Wise Beard Man visits Scientology’s new Fantasyland in Clearwater

We asked Mark Bunker to mosey on down to Fort Harrison Avenue yesterday to get a gander at the new storefronts Scientology opened up this week.

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Hey, Star magazine, why is Tom Cruise afraid of Aussie journo Bryan Seymour?

Back on July 2, your proprietor asked his colleagues for some help. Star magazine had announced that Tom Cruise was leaving Scientology, and we thought it was awfully convenient for the story to come out just a few weeks before the press circus around Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation starts up. Now, with so many other media outlets repeating the Star’s fact-free story like it was gospel, entertainment reporters would be off the hook, and wouldn’t have to hit Tom with tough questions about Alex Gibney’s documentary Going Clear.

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Jon Atack: Scientology’s snitch culture, and how ex-members must relearn the notion of privacy

Jon Atack is the author of A Piece of Blue Sky, one of the very best books on L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology. He has a new edition of the book for sale, and for more than a year on Saturdays he helped us sift through the legends, myths, and contested facts about Scientology that tend to get hashed and rehashed in books, articles, and especially on the Internet. He was kind enough to send us a new post.

Jon, we were talking the other day, and one of us mentioned an ex-church member who seemed to have a difficult time with personal boundaries. You told us how that was a product of Scientology itself, and now we’re glad to see you’ve decided to expand on that. We’re all ears.

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The story of Brian Sheen and his ‘disconnected’ Scientology daughter you haven’t heard

The story hit Thursday night at about midnight, just as we were putting to bed our own piece about a Scientology day care scandal.

A local television station in South Florida reported that a man named Brian Sheen, 62, had filed a “civil rights complaint with the state” over Scientology’s toxic “disconnection” policy which rips apart so many families. In his case, his daughter, a Scientologist, had turned away from him, and he was being told nothing by the church about why it had ordered her to do so.

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Scientology’s day care from hell: The scandal the church managed to keep hidden — until now

Written by Tony Ortega | Illustrations by Chad Essley

Ellen was driving back from an outing in San Diego with her daughter when she got the call. [“Ellen” is not her real name, but this account is exactly how she told it to us.]

It was Julian, an ethics officer at Scientology’s “org” in Los Angeles. Julian was one of the young “masters at arms” who enforce Scientology’s myriad rules and regulations. If you heard from him, it usually meant you were in some kind of trouble, Ellen knew.

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How Scientology’s 1970s infiltration scandal led to the creation of its IAS slush fund

We have another fun dive into Scientology history courtesy of correspondent Jeffrey Augustine. And this time, he’s starting out with a subject dear to us, the notorious burglarizing of federal government offices in the 1970s, an audacious operation Scientology called the “Snow White Program.” We love the 70s, Jeff! Take it away…

July 8, 1977: The FBI conducts a massive raid on the Church of Scientology to find evidence relating to its “Snow White Program.” The raid eventually leads to eleven top Scientology leaders being criminally charged and convicted for their role in the conspiracy to burglarize federal offices.

These Scientology defendants, including Mary Sue Hubbard, wife of Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, needed a great deal of money for legal defense. So in 1978 Scientology’s notorious Guardian’s Office created the “Safe Environment Fund” (SEF) to pay for the significant legal expenses of the GO members who had been indicted. Essentially, the SEF was a GO legal slush fund that generated a significant amount of unrestricted donations.

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‘Growing Up in Scientology’ project launches with a new tale about John Travolta

[Credit: John Russo]

In April, we announced a new project by Aaron Smith-Levin and Nick Lister. The two former Church of Scientology members were planning a YouTube channel that would feature the stories they felt were left out of Alex Gibney’s movie Going Clear — the stories of young people who had grown up in the church.

Smith-Levin and Lister had each featured prominently in stories about families being ripped apart by Scientology’s “disconnection” policy. But they said they wanted to talk with other young Scientologists to get the full story about what it’s like to grow up in the organization.

Now, they have the first video to show at their new channel, which they call “Growing Up in Scientology.” It’s a short portion from Aaron’s interview of Nick, and it features a fun and disturbing anecdote about John Travolta looking for a chiropractic adjustment at 2 in the morning…

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Monique Rathbun: Hey, Texas court, here’s something to chew on

It’s been a long time since we’ve heard anything about the Monique Rathbun lawsuit against Scientology and its leader, David Miscavige.

The Texas lawsuit was put on hold when Scientology appealed a March 2014 ruling by Comal County Judge Dib Waldrip denying its “anti-SLAPP” motion. Arguments were made at a hearing before the Texas Third Court of Appeals in September, and since then we’ve been waiting for the appeals court to rule.

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Scientology’s trophy problem: Did David Miscavige lie, or did the IAS?

[Scientologists, admiring the milestones of IAS enlightenment]

In November, we told you the saga of Richie Acunto. He was the once high-flying Scientologist who owned Survival Insurance in California, but then whose bankruptcy resulted not only in unhappy investors, but also the stunning auctioning off of his Scientology trophies.

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LIVE REPORTS: Scientology leader David Miscavige opens “Ideal Org” in Colombia today

Scientology leader David Miscavige is scheduled to open the latest “Ideal Org” today, this time in Bogotá, Colombia, and we have a correspondent on the scene.

It’s been less than three months since Miscavige opened an Ideal Org in Basel, Switzerland, which is a much faster pace than he set the last two years. (There was only one Ideal Org opened in all of 2014, in Sydney, though the existing Advanced Org in Copenhagen also got a facelift that year.)

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