Sunny Pereira | The Underground Bunker

When Scientology has you dividing up funerals because family never really matters

[Sunny and her grandparents]

“Wait, mom, you want me to do what now?” I asked her. She was sitting across from me, pen and paper at hand. I had been under 24 hours watch for three months. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was about to be let free. It was May […]

How Scientology created its own prison for children who chafed at lifetime service

[A Scientology cadet org]

We were standing in a room, waiting for the Cadet Coordinator to finish reading our proposal. She was the only adult person assigned to watch over all of the Sea Org Cadets in Los […]

Scientology staffers: Putting up with chaos and hardships as they hope for promised OT powers

David Miscavige announced recently that the new “Advanced Org” in South Africa has been deemed “Saint Hill Size.” That made us think of a piece Sunny Pereira wrote for us about her stint in the “Universe Corps,” the special troops that were the promised reward for taking your org to that mythic level. We thought […]

Brad Pitt’s Scientology adventure: The sauna, the auditing, the… lizard?

[Juliette Lewis and Brad Pitt in 1991]

Sunny Pereira asks how we’re going to angle this story, and we tell her that it’s really up to her. It’s something she experienced — how would she angle […]

Leaving Scientology’s ‘Sea Org’ isn’t easy, and some turn to desperate measures

Why do people do extreme things to disqualify themselves from the Sea Org? You’ve heard harrowing stories about Sea Org members making suicide threats and suicide attempts, making hazardous attempts to run away, and some have even threatened to go to the press just to get themselves out of the Sea Org. A Sea Org […]

Scientology, naturally, is trying to capitalize on the New Zealand mosque massacre

[Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wearing a hijab at a memorial service for Christchurch victims]

Rod Keller has another example of Scientology mobilizing to take advantage of human […]

A letter of surrender, written from the basement of Scientology’s ‘Big Blue’ HQ

[Three floors down from that entrance door]

Last time, Sunny Pereira described how she was declared a “suppressive person” because she had briefly dated another woman in the Sea Org. (Homosexuality is considered a “perversion” in Scientology.) Sunny’s punishment? Four months being held in the basement of Scientology’s “Big Blue” headquarters in Los Angeles, three floors […]

In homophobic Scientology, you are required to write up your sins or else

Sunny Pereira was going through some old things recently when she came upon a bit of a goldmine — some handwritten letters she had been required to pen while she was being punished in Scientology’s ‘Sea Org.’ We asked her to explain the significance of one forced confessional letter which we found particularly […]

When the person who certified Scientology ‘Clears’ discovered that there were no Clears

[Sunny and a Clear]

We have a very special item for you today, one of Sunny Pereira’s best pieces yet. There were few people in a better position to raise these questions about one of Scientology’s central mysteries — the […]

Growing up in Scientology, and growing together outside of it: An appeal

I wanted to open up a bit more about my experiences since leaving Scientology, and adjustments, some rather large adjustments, I’ve had to make. I hope this hits a note with other second and third generation Scientologists, and helps others better understand us.

I grew up in Scientology and spent many years working in the Sea […]

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