FOLLOW ME ON
Daily Notifications
Sign up for free emails to receive the feature story every morning in your inbox at tonyortega.substack.com

Categories

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 []

ADVERTISEMENT

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. []

Scientology’s legendary ‘Liability Cruise,’ including color photos, like it was yesterday

 Janis Gillham Grady has graciously sent us an excerpt from Commodore’s Messenger, the first of her three-part history in the Sea Org as a child. (Part three is coming.) And we were pretty happy that she sent along some great color photos — they’re black and white in the book. Still looking for a gift []

Betrayed by L. Ron Hubbard, and stuck in a desert prison: A Scientology horror story

 Janis Gillham Grady has sent us a real treat today: It’s an account taken from her first book, ‘Commodore’s Messenger,‘ along with some photos never before seen, which she plans to include in her third volume, still in progress. If you don’t have her two books, we hope this thrilling excerpt will convince you to []