Scientology Lit | The Underground Bunker

New Scientology memoir out today: For years he led its rabid anti-psychiatry angle

[Cuch Figueroa, busting the psychs]

TODAY AT SUBSTACK: If you’ve signed up for free emails at Substack, you will receive today’s feature story at your inbox: What sets apart Cuch Figueroa’s memoir, out today, is that it gives us some of the clearest storytelling about what it was like to run one of #Scientology’s rabid anti-psychiatry […]

Writers of the Future: Scientology sci-fi front puts on interminable awards show once again

TODAY AT SUBSTACK: If you’ve signed up for free emails at Substack, you will receive today’s feature story at your inbox: For years, we’ve reported on the Writers of the Future contest and how it’s a front for Scientology that has direct ties with some of the church’s abuses. But hey, they had an awards […]

Getting the stink out of Scientology’s Saint Hill Manor: A special remembrance

In recent weeks, conditions at Scientology’s UK headquarters, known as Saint Hill Manor, and its relations with local elected leaders, has become an issue thanks to the hard work of Alex Barnes-Ross. Alex asked for accounts of what life in Saint Hill is really like, and today we have a real treat. Karen Pressley answered […]

For decades he made Scientology look good. Now he’s out and telling the ugly truth.

Over the years, we’ve become very accustomed to Scientology’s “look.” You probably know what we’re referring to. The style and dressing of Scientology videos, the pacing and extravagance of Scientology events, and lavish attention to detail at Scientology […]

Liz Gale: How she grew up in Scientology, and then smartly traded it for being a pothead

In 2016, our old friend Mark Ebner had a suggestion for us.

More than a decade earlier, Ebner had written a terrific story for New Times Los Angeles (where we worked from 1999-2002) about the suicide of Philip Gale, a math prodigy who had grown up in Scientology and threw himself from a building at MIT […]

Steve Cannane’s statement as publisher settles ‘Deep Sleep’ lawsuit over his book ‘Fair Game’

We were stunned to see the news in the Guardian that Steve Cannane’s publisher, HarperCollins, had not only settled the six-year lawsuit over his book Fair Game, but that it was issuing an apology, and according to the Guardian, Cannane himself would be required not to say […]

The Bad Cadet: New book looks at Scientology in a coming-of-age story

We first heard from Katherine Spallino several years ago, and we’re happy to see that the book she’s been working on, The Bad Cadet: Growing Up in the Church of Scientology’s Sea Organization, is now available for you to buy at […]

Tonight: Our conversation with Mike Rinder on ‘A Billion Years’ for Mark Twain House

Our first trip to the Mark Twain House in Hartford was with our friend Dan Perkins, the man behind Tom Tomorrow and the This Modern World comic strip. We got a special tour, and at one point found ourselves in Twain’s upstairs billiards room where his writing desk was tucked away in a corner. It […]

Mike Rinder’s ‘A Billion Years’: A gripping takedown of Scientology and its leader

There are many books about Scientology now, including some put out by major publishers. If you wanted a robust history of where Scientology has been over many decades, you could turn to Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear, or the earlier, deeply researched investigations by Russell Miller (Bare-Faced Messiah) or Jon Atack (A Piece of Blue […]

When L. Ron Hubbard assigns you to the deep: A slice of Scientology in new book

Debbie Norwitz reached out to us last year with some questions about Paulette Cooper and Scientology’s Snow White caper, telling us that she was working on putting together a memoir. […]

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