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

Hey, kids! It’s open mic night at your local Scientology spaceport!

 
Scientology TV features so much repetitive and boring content that it has taken to inviting desperate filmmakers to screen their documentaries on its platform. These filmmakers are able to overlook the appalling human rights abuses of Scientology in order to get their documentaries about other appalling human rights abuses broadcast. The mental gymnastics of this aside, Scientology TV has become the broadcast channel of last resort for those who have run out of money for promotion and traveling to film festivals.

Continue reading Hey, kids! It’s open mic night at your local Scientology spaceport!

After 3 years of Hurricane Leah: ‘Scientology today is light years ahead of what it was’

 
Yesterday we looked at how Scientology seems to expend enormous resources for initiatives that really get them almost nowhere. And yet, today we have another reminder that for those still hanging on inside David Miscavige’s sinking ship, it’s always a sunny day.

Continue reading After 3 years of Hurricane Leah: ‘Scientology today is light years ahead of what it was’

Scientology: So much effort and heartache, for such little effect

[Emily Jones and John Goodwin]

Does it ever strike you, the way it does us from time to time, the sheer amount of effort that Scientology puts into its various initiatives that are forever chipping away at the margins?

Continue reading Scientology: So much effort and heartache, for such little effect

Hurricane Dorian’s destruction provides Scientology another chance at make-believe

[Disasters are fun!]

Glendy Goodsell, Executive Director of Scientology Volunteer Ministers of Florida, wants to send 150 volunteers to join relief efforts in the Bahamas following Hurricane Dorian. She recorded a video (below) from the VM center on Fort Harrison Ave. in Clearwater this week.

Continue reading Hurricane Dorian’s destruction provides Scientology another chance at make-believe

More filmmakers who are helping out Scientology with its TV network

[Oh, Emma, say it isn’t so.]

In January, we talked to J.R. Biersmith, one of the filmmakers who had agreed to allow the Church of Scientology to show their movies on the “Documentary Showcase” at the Scientology TV network on DirecTV.

Continue reading More filmmakers who are helping out Scientology with its TV network

Elisabeth Moss snows another reporter about Scientology, but this one really hurts

[Elisabeth Moss gears up for a new publicity push]

It’s getting very frustrating to see otherwise competent journalists let Elisabeth Moss get away with murder in interviews. Marlow Stern at the Daily Beast is no pushover, and he at least asked Moss more than one question about her involvement in Scientology. But she gave him three non-answers that amounted to nothing, and it irked us that Stern’s editors then claimed that the Daily Beast had a huge exclusive with Moss “opening up” about Scientology.

Continue reading Elisabeth Moss snows another reporter about Scientology, but this one really hurts

Available today, a new thriller based on a former Scientologist’s experiences

 
At HowdyCon in Los Angeles, one person we were happy to meet was Stefan Malmström, who had come all the way from Sweden. Today, Stefan’s book Kult is being published by Silvertail Books in London. (And full disclosure, Silvertail is also the publisher of our book about Paulette Cooper, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely.)

Continue reading Available today, a new thriller based on a former Scientologist’s experiences

Scientology’s biggest donors of 2019, so far: The whales giving millions to Miscavige

[C.O.B. will take your check now]

Yesterday, we showed you the lesser whales keeping Scientology afloat with their donations, as revealed in the latest issue of Impact magazine.

Continue reading Scientology’s biggest donors of 2019, so far: The whales giving millions to Miscavige

The donors keeping Scientology afloat in 2019: Today, part one, the lesser whales

[Skateboard hero Aaron Kyro, the new face of Scientology?]

Our great thanks to reader Once Born who snagged a new issue of Impact magazine, the Scientology publication we covet the most.

Continue reading The donors keeping Scientology afloat in 2019: Today, part one, the lesser whales

A holiday tale for families ripped apart by Scientology’s heartless ‘disconnection’ policy

[Can someone show this photo to Samantha Sterne?]

It’s a holiday Monday here in the US, and we hope you’re having a lovely day off with friends and family. For some families with members in Scientology, days like today can be a bitter reminder of how much they’re missing because of Scientology’s cruel “disconnection” policy.

Continue reading A holiday tale for families ripped apart by Scientology’s heartless ‘disconnection’ policy