaction when he was handed the report of his son’s death on November 17, 1976. Doreen Smith could hear him yell at the top of his voice. “That stupid fucking kid. Look what he’s done to me.” Another version notes that Hubbard said “That little shit has done it to me again,” whereupon he threw the death report at Kima Douglas. It was, true to form, all about himself.

Was Quentin homosexual? In today’s world of fluid and non-binary gender identities, even asking the question seems inappropriate. But Quentin lived in a different era. My personal observation is that he had a gentle soul and an effeminate manner. But I well recalled reading the footnote in Science of Survival, published by Hubbard in 1951, where he categorically declared that all homosexuals were perverts and at 1.1 on the tone scale, which is to say in covert hostility. I remember that sweeping statement because reading it in the early seventies, I found it offensive even then. I just assumed that in the intervening quarter of a century, Hubbard had mollified his views.

Certainly, in 1951 the homophobia was a widespread social attitude. One is reminded of the tragic fate of the brilliant British computer scientist Alan Turing. “Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts. He accepted hormone treatment with DES, a procedure commonly referred to as chemical castration, as an alternative to prison.” He died in 1954 at age 41 from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined his death as a suicide, or perhaps accidental poisoning. It took until 2009 for the British government to issue a formal apology.

Trouble is, everything LRH wrote he himself emphatically declared to be both true and unalterable – including the policy letters in which he made these claims. It was circular and iron clad. So the 1951 anti-gay pronouncement and later ones in the same vein are still etched in stone in the Scientology world.

In point of fact, growing up on the Apollo throughout his teenage years, as LRH’s son and heir apparent, Quentin’s sexual development would have been particularly stunted. Consider: anything he risked revealing in his auditing would have surely landed his preclear folder straight up to his father’s desk, who oversaw the case supervision on board. No privacy whatsoever. The same for any of his eventual sexual partners in their own auditing. He lived in a fishbowl, and anyone who associated with him lived in it alongside him. In addition, his choice of partners was limited to his shipmates, as was the case for all of us since no relationship with locals was permitted. And there were eyes everywhere on the ship, in the form of the Commodores’ Messengers who made it their business to know what was going on, and who was bedding whom.

Given the safe assumption then that his parents would know whatever Quentin was up to, would either his father or his mother have interfered with his choice of partners? On that point we have no doubt. Here is Janis Grady in her Book II:

A few females on the ship became close friends with Quentin. One moved into his cabin with him. They stayed together as a couple for nearly a year, until Mary Sue found out they were living together and ordered them apart. This girl then moved on to the Chief Engineer, then left to have an abortion. Mary Sue warned two other females on the ship, who had become good friends with Quentin, not to get too close. Quentin was a very social person with many friends, both male and female, but his closest friends were all female.

And then this from Lawrence Wright writing about Monica Pignotti, who was Quentin’s “twin” co-auditor on the RPF in 1974:

They never became intimate. Quentin told her that he had once become sexually involved with a woman, but when his father found out, she was sent off the ship. He knew that people regarded him as a homosexual, he said, but that was only something he told other women on the ship who were after him because he was Hubbard’s son.

These two version disagree, and the circumstances under which this young woman left the ship are unclear. Although Quentin seemed to think that she was sent off due to her relationship with him, Grady’s statement seems to imply that she had to leave due to being pregnant by her next boyfriend. It’s possible that Quentin was never told the truth about her departure.

Quentin’s original autopsy report showed seemingly incontrovertible evidence of homosexual activity. Perhaps one human being somewhere knows what actually happened. But more than likely, Quentin never revealed his identity to this random person.

———–

Here’s the weird part. My son was born late in the day on October 27. Quentin was found in his car on the morning of October 28 around 8:30 am. He knew my due date when he left Clearwater. Could that be a mere coincidence? He was no doubt steeped in LRH’s stories about the between-lives implant, where the thetan after departing one body gets freshly implanted and then returns to earth to pick up a newborn body from a pregnant woman or a maternity ward.

Of course, I have long since stopped believing in those stories. But more to the point, did Quentin still believe in them on the day that he chose to die? We know that he still believed in the space opera stories of the Scientology world view, even though he had stated that his father was crazy.

Did he still harbor the hope that as an OT he was free from the between-lives implants and could consciously choose his next identity – if he chose to return to this planet at all? After all, that was precisely the meaning of the “total freedom” promise of Scientology, to which he had devoted his entire life.

Ironically, Karen De La Carriere ends her short video about Quentin with this printed statement:

After Quentin Died at least 2,000 women claimed their new baby in the late 1970s was the re-incarnation of Quentin Hubbard. Some Scientologists even used it as a scam to extort money.

———–

The life and death of Quentin Hubbard was a tragedy of Shakesperean proportions. He had the misfortune of being born in an era where homosexuality was socially anathema, and worse still, within a quasi religious fundamentalist movement whose anti-gay scriptures were as extreme as they were unalterable. He had the misfortune of being born with the mantle of succession to that movement, which he never wanted and for which he was not temperamentally suited. He had the misfortune of being highly emphatic in a cult which despised empathy. He had the further misfortune of being raised in a completely closed vessel, literally and figuratively, so that he was denied any sane role models, any privacy, freedom of choice or even freedom of thought.

And most of all, he had the misfortune of being born the son of L. Ron Hubbard, a man whose extreme narcissism, paranoia, megalomania, greed and vengeful personality blossomed into an organization in his image. Yet Hubbard had the charm and cunning to paste it over with tall tales, elaborate tissues of lies, a gift of the gab, a touch of charisma, an unbridled imagination and endless evasive maneuvers. A man who saw his own son merely as a useful pawn in his own game, to be won at all costs.

Quentin was utterly trapped. He saw no way out. Objectively, he had no way out. He escaped the only way he knew how. A blow would never have sufficed, for he knew he would be hunted down by his mother’s Guardian’s Office and brought back. He’d already been through the RPF once. He was facing a complete loss of his identity as a star auditor, something he may or may not have wished for. He wanted to escape permanently from his Hubbard legacy. Seen in this light, his suicide makes perfect sense.

Yet in truth Quentin could have escaped in life, instead of escaping through death. His two younger siblings eventually did so, but only over a decade later in 1988, and only after their father’s passing. Only his older sister remains in oblivion within the Sea Org, although her own daughter too has escaped the cult. In a perfect world, or even in today’s world, Quentin could have left the prison his father had wrought for him and matured to be an airline pilot and to enjoy life with a partner of his own choosing.

It was not to be.

“Now cracks a noble heart”, says Horatio looking down at Hamlet’s dead body. “Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

— Louise Shekter

——————–

Sign up for a daily email when we post a new story on Scientology.

——————–

“I don’t know what number the GPM is back at the year 200 trillion. On some PCs it will probably be number 52; and on some PCs it’ll be number 31, don’t you see? So to get a consistent numbering, when we say the first GPM, we mean the one which is nearest or the latest formed one. It’s the goal of that one that you have to have, but some pcs have skidded their wheels. They’ve listened to speeches by the Democrats or they’ve they’ve looked over Australian legal procedure or something like that, and they’ve skidded their wheels. And they’ve gone back to the second GPM and are living this life in the second GPM. You understand that? They’ve met an oppterm, let us say, in the second GPM of sufficient magnitude to cause them to be the terminal of the second GPM. You understand? That’s horrifying, isn’t it? Well, I’ll tell you why it’s horrifying. Because if you found the goal that they are living at this moment, it wouldn’t run. That makes some PCs more difficult to find goals on than others. You follow that? Now, what is more complicated is that the first GPM may or may not be fully formed. You may have only the first eight items of the first GPM formed, or you may have only the first 16 items of the first GPM formed because of course the PC normally is forming these things progressively as you move on up the track. Well, as we were saying last night, it is really too bad that we didn’t have somebody at various points of the track, and he took a gun and he said, ‘Everyone will now postulate his 65th GPM goal’ —bang! You see, and we all did it at once. Only it didn’t work that way. Some fellows postulated theirs thousands of years ago, some billions of years ago, and some trillions of years ago. So this of course makes it an uneven number.” — L. Ron Hubbard, March 21, 1963

——————–

“Vixie is OK. She was taken to the vet this morning. Her leg isn’t broken. It was a torn ligament. Mary Sue gave her a touch assist last night. Vixie went totally anaten. The pain shock was in her shoulder and went up to her head which she for awhile refused to permit to be touched. The touch assist was done on both sides of the body (other leg too) and near and far areas. You wear thick gloves in giving a dog or cat a touch assist as they snap and scratch and disassociate. The swelling went down and she came up to growl tone. On return from the vet she got a bone and sat in the foyer where she could bark at people.” —The Commodore, March 21, 1970

——————–

“The hidden datum about thetans is that at static there is only one thetan. There is only one of us. All thetans are one beingness, divided against itself. Because there is only one of us at the top of Filbert’s Expanded Tone Scale, any aberative incident which happens to one of us in the presence of another one of us has to be erased also from that point of view, because that other person’s viewpoint is YOURS too! We experience everything that happens around us from the point of view of everything there. But even there’s more. If for example a person is involved in an automobile accident, to achieve total erasure (not merely partial and a release) it would be necessary to assume every viewpoint possible. This would be what looks like madness from a human perspective: the driver of car A, the passenger in car A, the driver of car B, the French poodle in the front seat of car B, the pedestrian who was gazing into a shop window and heard the crash behind her, car A, car B, the pavement, the sky, the buildings, the lamp post, the stop sign (especially the ‘stop’ sign, ha ha!), the sparrow flying past, the tree growing nearby — Get the picture?”

——————–

2002: Scientologist John Mappin has lost a case in the U.K. for defrauding a gossip columnist, claiming that he would produce a film based on the writer’s life. From The Guardian: “Benjamin Pell, better known as ‘Benji the Binman,’ has won back the 77,500 pounds he was hoodwinked into paying to finance a bogus Hollywood blockbuster about his life, following a high court ruling this afternoon. Mr. Pell brought an action for fraudulent misrepresentation against John Mappin, an heir to the Mappin and Webb jewelry empire, claiming he had been ‘duped.’ He made four separate payments totaling 77,500 pounds so as not to miss this ‘unique opportunity to work with one of the biggest names in Hollywood.’ His counsel, Marion Smith, said: ‘He believed there were going to be Hollywood writers on the case, for it to be picked up by a Hollywood studio, cast with big-name actors and a Hollywood film resulting.’ In fact, the ‘well-connected Hollywood film-maker’ was a friend of Mr. Mappin called Iain Jones, who turned out to be a hairdresser. Mr. Jones, she claimed, had never directed or produced any film at all, but had been credited with hair design on three Quentin Tarantino films – Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and White Man’s Burden.”

——————–

“So when some little kid says ‘goo goo ga ga’ during an auditing session the auditor tells the parents that junior was speaking in a whole track alien dialect?”

——————–

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

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Next pretrial conference May 31. Trial scheduled for August 29.
— ‘Lafayette Ronald Hubbard’ (a/k/a Justin Craig), aggravated assault, plus drug charges: Last hearing was on January 18, referred to grand jury. Additional charges also referred to grand jury after January 5 assault while in jail.
— Jay and Jeff Spina, Medicare fraud: Jay sentenced to 9 years in prison. Jeff’s sentencing to be scheduled.
— Hanan and Rizza Islam and other family members, Medi-Cal fraud: Pretrial conference March 25 in Los Angeles
— David Gentile, GPB Capital, fraud: Next pretrial conference set for April 8.
— Joseph ‘Ben’ Barton, Medicare fraud: Pleaded guilty, awaiting sentencing.
— Yanti Mike Greene, Scientology private eye accused of contempt of court: Hearing held on February 15, awaiting ruling.

Civil litigation:
— Luis and Rocio Garcia v. Scientology: Eleventh Circuit affirmed ruling granting Scientology’s motion for arbitration. Garcias considering next move.
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ Valerie’s motion for reconsideration denied on March 15.
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: Appellate court removes requirement of arbitration on January 19, case remanded back to Superior Court. Scientology has said it will file an anti-SLAPP motion.
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Third amended complaint filed, trial set for June 28.
— Author Steve Cannane defamation trial: Trial concluded, Cannane victorious, awarded court costs. Appeal hearing held Aug 23-27. Awaiting a 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.

——————–

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.

Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

——————–
THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] ABCMouse honcho gives Scientology another $10 million — for construction of ‘LRH Hall’
[TWO years ago] Scientology and the coronavirus: Keeping the orgs open as ‘essential services’
[THREE years ago] That feeling when Scientology tries to creep you out as a recruiting strategy
[FOUR years ago] Kirstie Alley goes OT 8, celebrates her ‘confront’ level on Scientology’s cruise ship ‘Freewinds’
[FIVE years ago] Reza Aslan is already being dishonest about indie Scientology ahead of CNN episode
[SIX years ago] No longer working for Monique Rathbun to sue Scientology, Ray Jeffrey opens up
[SEVEN years ago] ‘Going Clear’ subject Tom DeVocht reveals new info about Tom Cruise and Scientology’s leader
[EIGHT years ago] Video Vault: L. Ron Hubbard at his campiest, in 1960’s State of Man Congress!
[NINE years ago] The Mother and Child Reunion: Another Dianetics Nightmare
[TEN years ago] Battlefield Earth: Still Making the World Safe From Scientology Nearly 12 Years Later

——————–

Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley (1952-2019) did not see his daughter Stephanie in his final 5,667 days.
Valerie Haney has not seen her mother Lynne in 2,610 days.
Katrina Reyes has not seen her mother Yelena in 3,115 days
Sylvia Wagner DeWall has not seen her brother Randy in 2,635 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his grandson Leo in 1,655 days.
Geoff Levin has not seen his son Collin and daughter Savannah in 1,546 days.
Christie Collbran has not seen her mother Liz King in 4,853 days.
Clarissa Adams has not seen her parents Walter and Irmin Huber in 2,721 days.
Carol Nyburg has not seen her daughter Nancy in 3,495 days.
Doug Kramer has not seen his parents Linda and Norm in 1,826 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 4,299 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 3,615 days.
Dylan Gill has not seen his father Russell in 12,181 days.
Melissa Paris has not seen her father Jean-Francois in 8,100 days.
Valeska Paris has not seen her brother Raphael in 4,268 days.
Mirriam Francis has not seen her brother Ben in 3,849 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 4,110 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 3,146 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy and daughter Jessica in 2,861 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 2,386 days.
Julian Wain has not seen his brother Joseph or mother Susan in 741 days.
Charley Updegrove has not seen his son Toby in 1,916 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 6,467 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 3,616 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 3,936 days.
Roger Weller has not seen his daughter Alyssa in 8,791 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 3,910 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 2,266 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin and daughter Taryn in 6,569 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 2,675 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis in 3,073 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 2,949 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 2,532 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike and daughter Emily in 3,027 days.
Mary Jane Barry has not seen her daughter Samantha in 3,281 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 14,390 days.

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on March 21, 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.

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.

Rough seas? Tough cookie, sailor. In Scientology, you upchuck at your own peril

Louise Shekter — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 12:00:37 +0000

In response to my essay on the Azores hurricane of October 1970, two of my shipmates at the time wrote in to say that what they remember most was being seasick. Their comments shed light on this additional burden that so many of my Apollo shipmates endured, in addition to the other hardships of their lives aboard. So it got me thinking about my own experience, and sent me digging for related Sea Org policies, as well as for current information.

20-24 November ~~1971~~ 1969 – At sea, enroute to Lisbon. This is a very exciting time for me. A few days ago the sea trial concluding the Casablanca refit was completed to great success. Aside from engine tests, it was also a lavish social affair, with various dignitaries invited to spend the day aboard for the occasion. I was deputized to assist the Ship’s PR personnel in hosting our guests, for which I was commended by the Port Captain in the Orders of the Day.

Finally, the ship takes to sea, enroute to Lisbon, my first seagoing experience since my arrival aboard. Alas, as a steward in the Officers’ dining room, I don’t get to stand sea watches but I am required to remain on my post. Luckily the dining room is quasi-deserted at lunch time. Some are on watch, or sleeping off their night watch, some are evidently not in the mood for a meal. The other steward is a no-show.

The ship’s movement is uncomfortable in the windowless galley, pitching up and down and rolling side to side all at once, so it seems. As I open the heavy steel door of the upper fridge to return the butter to its usual place, I am holding on to the dish with one hand and steadying myself with the other. Unexpectedly, the ship rolls and the heavy door slams shut violently, missing my temples by inches as I drop the dish and jump back. An experienced sea hand would have seen that coming, but not I. Frightened, in a cold sweat, I realize that a direct hit from that heavy moving object slamming shut on my head could have maimed me or worse.

(Today, I realize there was no way to secure that door open while reaching in to the fridge. A simple latch would have done the trick. The negligence in that simple deficiency is painfully apparent to me.)

There is no supervision in the galley, the place is deserted. Strangely, the cooks aren’t here either. I am feeling increasingly queasy and vaguely scared. Holding on to the bare stainless steel counter, I make my way on the slippery floor toward the aft door of the galley. Finally, some fresh air.

The wind and sea spray are assaulting my face on the aft well deck, so I climb one level up and I settle in the relatively protected corner of the starboard quarterdeck. I’m on the windward side facing the oncoming waves, and any old hand would have known to make her way to the downwind side, but not I.

I am vaguely aware that being prone to seasickness would be a non starter, if I am to live and work on a ship at sea. For a long, long time, I fix my gaze on the far away horizon which disappears and reappears with every crest. Fascinated and scared, I watch tensely as each mountain of solid water comes at the ship, the cresting top almost level with my gaze, four stories up from the waterline, and I fear it will break on the hull and flood the deck. But miraculously, at the last moment, the ship heaves like a cork, up and sideways, and the wave passes under the hull with a roar. There is a pattern to it. Soon I sense the dance of the ship with the ocean, like a violent tango, and I come to trust the motion of the ship. I have tamed the beast of seasickness.

On the next day, on November 20, while we are still at sea, LRH has this to say in the Orders of the Day:

There was an anti-cyclone (a high pressure area storm) outside the port. That was the rock and roll. We seldom stagger around like that. Of course we were running at its center.

Recalling this incident now, I remember that there exists a Flag Order specifically about seasickness, but I have as yet been unable to locate it. From what I remember, it does state that deserting one’s post due to seasickness was a serious ethics offense. People who were prone to it were advised to get some Dramamine from the medical officer – an unfortunate catch-22 since the medicine induces serious drowsiness, thereby encouraging the victim to beat a hasty retreat to their bunk. That of course was not allowed, and sick people were required to stay on deck.

This seems corroborated by this sarcastic posting in the Orders of the Day by the 3rd Mate (responsible for Ethics) during this same passage:

ORDERS. You are reminded that at sea that [sic] if off post = seasickness, this = liability = no rights whatever. So be up and about and see the MO for pills or suppositories if needed. Div 1 will assist with the right ethics condition if any offenders are found. W/O Ray Thacker 3rd Mate.”

Then I found this passage as part of Flag Order 80 Sea Org Org Board, of 31 August 67:

Sea-sickness is first and foremost lack of confidence. It is almost [sic] bad food at sea in times past restimulated. And it is of course motion sickness. But it is fear, and a well drilled crew in a sound ship is confident and unless badly aberrated or very badly knocked about they don’t get seasick.

At the time, I did not question the assertion that seasickness was restimulation from past lives. I suppose I just assumed that LRH knew more than I did on these matters, on which I had no personal knowledge to either verify or counter his statements. Even today, I am agnostic as to whether we humans live more than once, given that it is beyond the purview of science.

I did become aware very early on that being seasick did not exempt one from carrying out one’s post duties as well as sea watches. Since I was not prone to seasickness personally, I did not give much thought to the hardships that were endured by the people who were. I have no merit in this in that I was raised on the water from an early age, and my guess is that I would not have self-selected a life at sea if it felt uncomfortable just being there.

To be charitable, we know a lot more today about the mechanism of seasickness than we did in 1970. The inner ear contains a liquid which moves with our body and ensures our balance. This liquid movement is picked up by tiny hairs which then forward this information to the brain. But if we are for instance in a closed cabin with no view of the horizon, the ear and brain tell us we are moving but the cabin moves along with us and so our eyes tell us we are not moving in space. This discordance between the ears and the eyes causes the dizziness. It seems that the dizziness in turns triggers the same reflex as that of having eaten something poisonous, a vestige from our hunter-gatherer epoch.

Nowadays people who go to sea in small boats know of two immediate remedies, aside from drugs: you can either lie down with your eyes closed, or you can stay alert and watch the horizon so that the eyes perceive the true movement. This second option seems to be what I did intuitively on my first day at sea.

But in hindsight I believe that the ethics dictates about seasickness on the ship constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Were they a carry over from our commodore’s days in the US navy? Perhaps, but if so that was misguided.

The decree that seasickness was restimulation from past lives led directly to the conclusion that it was “case on post,” a big no-no in the Sea Org, and the unfortunate victim of the mal de mer was out-ethics and personally at fault if they succumbed to it in the least. That is par for the course in Scientology. Whatever its lofty claims, it just ends up making you feel bad about yourself as you are never good enough, capable enough, powerful enough, uptone enough as the “tech” says you should be to validate that it works on you.

— Louise Shekter

——————–

Sign up for a daily email when we post a new story on Scientology.

——————–

“It’s the inability of the Catholic Church, and the inability of the Methodist and Angelican and other faiths, to unravel the why that lay behind human-emotion-and-reaction that convinced them utterly that man was a sinful being and that was born in sin, and he was conceived in sin and born in sin and would die in sin, and that he was evil. You can see them now on the rostrum, on the platform shaking their fingers at their congregations and how they were evil sinners, and they were all sinners. That’s just all, they didn’t have the right why. So, your own future morale pursuing a line as an Establishment Officer actually is greatly dependent on your ability to penetrate a situation and discover a correct why.” — L. Ron Hubbard, March 2, 1972

——————–

“Al Bornstein is ordered to thorough daily 2 hour study on his post hat. I have already sent Org Officer FAO a full checksheet on promotion for use in his hat.” — Lt. Cmdr. Diana Hubbard, Distribution Aide, March 2, 1971

——————–

“Able Body Bill said (in the UFO lecture) that siding with the EU and its Marcabian masters was better than siding with the USA and its gray Andromedan masters. Marcab controls the population through economics and tax, while the grays from Andromeda use brain chips and implants.”

——————–

1997: In preparation for next week’s protest in Clearwater, members of Scientology’s OSA began calling on a.r.s participants this week. From Maggie Council: “I got mine on Tuesday. I didn’t particularly want to talk to Bennetta Slaughter, who claimed to be Lisa McPherson’s best friend, but I spent a few minutes on the phone with her. It was the things she didn’t tell me that bothered me. Like that she also was Lisa’s boss at AMC Publishing in Clearwater. Like that she had been sent to ‘handle’ me, to convince me not to attend the candlelight vigil. And it bugged me that, for someone who just lost her best friend, she was more interested in dead-agenting Lisa’s family than finding out what really happened to her friend, amid all the contradictions. She didn’t tell me anything substantial, anything that could be independently verified, or anything to make me wonder anything other than why she was wasting my time telling me all this. I felt sorry for her. OSA has given her a tough job and I don’t think she’ll succeed.”

——————–

“Even after all this time I’m still shocked at how this ‘religion’ is able to turn people into the biggest bunch of liars, bullies and amoral a-holes I’ve ever come across. I’m use to associating with junkies, prostitutes, and various other sundry shady types, but generally speaking, those people have more of a moral compass than your militant Scientologist.”

——————–

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

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Next pretrial conference May 31. Trial scheduled for August 29.
— ‘Lafayette Ronald Hubbard’ (a/k/a Justin Craig), aggravated assault, plus drug charges: Last hearing was on January 18, referred to grand jury.
— Jay and Jeff Spina, Medicare fraud: Jay sentenced to 9 years in prison. Jeff’s sentencing to be scheduled.
— Hanan and Rizza Islam and other family members, Medi-Cal fraud: Pretrial conference March 25 in Los Angeles
— David Gentile, GPB Capital, fraud: Next pretrial conference set for April 8.
— Joseph ‘Ben’ Barton, Medicare fraud: Pleaded guilty, awaiting sentencing.
— Yanti Mike Greene, Scientology private eye accused of contempt of court: Hearing held on February 15, awaiting ruling.

Civil litigation:
— Luis and Rocio Garcia v. Scientology: Eleventh Circuit affirmed ruling granting Scientology’s motion for arbitration. Garcias considering next move.
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ Valerie asks for March 15 hearing on motion for reconsideration.
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: Appellate court removes requirement of arbitration on January 19, case remanded back to Superior Court. Scientology has said it will file an anti-SLAPP motion.
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Third amended complaint filed, trial set for June 28.
— Author Steve Cannane defamation trial: Trial concluded, Cannane victorious, awarded court costs. Appeal hearing held Aug 23-27. Awaiting a 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.

——————–

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.

Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

——————–
THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] Save the date: Special ‘Cult City’ tour with Marc Headley for L. Ron Hubbard’s birthday
[TWO years ago] DRONE FLYOVER: The Gold Country mine where Scientology stores its scriptures
[THREE years ago] Mike Rinder on Scientology’s smears, Miscavige’s fears, and waiting for ‘Aftermath’ news
[FOUR years ago] Scientology TV is now installed at the Ideal Orgs — when do the rest of us get to see it?
[FIVE years ago] Leah Remini’s ‘Troublemaker’ finally gets a UK publisher — and you can probably guess who!
[SIX years ago] APPEALS COURT STRIKES SCIENTOLOGY’S $1 MILLION JUDGMENT AGAINST KEN DANDAR
[SEVEN years ago] NEW TODAY: Memoir with shocking claims by notorious Scientology spy, Merrell Vannier
[EIGHT years ago] Sunday Funnies: Scientology nuttiness on Oscar Day!
[NINE years ago] Scientology Mythbusting with Jon Atack: That L. Ron Hubbard TV Ad!
[TEN years ago] Scientology on the High Seas: Three Major Enemies Scalped!

——————–

Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley (1952-2019) did not see his daughter Stephanie in his final 5,667 days.
Valerie Haney has not seen her mother Lynne in 2,591 days.
Katrina Reyes has not seen her mother Yelena in 3,096 days
Sylvia Wagner DeWall has not seen her brother Randy in 2,616 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his grandson Leo in 1,636 days.
Geoff Levin has not seen his son Collin and daughter Savannah in 1,527 days.
Christie Collbran has not seen her mother Liz King in 4,834 days.
Clarissa Adams has not seen her parents Walter and Irmin Huber in 2,702 days.
Carol Nyburg has not seen her daughter Nancy in 3,476 days.
Doug Kramer has not seen his parents Linda and Norm in 1,807 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 4,280 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 3,596 days.
Dylan Gill has not seen his father Russell in 12,162 days.
Melissa Paris has not seen her father Jean-Francois in 8,081 days.
Valeska Paris has not seen her brother Raphael in 4,249 days.
Mirriam Francis has not seen her brother Ben in 3,830 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 4,091 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 3,127 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy and daughter Jessica in 2,842 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 2,367 days.
Julian Wain has not seen his brother Joseph or mother Susan in 722 days.
Charley Updegrove has not seen his son Toby in 1,897 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 6,448 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 3,597 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 3,917 days.
Roger Weller has not seen his daughter Alyssa in 8,772 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 3,891 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 2,247 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin and daughter Taryn in 6,550 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 2,656 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis in 3,054 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 2,930 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 2,513 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike and daughter Emily in 3,008 days.
Mary Jane Barry has not seen her daughter Samantha in 3,262 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 14,371 days.

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on March 2, 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.

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.

Shekter: A trial by storm for Scientology’s most dedicated still resonates today

Louise Shekter — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 12:00:29 +0000

September 1970, Azores. Now that I have moved my way up from the Stewards Department to administrative jobs, a new highlight of my life on board is my initiation into the routines and rituals of sea watches.

At sea, the ship’s company, except stewards and engineers, stands sea watches. There are six watch teams who each stand 4 hours in a 24 hour rotation. I have the good fortune of being assigned to watch 6, headed by Diana Hubbard as conning officer (the person who conducts the vessel during the watch), who is very capable, and insistent on proper training and strict performance of her crew.

By the time late summer rolls around, I’ve already been promoted to Helmsman, to my delight. Yes, I am entrusted with steering the 320 foot long vessel and maintaining her course, using the big old wooden wheel with the burnished spokes from all the seamen who have laid their hands upon it for decades before me.

The Apollo goes to sea once a week or two, to move from port to port. The distances are often short, usually overnight, and most often along the coast. In keeping with the ship’s security protocols, our next destination is only made known to the crew after we leave port, so after we cast off from Setubal in Portugal on September 13, it is announced that we are taking a serious offshore voyage, heading for the Azores, a Portuguese owned tiny archipelago some 900 miles due west of the mainland. The nearly three day trip is uneventful although tiring, since we must in theory maintain all post duties in addition to the sea watches and the loss of sleep they entail. We make landfall in Ponta Delgada on the main island of São Miguel.

I have been since the spring engaged in a romantic relationship with Leon Steinberg, who is the Supercargo for the ship, directly under the Captain. Known to all as Steiny, he’s a gentle giant with a tentative smile and a heart of gold, who speaks deliberately and knows far more than he lets on, at least to me. So one day on liberty the two of us get to explore the little town with its quaint whitewashed church, and its roads and public squares covered with the round black volcanic stones in the Portuguese style familiar to us.

I soon come to learn that the people of Azores have practiced whale hunting for hundreds of years. There are lookouts in refuges up on the hills behind the town, who scan the horizon for whale spouting activity, and then in the old days would light a smoke fire to alert the villagers to take to sea – although more recently this was replaced by rockets, and later still by radios.

Steiny, bless his heart, surprises me with a unique gift: an exquisite necklace with large oval beads made entirely of polished whale teeth ivory. Even the clasp consists of an ivory bead into which have been carved the threads of a tiny screw.

As we continue our grand tour of the archipelago, we visit the islands of Terceira, Faial and Santa Maria. Already the weather is rough for the short passage between Faial and Santa Maria, as we dock into the small port at the southwest corner of the island. But it soon goes from bad to worse. By October 18, the ship is banging against the dock due to wave action, lines are snapping , and the Commodore orders the ship out to sea to ride out the weather.

The storm lasts for nearly two full days, during which the ship steams along the coast, protected somewhat from the wind and waves by the island, sailing in figure eight loops so as to attack the waves diagonally, the most stable angle. Unfortunately that means the ship is simultaneously pitching bow to stern and rolling side to side, in a sickening corkscrew motion which, well, makes the crew sick.

My turns at the helm are challenging, to say the least. It’s barely manageable to keep a course with the waves off our bow, as the vessel is “shipping green” as the nautical folks would say, meaning that the entire forward deck and bow area, barely visible below through the assault of rain and spray on the windows of the bridge, plunges deep into the solid sea, checks its forward motion for a time, with the stern lifting clear out of the water and the propellers thumping in thin air, then ever so slowly, while I wait with suspended breath, labors to come back up as the weight of tons of angry sea water slowly empties off her sides. On the return leg of the loop, with the wave trains behind us, the ship surfs madly off the crests and slides down into the deep troughs, pushed way off course and onto the back of the next mountain of water at every wave, and maintaining course is near impossible.

But the really scary part is when we come to the end of our loop and must turn around to reverse direction, in order to stay protected behind the island. The conning officer barks the order to come about over the screaming wind, and I must execute the 180 degree turn slowly and gradually, making a wide enough turn to prevent the ship from leaning over too hard. That requires a period of one or two minutes where we must take the waves fully side on, rolling so deeply from side to side that one wonders at the end of every swing whether the ship will keep going and capsize. She somehow regains her footing and redresses herself, only to come to center and swing violently in the opposite direction. I am not seasick per se, just sick with fear that the old gal will go down with all hands, with me at the helm.

On my second watch of the storm, the night is pitch black, and the bridge is dark and silent as the watch members huddle wherever they find a corner to wedge into or a handhold to grab onto, hoping they will not be called upon. As for me, feet planted wide apart on the wet floor, I’m holding on to my helm for dear life as the boat lurches unpredictably. Eventually I get the hang of it. It’s impossible to steer the ship by the faint red glow of the numbers on the compass in front of me, and it’s impossible to see anything outside, sky and ocean merging into one terrifying, howling blackness. In the absence of visual information, I soon learn to steer with my feet, that is to say by gravity. I concentrate on the shifts of my weight as I feel the ship climbing every wave and starting to change its angle, and I respond by leaning on my helm in the opposite direction, to meet the ship and dampen her motion.

Two days later, when the winds abate and the sea state settles down, we sail back the fifty miles north to Ponta Delgada, fuel up, and leave the Azores never to return. I am a much better sailor after this trial by hurricane, but never again will I be so casual about the capriciousness and power of the ocean.

As for Steiny, we soon end our relationship when I move up to the Prom Deck for my new job as a Commodore Staff Aide. He later married a fellow auditor, a much better partner for him, and moved on up to Class XII, the highest level of auditor there is, only to later leave the Sea Org.

But I kept the ivory necklace he gave me, even though the hunting of whales soon became prohibited and the wearing of ivory ornaments no longer acceptable. I still have it to this day. It has followed me around for over fifty years now, like the memories of my six years on the Apollo, which I can’t seem to let go of either.

Many eyewitnesses have come forward to tell the story of this Azores storm, most notably Janis Gillham Grady in her book: Commodore’s Messenger: A Child Adrift in the Scientology Sea Organization. But beyond the legend, I’ve always wanted to put this harrowing experience into proper perspective. Was this just an average storm, or an actual hurricane? And how was it that we were caught in it? Was it just a case of wrong place, wrong time, or was there negligence involved? So I set out to piece the facts together.

The storm itself recorded a maximum 1-minute sustained winds of 85 mph, which does classify it as a Category one hurricane (winds of 74 to 95 mph). It is known as the 1970 Caribbean-Azores hurricane and it boasts its own Wikipedia page. It was long lasting, from 22 September to 20 October, and it had a very odd path, shown in this graphic, with the Azores shown in the box.

After dumping torrential rains on Puerto Rico as a tropical storm without high winds, it made its way clear across the Atlantic as a mild depression. But then, just south-east of the Azores, it collided with a high pressure area which forced it to reverse course 180 degrees. By the time it tore westward just south of the Azores, it had indeed strengthened to a hurricane, and this is where the maximum wind was recorded. Just past the Azores, the system curved North and dissipated.

This path answers the first question – yes it was a hurricane, although just barely so, when it skidded along the south coast of the Azores. It also answers in part the second question of how did the Apollo get caught in it. The first obvious observation is that the Apollo had the misfortune of being stationed in Santa Maria, the southernmost island of the archipelago, located some 60 miles south of the rest of the chain, and thus the closest by far to the path of the incoming storm system. The second factor is that the intensification was not easily predictable as the system was only a weak depression all the way across the Atlantic for the previous week. In those days, only the barometer and the ship’s long range weather reports, presumably from the BBC, would have broadcast information about this system. And of course none of the modern Hurricane Centers with their sophisticated supercomputer models were available to the mariner. To that extent, the Commodore was not at fault.

Janis Gillham Grady, who accompanied the Commodore to the Bridge and ran messages during the storm, had this to say about his mindset at the time:

While in the Azores on October 12, [on the island of Faial – LK] LRH noted the barometer was the lowest he had ever seen at 29.27 [actually 29.16, per Orders of the Day], but it had begun to rise steadily and did not pump (go up and down). Five days later, [on or about October 17] he commented that the barometer in the Azores was known to go from very low to very high, and noted that hurricanes usually [emphasis ours] miss the islands, but if they did hit, they would only reach 60 to 86 mph. He noted we were sitting in a “moving depression” that was not moving, and we were safe as only “moderate to fresh winds gusting strong and ‘rain’ were in the forecast for Santa Maria” [meaning winds of 13-18 mph to 19-24 mph, gusting to 25-31 mph, per the standard wind scale].

This comment was made the day before the storm hit. It’s clear that the Commodore was watching the barometer and the weather reports, the only two reliable weather data sources available to him, and that he had studied the bigger picture of the weather patterns in the area, available from professional mariner references. But it is fair to surmise that he was concerned despite his reassuring comments, as well he should have been. Recall that Grady reports that the ship already had already run into some rough weather while sailing from Faial to Santa Maria on October 15-16.

We’ve established that the depression, when it did get moving again, took a 180-degree turn toward the islands, rapidly intensified to hurricane strength, and headed straight under the island of Santa Maria. That was evidently a surprise even to the local weather authorities.

Just how violent was the storm at the ship’s exact location? On October 19, LRH commented:

This quiet harbor where we are nicely berthed seems awfully tranquil after the gale. She is a very staunch ship, this one. We must take care of her, a real friend.

And per Janis:

The day after the storm subsided, the weather report on the news from the ship’s radio reported the wind velocity had only been fifty-four mph. The Commodore commented, “The meteorologist wasn’t on our bridge.” [ italics in original]

Technically, winds of 47-54 mph are classified as a severe gale, so he was not incorrect in calling it a gale. And it’s plausible that the velocity recorded on shore may well have been lower than that experienced by the ship at sea, as pointed out by dear Commodore. Hurricane classification begins at 73 mph. But lest we allow ourselves a sigh of relief that the conditions we experienced on board were not those of a “real” hurricane, consider this: standard tables of sea conditions indicate that a 55 mph wind which blows unobstructed for 24 hours will generate waves of 45 feet, more if the wind blows for longer. Call it what you will, this was a serious weather event.

But let’s zoom out to the bigger picture. Hurricane season in the North Atlantic only ends on November 30, so there was always a risk associated with a September–October transit, as pointed out even by LRH in saying the hurricanes usually missed the islands. So why was this 900-mile passage offshore attempted on those dates, knowing that the ship’s previous operations were confined either to the Mediterranean or to coastal Atlantic ports? Janis Grady’s book gives a possible answer:

In early September 1970, we received a report of cholera spreading in the eastern Mediterranean….Captain Bill had to change travel plans to prevent any risks of our ship arriving in a port with cholera and ending up in quarantine. He proposed we leave the Mediterranean area and head for the Azores. September is known to be the best weather of the year there, which was the time we arrived. Hurricanes still form in the Atlantic, but during September and October they don’t usually [emphasis added] reach the islands.

There’s that word usually again. This decision was a calculated risk, as both staying and leaving the coastal areas carried risks. But in evaluating the decision to sail a third of the way clear across the North Atlantic, one has to ask: was the ship fit for such a voyage? What do we know about that?

Built in 1936, the ship was already 34 years old in 1970. She had undergone a dry dock in Casablanca the previous year to repair a bent propeller, so it’s safe to assume that her bottom hull made of riveted steel plates had been inspected and found to be sound. So far so good. But then there is the matter of safety equipment. The ship’s complement, which had been 82 when I arrived in October 1969, had by this time swelled considerably due to the arrival of extra recruits and a large contingent of OEC/FEBC students. Were there enough lifeboats and liferafts to accommodate the entire ship’s company? That is unclear at the moment.

But there can be no doubt about the condition of the available equipment. In the January 1971–May 1971 chapter of her second book: Commodore’s Messenger: Riding out the Storms with L. Ron Hubbard, Janis Gillham Grady tells this story:

… the Commodore as the Captain ordered everyone on board to be part of lifeboat drills so they could learn what to do in an emergency situation, including how to row the boats. The lowering part of the drill went smoothly until the lifeboats were released from the davits and were on their own in the water. Only Lifeboat Number 8, the only boat with a motor, and Lifeboat Number 3 which was made of metal did not take on water. Though the remaining six took on water, they did not sink because of the hollow metal canisters located under the wooden seats (that are supposed to have been filled with fresh water).

Janis goes on to describe the program that was instituted to re-caulk the lifeboats and stock up their required emergency supplies of food and water. But the timing of this 1971 incident is proof positive that the ship had not been ready to take to sea back in October of 1970.

The requirements of the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) international convention, which was instituted way back in 1914 in response to the Titanic disaster, were evaded by LRH, through the dubious scheme of registering the ship as a private yacht, and registering her under Panamanian flag, thus avoiding inspections.

And zooming out to the biggest picture of all, one must point out that the original purpose of the ship was to serve as a home for LRH, who had been banished from England and was subjected to legal and tax troubles in the USA. That remained the ship’s first purpose and the reason for its secrecy, even as additional Scientology management and training functions were added to the vessel’s activities. But this at-home-on-the-seas scheme backfired when the ship was refused entry into various countries, and by mid 1970, in effect found itself restricted to Morocco, and to Portugal and its territories.

The inescapable conclusion is that L. Ron Hubbard put his crew and his ship at risk to protect his own personal interests and those of his Scientology operations. And that should a less fortunate outcome have occurred, involving loss to property and/or threat to life and limb, there is little doubt in my mind that any legitimate maritime body would have concluded that gross negligence was involved.

— Louise Shekter

Feb 17, 2022: The proposition that threatened to upend my Scientology billion-year commitment

Feb 6, 2022: How Scientology intervened in an intimate affair of the heart
Feb 2, 2022: Another crucial Scientology eyewitness coming forward, starting today at the Bunker

——————–

Sign up for a daily email when we post a new story on Scientology.

——————–

“The reactive bank is a thing. It’s got sort of mushy looking electronic masses and it’s got pictures and locks and other things associated with this, it is a thing. Well, the physical universe and the remaining dynamics, of course, are themselves a thing. And that’s what we mean when we say our universe and the other fellow’s universe and everybody’s universe. There were three universes, if you can remember rightly. Well, that apparently is very true, there are apparently three universes, but we were speaking of the reactive bank as meaning one of those universes where, as a matter of fact, that’s a little bit of a curve in the line. It turns out that there was his universe, you know, his brick walls, and we’re not sure right now whether or not they’re his brick walls and everybody’s brick walls or only his brick walls, or exactly what’s the status of these brick walls, because we’re right up a bunch, right up against the ability to disintegrate matter, all these various phenomena that — a yogi has been known as a good yogi if he could, you know, something or other, if he could levitate, you know, you’ve heard all these tricks and nonsense pieces and that sort of thing. Kid game stuff. This is the level you’re looking at. You see?” — L. Ron Hubbard, February 23, 1965

——————–

“RECRUITS: We appreciate all the new recruits. You are very valuable to us. It permits older hands to move up. In your turn if you do a good job, you will also be moving up in your time. You are expected to do the job assigned well and raise its stats. You are expected to complete your AB, SS I, SS II and Mission School during your study time, which should be about 2.5 hours a day during one or another of your study periods.” — The Commodore, February 23, 1971

——————–

“I may wind up doing OT 9 in Reno with Rey Robles. I haven’t decided yet. Also, keep in mind that in Marty Rathbun’s 1st book, he recommended that any OT 7 who wants to do more can, on their own, discover for themselves new levels of awareness.”

——————–

1997: Jeff Jacobsen and his family came under additional harassment this week, with a visit from a Scientology private investigator and two pickets. “As I type this, Eugene Ingram, Scientology private investigator, is in South Dakota visiting my father’s business establishments, asking questions about me. It is a written practice of the church to noisily investigate someone that they are upset at. I was warning my neighbors that there might be private investigators hanging around the area again. One neighbor then told me that 2 women were picketing my house a few nights ago about 9:30pm. The neighbors told the women to leave or they’d call the police, and they left. The Scottsdale police told me that there is a law against picketing in a residential area here. Tonight as every Friday night I went to my dj’ing job at the All Singles Dances. I went out to see about 20 or so people walking along the hotel property next to a busy major street (speed limit there about 45 mph). I remember 2 signs; one said ‘Jacobsen sued his family!’ and another said ‘Jacobsen sells XXX rated videos.’ I asked the guy holding the first sign what that meant since I had never sued anyone in my life. He said ‘you’ll have to ask that guy’ pointing up ahead to someone or other. I guess he didn’t even know what his own sign was about! My father has video rental stores in South Dakota, one of which won an award for best store in the state. He does rent x-rated videos, as well as Disney and everything else in between. Do you see what they’re doing? Rather than address what is on that page, they go after my family! Can you think of anything more despicable? I heard that after about 45 minutes of picketing the hotel called the police. The police told the picketers they were interfering with the hotel driveway (they had been marching right through the entryway) and also were distracting traffic and setting up a situation where someone driving by would likely be rear-ended while trying to read the signs. So the picketers left.”

——————–

“‘Ness is More.’ It’s Hubbard’s version of his favorite book ‘1984″ ‘Reduce the language down to its most base level and you can control what people think and it also separates them from the rest of society. Hubbard was already fairly knowledgeable about mind control techniques and hypnotism before he wrote Dianetics, so I don’t know why anyone would think his specific control techniques were by accident.”

——————–

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

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Next pretrial conference May 31. Trial scheduled for August 29.
— ‘Lafayette Ronald Hubbard’ (a/k/a Justin Craig), aggravated assault, plus drug charges: Last hearing was on January 18, referred to grand jury.
— Jay and Jeff Spina, Medicare fraud: Jay sentenced to 9 years in prison. Jeff’s sentencing to be scheduled.
— Hanan and Rizza Islam and other family members, Medi-Cal fraud: Pretrial conference March 25 in Los Angeles
— David Gentile, GPB Capital, fraud: Next pretrial conference set for April 8.
— Joseph ‘Ben’ Barton, Medicare fraud: Pleaded guilty, awaiting sentencing.
— Yanti Mike Greene, Scientology private eye accused of contempt of court: Hearing held on February 15, awaiting ruling.

Civil litigation:
— Luis and Rocio Garcia v. Scientology: Eleventh Circuit affirmed ruling granting Scientology’s motion for arbitration. Garcias considering next move.
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ Valerie asks for March 15 hearing on motion for reconsideration.
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: Appellate court removes requirement of arbitration on January 19, case remanded back to Superior Court. Scientology has said it will file an anti-SLAPP motion.
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Third amended complaint filed, trial set for June 28.
— Author Steve Cannane defamation trial: Trial concluded, Cannane victorious, awarded court costs. Appeal hearing held Aug 23-27. Awaiting a 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.

——————–

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.

Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

——————–
THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] Gary Beeny, 1949-2020: Scientology figure in notorious takeover of anti-cult group
[TWO years ago] For once Scientology gives up on Ideal Org, settles for a fancy ‘mission’ instead
[THREE years ago] Leah Remini pays for vexing Tom Cruise with Scientology’s ‘Truth Rundown’
[FOUR years ago] Laura DeCrescenzo fires back at Scientology’s desperate new federal court gambit
[FIVE years ago] Scientology’s Celebrity Whisperer: An inside account of life in the fame-obsessed church
[SIX years ago] Scientology tried to suppress this video, and that’s why you’re seeing it here today
[SEVEN years ago] Scientology Australia spills its guts, and you can thank Bryan Seymour and Nick Xenophon
[EIGHT years ago] Five things to watch for in today’s first Scientology wedding in the UK
[NINE years ago] Scientology Mythbusting with Jon Atack: Fair Game!
[TEN years ago] Scientology Demands the Right to Employ Slaves in Australia While Getting Puff Pieces in DC, Florida

——————–

Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley (1952-2019) did not see his daughter Stephanie in his final 5,667 days.
Valerie Haney has not seen her mother Lynne in 2,584 days.
Katrina Reyes has not seen her mother Yelena in 3,089 days
Sylvia Wagner DeWall has not seen her brother Randy in 2,609 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his grandson Leo in 1,629 days.
Geoff Levin has not seen his son Collin and daughter Savannah in 1,520 days.
Christie Collbran has not seen her mother Liz King in 4,827 days.
Clarissa Adams has not seen her parents Walter and Irmin Huber in 2,695 days.
Carol Nyburg has not seen her daughter Nancy in 3,469 days.
Doug Kramer has not seen his parents Linda and Norm in 1,800 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 4,273 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 3,589 days.
Dylan Gill has not seen his father Russell in 12,155 days.
Melissa Paris has not seen her father Jean-Francois in 8,074 days.
Valeska Paris has not seen her brother Raphael in 4,242 days.
Mirriam Francis has not seen her brother Ben in 3,823 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 4,084 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 3,120 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy and daughter Jessica in 2,835 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 2,360 days.
Julian Wain has not seen his brother Joseph or mother Susan in 715 days.
Charley Updegrove has not seen his son Toby in 1,890 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 6,441 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 3,590 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 3,910 days.
Roger Weller has not seen his daughter Alyssa in 8,765 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 3,884 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 2,240 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin and daughter Taryn in 6,543 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 2,649 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis in 3,047 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 2,923 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 2,506 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike and daughter Emily in 3,001 days.
Mary Jane Barry has not seen her daughter Samantha in 3,255 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 14,364 days.

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on February 23, 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.

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.

Shekter: The proposition that threatened to upend my Scientology billion-year commitment

Louise Shekter — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 12:00:58 +0000

[Agadir in the 1970s]

Agadir, February 1970. I’m proud of myself and having a good time. After a stint on L. Ron Hubbard’s flagship the Apollo as steward in the Officers’ dining room, I’ve been promoted to Ship’s Purchaser, which I secretly consider to be the best job on board. While everyone else is pretty much restricted to the ship except for occasional liberties, I get to run around town most days, acquiring the various items for the crew that have been approved by Financial Planning – everything except for food, fuel and water and LRH personal supplies.

I figure it was my native French that got me the job, since our current cruising area is Morocco. This hasn’t escaped the notice of the Port Captain’s staff, who are responsible for shore PR relations. My first foray into PR is modest but to me, memorable. I am invited, along with perhaps three other French speaking crew members, to attend a dinner ashore with dignitaries whom the PR people wish to befriend. We are to be the poster children for the Apollo and her supposedly American business training enterprise, our personal “normalcy” and charm hopefully serving as Exhibit A of the ship’s legitimacy. We have been briefed and coached on what to say and especially on what NOT to say. Scientology must never be mentioned, let alone LRH. I have no idea who our Moroccan hosts are, but clearly they are considered important VIPs. I do recall the meal itself, a huge mechui platter loaded with grilled mutton so pungent that I will swear off all lamb meat for the rest of my life.

How quickly I am learning that it is forbidden to have any kind of friendship or relationship with any local person in the ports we visit, unless the Port Captain deems this person to be a VIP whose goodwill we require, or a supplier whose goods we depend upon, in which case we lay on the charm offensive under strictly controlled conditions.

Lying and covering up doesn’t come naturally to me, but good breeding and coached restraint come to my rescue and the uncomfortable event goes off smoothly, so much so that the next invitation soon comes along. This one is in Agadir, an exquisite modern city in southern Morocco, with whitewashed houses clustered like stacked cubes atop a hill above an endless, empty sandy beach. Agadir is for me love at first sight, and visiting such places is one of the key attractions of my lifestyle on the ship. Coming from chilly Montreal a thousand miles from the sea, this tropical ocean paradise is a died-and-gone-to-heaven experience.

It is strange what we remember and what we don’t, but I have this vivid picture of sitting in the passenger seat next to a Moroccan young man in his car, on the dock in front of the Apollo. Ahmed is a good looking, European educated, well off man of perhaps thirty, and he’s a dignitary of some sort in the Agadir government, which is why I have been introduced to him at a gathering arranged by the Apollo PR crew, as a VIP being courted by the ship. I’ve only met him maybe two or three times. How I ended up alone with him in his car on this occasion I do not recall, but I did not seek it, so he must have engineered it. He is probably dropping me off from somewhere in town, where I was out purchasing.

Now the conversation turns personal. Incredibly, he is asking me to leave the ship and stay with him in Agadir, in a word to become his live-in girlfriend. I am stunned, but I do not reject him out of hand. I have to make a quick decision, for this opportunity will not present itself again. My mind clicks through a quick triage of the pros and cons.

On the plus side, it’s clear we are both attracted to each other, and I feel no shame about that. After all, I am a child of the sixties, and free love is how we roll. At twenty, I am free to make my own choices. I’m also an adventurer, and a personal relationship is a tried and true way to discover a new country. As a brand new Scientologist and Sea Org member, I’m more interested in living aboard a ship on the high seas and discovering new countries than in helping others or saving the planet. So to be honest loyalty to LRH and the Sea Org does not factor into it much. How to quit the ship in a foreign country with no prospects and no money would be tricky at best, so this is an excellent opportunity to move off with a place to stay, and there will not be many.

On the minus side, how exactly would I jump ship? Do I just walk down the gangway, suitcase in hand? I have not seen anyone else do it, and it does not seem possible, since there is a quartermaster posted there 24 hours a day. It seems I would have to declare my intentions, and there would be people to stop me, and there would be recoil such as the dreaded ethics lower conditions I’ve witnessed on others. There’s also the fact that I relinquished my passport when I arrived on board, ostensibly because crew passports need to be stamped by authorities upon arrival in every new country. And perversely, perhaps I’m already constrained in my mind by my security indoctrination: walking into an embassy and blowing the ship’s cover would be viewed as high treason.

Aside from the logistics, am I ready to end my Apollo adventure, begun barely four months ago and still unfolding? But the kicker is that Ahmed has mentioned along the way that he already has a French Canadian live-in girlfriend. So he will have to turf her out, and how long would it be before he tires of us and does the same to me, I wonder.

All of this flashes through my mind in an instant. That last argument tips the scale for me, so I say my goodbyes and exit Ahmed’s car to climb the gangway. In the end, leaving the ship seems too complicated and risky. Inertia wins the day. Our conversation has lasted at most ten minutes. There were no witnesses on the dock. But was anyone watching?

It doesn’t occur to me to report the incident to the PR people. It should have, because it turns out the story is only just beginning. The very next day, I am approached by Mitch Spence, a bulky six-foot-three Texan who sports an impressive moustache, and who walks around bow legged in his pointy cowboy boots, like he’s just jumped off his horse. Can you say intimidating? Mitch leads me into a room off the B Deck foyer, which must have started life as a closet, barely big enough to squeeze in a folding table on which sits an e-meter, and two folding chairs. Now that in itself is intimidating to me, for I have never been on the cans except for doing E-meter drills on my HSDC on the Athena.

Mitch puts me through my paces. I am quite troubled by the questions but I have nothing to hide, and I am even too green to recognize this as a security check and its implications. It’s clear that I was responding to an advance which I did not seek out. I don’t even mind admitting that I gave the offer some thought. Still I find the questioning highly intrusive, for I am still laboring under the illusion that there is such a thing as privacy, of thought and action, especially when it comes to matters of sex and love, as Mitch probes to find out just how deep I got into this relationship – which turns out to be not at all.

Later the same day, some officer comes around to announce that I will no longer be “on shore lines” as it is called, so there goes my job of Purchaser and I am returned to the stewards’ department. I am crushed and mortified. It really feels like I did something quite reprehensible, although no lower condition is assigned. But did I?

Agadir itself has a unique history which, amazingly, I did not learn at the time, such was our lack of interest in the people and the ports we visited. On 29 February 1960, barely ten years earlier, the town had been destroyed by a massive earthquake with 15,000 lives lost, fully a third of its population. It was rebuilt during the sixties in the French modernist style, hence the cubist houses very untypical of other Moroccan port cities.

Even though I was aboard and lived through it, I did not know just how critical Agadir was to the Apollo at that particular time, not until I left Scientology thirty years later and started reading up on early Sea Org history. It turns out that new orders from the Spanish government had limited the Apollo to only eight days in any Spanish port. Spain had been an important country for the ship, so the plan was now for the Apollo to take a PR cruise to Cadiz on the Atlantic coast, under the cloak of a “business management” entity called AIHED, with the goal of restoring good relations with Spain. I was part of that cruise, which is quite a story in itself. But what I never knew was that LRH had reportedly been banned from entering Spain. Obviously he could not be aboard for this cruise, which is why he and his entourage took up residence in Agadir. They moved ashore in early February and the Apollo returned to pick them up in early March.

It is now clear to me that it was critical to establish good relations with the local authorities in Agadir to secure LRH’s safety. The prospect of one of these local VIPs attempting lure me away from the ship was surely extremely alarming to the Port Captain’s office. Under Scientology basics, poaching a ship crew member would have given the VIP a withhold (an undisclosed bad action against the ship) which would have turned him against the ship and her people. This could not be left to stand, hence my swift sec check and removal from shore lines and demotion from my post.

Looking back at this incident, I have often wondered how my life would have unfolded if I had chosen to take my chances with my suitor in Agadir. Certainly, that would have spelled the end of my involvement with Scientology, for I wasn’t far along in my indoctrination at that point to make it stick, absent the closed incubation milieu of the Apollo. As it was, over the next few months, I almost imperceptibly fell into step with my surroundings and internalized the edicts of Scientology and the ways of the Sea Org. Within a few months, it would be too late for me to extricate myself. The road not taken will forever remain a mystery, and the road I “chose” in that moment, wholly unaware of its pitfalls, will forever remain my burden. For it promised a bridge, but the bridge led nowhere.

— Louise Shekter

Feb 6, 2022: How Scientology intervened in an intimate affair of the heart
Feb 2, 2022: Another crucial Scientology eyewitness coming forward, starting today at the Bunker

——————–

Sign up for a daily email when we post a new story on Scientology.

——————–

“[The] press and the public are interested in murder, assault, destruction, violence, sex and dishonesty in that order. Investigations which can uncover these factors in the activities of individuals of a group attacking Scientology are valuable in the degree that they contain a number of these factors. The more factors a case contains the more important the case is. The idea is that the press feeds on these factors and we feed them someone else’s. It will be found that our own Scientology groups contain so few of these they have to be invented about us. We need never invent them in the attacking group. They will be found to be there.” — L. Ron Hubbard, February 17, 1966

——————–

“The Flag Admin Org has a deficiency in LINE CONSCIOUSNESS. Because a line is invisible, one overlooks their presence. It’s public lines and routing lines are very poor. Lack of signs and advices and flash colors obscure lines. The staff member has to know where to route the particles and bodies and signs and flash marked paths and signs have to exist. An engineer flash marking pipes would understand this. I recommend the whole FAO get genned in by Dave Murphy on pipe flows as a starter. That makes the idea visible.” — The Commodore, February 17, 1971

——————–

“I entered this body when I was 4 and a half years old. This body was dying and the being inside it allowed me to enter it, because the entity wanted to leave. I was unaware of who I was for a long time. Many amazing things happened and I was able to awaken to who I am. I am one of the first new creations of new Orbs that are being created directly out of the static source in the future. I have never been in this universe before. I was sent from the future.”

——————–

1998: John Travolta’s claim to have influenced U.S. President Clinton’s opinion on Scientnology and Germany was the subject of NBC’s ‘Meet The Press’ televisions show. “RUSSERT: What this says, Mr. Berger, is that John Travolta, was seduced by the president, and has created a movie called ‘Primary Colors’ which in the words of George magazine, is a ‘celluloid valentine’ to the president, because you helped him out on his pet cause of Scientology. BERGER: It sounds to me, Tim, like you’re getting, developing your own conspiracy theories here. The fact is there has been an issue about the treatment of Scientology in a number of countries, Germany in particular. The State Department Human Rights report was critical of the Germans in terms of discrimination against Scientologists. I did meet with a delegation including Mr. Travolta to indicate that we would continue to discuss with the German government our belief that one should not be discriminated against on the basis purely of belief. And that’s the long and the short of it. RUSSERT: Did you or the president hope to influence Mr. Travolta and make ‘Primary Colors’ more favorable to the president? BERGER: The only thing I was trying to get an autograph for my, one of my kids. But other than that I have no ulterior motive. RUSSERT: But isn’t it unusual for the national security advisor to brief an actor from Hollywood? BERGER: This is not just Mr. Travolta. This was a delegation of several people, half a dozen people who came in, and they have been on the Hill, they have been in the State Department, and they wanted to, I didn’t ‘brief’ them, I explained to them, that we would continue to discuss with the German government our general view that human rights should not be violated.”

——————–

“47x Shades of Cray: The Grant Cardone Story”

——————–

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

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Next pretrial conference May 31. Trial scheduled for August 29.
— ‘Lafayette Ronald Hubbard’ (a/k/a Justin Craig), aggravated assault, plus drug charges: Last hearing was on January 18, referred to grand jury.
— Jay and Jeff Spina, Medicare fraud: Jay sentenced to 9 years in prison. Jeff’s sentencing to be scheduled.
— Hanan and Rizza Islam and other family members, Medi-Cal fraud: Pretrial conference March 25 in Los Angeles
— David Gentile, GPB Capital, fraud: Next pretrial conference set for April 8.
— Joseph ‘Ben’ Barton, Medicare fraud: Pleaded guilty, awaiting sentencing.
— Yanti Mike Greene, Scientology private eye accused of contempt of court: Hearing held on February 15, awaiting ruling.

Civil litigation:
— Luis and Rocio Garcia v. Scientology: Eleventh Circuit affirmed ruling granting Scientology’s motion for arbitration. Garcias considering next move.
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ US Supreme Court denied Valerie’s petition Oct 4.
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: Appellate court removes requirement of arbitration on January 19, case remanded back to Superior Court. Scientology has said it will file an anti-SLAPP motion.
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Third amended complaint filed, trial set for June 28.
— Author Steve Cannane defamation trial: Trial concluded, Cannane victorious, awarded court costs. Appeal hearing held Aug 23-27. Awaiting a 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.

——————–

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.

Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

——————–
THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] The FBI wants a word with Leigh Dundas, Scientologist attorney and Capitol rioter
[TWO years ago] DRONE FLYOVER: Another look at Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s final hiding place
[THREE years ago] Another Scientology monument to L. Ron Hubbard is going up in besieged Clearwater
[FOUR years ago] Scientology set to turn Silicon Valley ‘Ideal!’ Here’s our first look from the grand opening
[FIVE years ago] Scientology’s next move in forced-abortion lawsuit: Deposing defectors
[SIX years ago] When will academics acknowledge that the Scientology ‘apostate’ theory is finished?
[SEVEN years ago] On the eve of the big Tampa hearing, the Garcias fire back at Scientology’s ‘bench memo’
[EIGHT years ago] NEW DATE: Celebration details of Los Angeles Scientology facilities leaked
[NINE years ago] Sunday Funnies: The Grant Cardone Is An Asshat Special Edition!
[TEN years ago] Scientology on the High Seas: LRH on the “Wogworld!”

——————–

Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley (1952-2019) did not see his daughter Stephanie in his final 5,667 days.
Valerie Haney has not seen her mother Lynne in 2,578 days.
Katrina Reyes has not seen her mother Yelena in 3,083 days
Sylvia Wagner DeWall has not seen her brother Randy in 2,603 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his grandson Leo in 1,623 days.
Geoff Levin has not seen his son Collin and daughter Savannah in 1,514 days.
Christie Collbran has not seen her mother Liz King in 4,821 days.
Clarissa Adams has not seen her parents Walter and Irmin Huber in 2,689 days.
Carol Nyburg has not seen her daughter Nancy in 3,463 days.
Doug Kramer has not seen his parents Linda and Norm in 1,794 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 4,267 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 3,583 days.
Dylan Gill has not seen his father Russell in 12,149 days.
Melissa Paris has not seen her father Jean-Francois in 8,068 days.
Valeska Paris has not seen her brother Raphael in 4,236 days.
Mirriam Francis has not seen her brother Ben in 3,817 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 4,078 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 3,114 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy and daughter Jessica in 2,829 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 2,354 days.
Julian Wain has not seen his brother Joseph or mother Susan in 709 days.
Charley Updegrove has not seen his son Toby in 1,884 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 6,435 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 3,584 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 3,904 days.
Roger Weller has not seen his daughter Alyssa in 8,759 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 3,878 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 2,234 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin and daughter Taryn in 6,537 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 2,643 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis in 3,041 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 2,917 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 2,500 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike and daughter Emily in 2,995 days.
Mary Jane Barry has not seen her daughter Samantha in 3,249 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 14,358 days.

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on February 17, 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.

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.

Shekter: How Scientology intervened in an intimate affair of the heart

Louise Shekter — Sun, 06 Feb 2022 12:00:43 +0000

[Sick Kids]

January 1991, Toronto. I take a spot in one of those molded plastic orange seats tied together in a rack, that have been there forever in the cardiology waiting room at the Hospital for Sick Children – affectionately known to all as Sick Kids.

I know this place all too well – these wonderful pediatric cardiology doctors have been shepherding my son’s fragile life with his bad heart since he was two years old. He was born in the Sea Org in Clearwater in 1976 with a major congenital heart defect that was deemed inoperable at the time, and through various interventions he has survived so far to age fourteen. I’m equally excited and apprehensive because I’m about to be reunited with him and his father, and we’re about to get his report card from his doctors.

This particular circumstance is really fraught. You see, I had recently left the Sea Org at Gold – a/k/a Int Base – on less than amicable terms. Truth be told, I was declared a suppressive person for choosing to leave. Yes, one of those despicable SPs. Supposedly one of those 2.5 percent of human beings who are deep sociopaths, the main evidence of their depravity being that they have a falling out with Scientology which is the only road to salvation for humankind. Obvious, no?

Never mind that I gave fifteen years of my life as a volunteer in the Sea Org, that I was founder L. Ron Hubbard’s personal aide for treasury divisions on the Apollo for four years, and that, after paying for my OT 3 as a public person, I chose to be loyal to LRH and rejoined active Sea Org duty at Gold as Director in Cine, where I shot several of his tech films.

My husband of 18 years and our teenage son chose to stay in the Sea Org at the Int Base, and I had not seen either of them since that fateful Saturday morning last November when I stormed out from our berthing in San Jacinto, and checked in to a cheap local hotel. It was a way for me to assert a definitive break without leaving the area, so I could negotiate the guardianship of my son and his ten-year-old sister.

But we knew that my son had an important annual check-up with his doctors coming up in January at Toronto’s Sick Kids, and I fully expected that my husband would “make it go right,” as they say in the Sea Org, to get time off from his post and fly up with the boy for the appointment. So I did expect – or at least hope – to see the both of them stroll in around the corner and into the waiting room, as I sat facing the entrance, my stomach in a knot of apprehension and anticipation. For it was clear to all concerned that my husband and my son were strictly forbidden to communicate with me, now a declared suppressive. But under no account was I going to miss being present at my son’s medical review, where his current health status and his prognosis would be determined.

What I didn’t expect was what happened next. Paul Kellerhaus turned the corner and entered the waiting room. He was a security guard at Int Base. I froze in my chair. It felt like a cold shower had suddenly dropped from the ceiling and drenched me. For a moment, I was motionless, mindless, speechless. It was raw panic. Then the incongruity of the event slowly came into focus. What was Kellerhaus doing here in Canada, clear across the continent from California, and hailing from the Sea Org base I’d left behind months earlier? It felt like a very bad dream where events, places and people are all jumbled up into a toxic soup, where the only common thread is the terror that they can all inflict upon a hapless you. Yes, terror is what I felt. What could he do? Actually, he could take my son away from me. I did not say hello, and asked no questions.

My husband and my son entered the room next. What a relief that they had made it. It was awkward with Kellerhaus observing the scene. I hugged my son but my husband and I just exchanged a cool hello. There was no conversation possible. Yet so much had never been said that sorely needed to be said, for we had been prevented from seeing each other or even phoning or writing, ever since I had announced my departure, and the pain between us was excruciating, possibly on his side too. Our family had just exploded.

I surmised that the only way my husband had been able to get permission to come to Toronto was with Kellerhaus as his insurance policy, to guarantee that he would return to Gold and not be swayed by his wayward SP wife in using the opportunity to blow the Sea Org. It has to be said that my husband had unique skills which were in high demand at Gold: He was an accomplished screenwriter and songwriter, the best they had if not the only one they had. To this day, I do not know how he felt about the intrusion of this Gold security guard in his family affairs. We both took it for granted that privacy did not exist in the Sea Org. (I do know now, because my son later told me so, that he also froze when he saw me sitting there, as he knew even at age 14 that I had been declared and he was not allowed any contact with me.)

Soon we were called in to begin the battery of tests that awaited our boy, followed by his consultation with his doctors. Kellerhaus did not accompany us through the rounds but he was still there in the waiting room after everything was done.

The results were devastating. Nothing could be done for our son, save maybe a transplant up the line. But pediatric transplants were not a thing then, they were still borderline science fiction. He had a few years to live, and would either collapse in the school yard or slowly fade, we were told, either way while still in his teens.

It was soon clear to all concerned that for our son to go back into the Sea Org was not an option – if only for the fact that as Canadians we were fully covered medically, whereas in California there was nothing but the Sea Org, which would not be inclined to foot the considerable bills still to come. That meant my husband would also have to stay in Toronto, for he would certainly not abandon his son.

As it happened, I did not see Kellerhaus again. The three of them took up residence in the Toronto home of my husband’s parents, who were wintering in Florida, while I remained segregated with my daughter in the little apartment I’d just secured downtown. I suspect that various negotiations took place with the higher-ups in the Sea Org, and after a week or two Kellerhaus went back on his way, and my husband and our boy remained in Toronto. That outcome was precisely what I had been hoping to accomplish by leaving Gold, for it was perfectly clear to me all along that the Sea Org was no place for my children to be. But that exit could hardly have been messier or more painful, for it took my SP declare, months of wrangling, and my son’s dire prognosis to finally make it happen.

Next came the challenge of untangling our various precarious situations. No job and no car for my husband, no money, two parallel unsuitable apartments, our boy’s health to watch over, and school enrollments for both kids to be found. And an SP declare to cap it off, which meant that we were not even supposed to speak to each other to sort it out. What a ridiculous predicament. And all of it laid on top of the renewed wave of grief and worry that the medical news had brought along. Once again, as we had done in 1979 when we first went on leave from Flag due to our son’s health issues, we had to restart our life from the ground up. So we did. A few months later, my husband insistently pulled enough strings to get my SP declare lifted. A review committee concluded that I was a “trouble source” instead of an SP, and I was placed under a “non-enturbulation order,” which was one step away from a new declare if I ever spoke ill to any Scientologist including my family members. I took it to heart. We were to remain for ten years in Toronto as public Scientologists, during which I kept dutifully silent to keep my family together.

As for my son’s fate, well he survived, miraculously. But that too is another story.

— Louise Shekter

[Editor’s note: While preparing this story for publication, we called up Gary Morehead, the former head of Gold Base security who was known by his code name “Jackson” to Sea Org members. He confirmed that he sent Paul Kellerhouse to Toronto with Louise’s husband to keep an eye on him. He even remembers having to buy warmer clothes for “PK” because he wasn’t prepared for a Canadian winter. “I was managing that. I was getting daily reports and then reporting up to David Miscavige, whether Louise was there and how PK handled it,” Gary told us.]

——————–

Sign up for a daily email when we post a new story on Scientology.

——————–

“I happen to be a nuclear physicist. I am not a psychologist nor a psychiatrist nor a medical doctor. To some degree, it was my responsibility that this world got itself an atom bomb, because there were only a handful of nuclear physicists in the thirties — only a handful. And we were all beating the desk and saying ‘How wonderful it will be if we discover atomic fission,’ because we decided that the thing to do with atomic fission was to go out and discover the stars, to make big passenger liners that would go ten times around the world on the same fuel. This was what we endeavored to do with atomic fission. The government stepped in and gave us three billion dollars. I had nothing to do with that program; I would not have had anything to do with the program. Three billion dollars to destroy all of man.” — L. Ron Hubbard, February 6, 1952

——————–

“If your parents or friends are the kind who worry about you, BE SURE AND WRITE THEM AN AIRMAIL LETTER regularly. Otherwise they give us DEV T by asking the government to check up on you to see if you’re all right. If uncertain about it, write them anyway. Also, if you haven’t written your family recently do so anyway. Otherwise they’ll think Scn put you OUT of communication. You can mail the letter straight from here.” — The Commodore, February 6, 1969

——————–

“The postulate that worked for me that caused the rain in Australia had nothing to do with rain. I just become the planet and covered it with my beingness and decided it was all safe and OK. The thought of rain was also a previous one to this one but this one made it manifest.”

——————–

2001: Randy Enerson reported that Scientology is trying to handle critics who are informing Battle Creek, Michigan locals of the implications of a new org in their community. “John Carmichael is currently in the Battle Creek Michigan area attempting to ‘handle’ the local media as well as any critics in the area that are already speaking out and exposing the truth of Scientology. The CoS is closing their Ann Arbor Org, and trying to purchasing the historic old Hart Hotel in downtown Battle Creek. Carmichael has reportedly been busily shopping a huge load of DA materials on critics of the cult around town to the local media. Yesterday John Carmichael met with a local critic in an attempt to discourage him from further letters to the Battle Creek Enquirer newspaper exposing the criminally convicted cult.”

——————–

“If I knew I was going to live this long, I would have tried even harder to destroy myself.”

——————–

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

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Next hearing set for February 8. Trial scheduled for August 29.

— ‘Lafayette Ronald Hubbard’ (a/k/a Justin Craig), aggravated assault, plus drug charges: Last hearing was on January 18, referred to grand jury.
— Jay and Jeff Spina, Medicare fraud: Jay sentenced to 9 years in prison. Jeff’s sentencing to be scheduled.
— Hanan and Rizza Islam and other family members, Medi-Cal fraud: Pretrial conference March 25 in Los Angeles
— David Gentile, GPB Capital, fraud: Next pretrial conference set for February 11.
— Joseph ‘Ben’ Barton, Medicare fraud: Pleaded guilty, awaiting sentencing.
— Yanti Mike Greene, Scientology private eye accused of contempt of court: Next hearing February 15.

Civil litigation:
— Luis and Rocio Garcia v. Scientology: Eleventh Circuit affirmed ruling granting Scientology’s motion for arbitration. Garcias considering next move.
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ US Supreme Court denied Valerie’s petition Oct 4.
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: Appellate court removes requirement of arbitration on January 19, case remanded back to Superior Court. Scientology has said it will file an anti-SLAPP motion.
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Third amended complaint filed, trial set for June 28.
— Author Steve Cannane defamation trial: Trial concluded, Cannane victorious, awarded court costs. Appeal hearing held Aug 23-27. Awaiting a 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.

——————–

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.

Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

——————–
THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] VIDEO: Jon Atack talks to Mike Rinder about his first months aboard Scientology’s ‘Apollo’
[TWO years ago] Scientology OT8 dentist closes office while patients confront him about their cash
[THREE years ago] Scientology TV wins a boatload of awards, and is the ‘fastest-growing TV network in history’!
[FOUR years ago] Scientology spies coming forward to spill their guts, then and now: A key example from the past
[FIVE years ago] L. Ron Hubbard’s daughter — the one he wanted to disappear — surfaces online
[SIX years ago] ‘Are you 100 percent American?’ — ‘Ross & Carrie’ investigate joining Scientology
[SEVEN years ago] Scientology vs. the mayor: The full Gabe Cazares interview from 1997’s Secret Lives
[EIGHT years ago] The BBC’s John Sweeney gives us another glimpse of creepy Scientology intimidation
[TEN years ago] Scientology’s Secret Vaults: A Rare Interview With a Former Member of Hush-Hush “CST”

——————–

Scientology disconnection, a reminder

Bernie Headley (1952-2019) did not see his daughter Stephanie in his final 5,667 days.
Valerie Haney has not seen her mother Lynne in 2,567 days.
Katrina Reyes has not seen her mother Yelena in 3,072 days
Sylvia Wagner DeWall has not seen her brother Randy in 2,592 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his grandson Leo in 1,612 days.
Geoff Levin has not seen his son Collin and daughter Savannah in 1,503 days.
Christie Collbran has not seen her mother Liz King in 4,810 days.
Clarissa Adams has not seen her parents Walter and Irmin Huber in 2,678 days.
Carol Nyburg has not seen her daughter Nancy in 3,452 days.
Doug Kramer has not seen his parents Linda and Norm in 1,783 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 4,256 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 3,572 days.
Dylan Gill has not seen his father Russell in 12,138 days.
Melissa Paris has not seen her father Jean-Francois in 8,057 days.
Valeska Paris has not seen her brother Raphael in 4,225 days.
Mirriam Francis has not seen her brother Ben in 3,806 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 4,067 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 3,103 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy and daughter Jessica in 2,818 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 2,343 days.
Julian Wain has not seen his brother Joseph or mother Susan in 698 days.
Charley Updegrove has not seen his son Toby in 1,873 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 6,424 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 3,573 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 3,893 days.
Roger Weller has not seen his daughter Alyssa in 8,748 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 3,867 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 2,223 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin and daughter Taryn in 6,526 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 2,632 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis in 3,030 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 2,906 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 2,489 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike and daughter Emily in 2,984 days.
Mary Jane Barry has not seen her daughter Samantha in 3,238 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 14,347 days.

——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on February 6, 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.

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.