Scientology Australia spills its guts, and you can thank Bryan Seymour and Nick Xenophon

For several years, one of Australia’s crusading senators, covered closely by one of the country’s most dogged television reporters, put pressure on the Church of Scientology to face more regulation with the creation of a national charities commission.

That effort paid off yesterday in a big way when Scientology’s internal financial reports were revealed for the first time by the Australian press, providing a rare look at how the organization is faring in that country.

Continue reading Scientology Australia spills its guts, and you can thank Bryan Seymour and Nick Xenophon

Sunday Funnies: Scientology’s latest insider fliers for your dissection and delectation

It’s that time of the week again, when we serve up the latest Scientology fundraising fliers and mailers that have been forwarded to us by our great tipsters.

We call it Sunday Funnies, and we hope you enjoy the collection of items we have for you today. And at the end of it, we have a new video from Karen de la Carriere!

So let’s dig in.

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When Scientology was pouring on the ‘religious’ angle very thick: A video mystery

Jonny Jacobsen, our man in Paris, sent over a fun item today. We’ll let him explain what it is.

I stumbled across this 20-minute reportage on Scientology, shot mainly at their Saint Hill base and broadcast in January 1972 on French television.

This two-minute extract introduces you to a number of people occupying important positions at the time, but they are not all identified by name here or even in the complete 20-minute piece. (Some of them don’t even appear beyond this introduction.)

Continue reading When Scientology was pouring on the ‘religious’ angle very thick: A video mystery

Scientology’s Orwellian methods of control explained in a new book by Jefferson Hawkins

Jefferson Hawkins has put out another book about Scientology — and this one is based on the work he did here at the Underground Bunker in his series about Scientology’s bizarre system of ‘ethics.’

He’s updated and added to the series and collected it all in an ebook which is available on Amazon. He also sent us the book’s preface, and we’re going to reproduce it here.

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HBO moves back ‘Going Clear’ to March 29 and TV’s most coveted spot: Sunday night

In a move that signals how much HBO thinks of Alex Gibney’s new documentary ‘Going Clear’ after its Sundance Film Festival premiere, the network has moved its airing from March 16 to March 29.

HBO is under heavy pressure from the Church of Scientology, which has tried to spoil the film’s arrival with full-page newspaper ads, attacks on the credibility of its sources at one of Scientology’s websites, a Twitter campaign that’s drawn derision, and even caustic letters to critics who have reviewed the film.

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TAMPA SHOWDOWN: Scientology’s religious exception faces mini-trial today

This is certainly a day we’ve been waiting for here at the Underground Bunker. Luis and Rocio Garcia filed their federal fraud lawsuit against the Church of Scientology back in January 2013, alleging that they had been lied to in order to get them to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to Scientology’s building projects and other campaigns.

The lawsuit has been delayed and complicated by numerous preliminary matters, but today a major issue in the case will finally get heard and possibly decided: Can the church force the Garcias into Scientology’s internal arbitration scheme?

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On the eve of the big Tampa hearing, the Garcias fire back at Scientology’s ‘bench memo’

Mike Ellis [Photo by Doug Owens]

We told you last week that Scientology pulled a bit of a fast one in the Garcia federal fraud lawsuit, submitting a substantial “bench memorandum” with just days to go before tomorrow’s big evidentiary hearing.

There’s so much at stake in this hearing, which will decide if Scientology can force the Garcias into its internal arbitration scheme, we pointed out that Scientology was willing to pull out attorney Sherman Lenske from the shadows to sit for a deposition.

Continue reading On the eve of the big Tampa hearing, the Garcias fire back at Scientology’s ‘bench memo’

The paranoid, depressed L. Ron Hubbard: Jim Dincalci’s 1997 ‘Secret Lives’ TV interview

We have another uncut interview leaked for the first time from Channel 4’s excellent 1997 documentary, Secret Lives — L. Ron Hubbard, this time with Hubbard’s former medical officer, Jim Dincalci.

The documentary is one of the better ones made about Scientology, and it contains numerous short clips of people who knew Hubbard. A source is releasing to us the uncut segments with these participants for the first time. So far, we’ve seen interviews with Hubbard’s literary agent, Forrest Ackerman, his press assistant and lover, Barbara Klowden, one of Hubbard’s fellow science fiction colleagues, Arthur Jean Cox, and the former mayor of Clearwater, Florida, Gabe Cazares.

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Scientology Sunday Funnies: New ‘Continental’ Narconons opening soon?

It’s that time of the week again, when we share with you some of the Scientology communications that our great tipsters have sent us.

We also have a couple of emails that some members received. And we have a new video from Chris Shelton, as he looks forward to Alex Gibney’s documentary airing next month on HBO.

Let’s start off with the emails.

Continue reading Scientology Sunday Funnies: New ‘Continental’ Narconons opening soon?

More secrets from Scientology’s vanished entity, Narconon International

Where’s Clark?

On Monday, we told you about the latest adventures of our friend Mark Ebner, who once again stumbled across some things Scientology had abandoned. In this case, they were documents sitting in an empty office building on Hollywood Boulevard that for at least several years had been the headquarters of Narconon International.

Narconon International and its president, Clark Carr, had left the building so suddenly, there were documents lying around, a softball bat, magazines, and other things that Ebner took pictures of or scooped up and mailed us.

We were surprised, but we also told you that we had been hearing from one of our best sources that Narconon International, the umbrella group that oversees Scientology’s drug rehab clinics, was in trouble and was going to be dismantled. And now, here was some proof of it.

Continue reading More secrets from Scientology’s vanished entity, Narconon International

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