See ‘Going Clear’ star Hana Whitfield describe L. Ron Hubbard in a leaked 1997 interview

Hana Eltringham Whitfield was one of the stars of Alex Gibney’s documentary about Scientology, Going Clear. Her memories as the captain of L. Ron Hubbard’s flagship as he ran Scientology from sea in late 1960s and early 1970s was one of the highlights of the film. Now, we have a leak from a previous documentary, UK Channel 4’s excellent 1997 Secret Lives — L. Ron Hubbard, which featured Hana prominently.

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Scientology: Making fools of your local elected lunkheads since 1952

In 2003, your proprietor moved to Kansas City. It was something of a leap of faith. We’re from Los Angeles, and we’d lived in New York, and we didn’t have a lot of familiarity with the middle of the country. But it turned out to be one of the best moves we ever made.

We’re still best friends with some of the people we met during the two years we lived there, and we have fond memories of our time as managing editor of The Pitch, a weekly newspaper.

We were pleasantly surprised to receive a call recently from a writer currently working for The Pitch who wanted to get some help with a really interesting story he was putting together.

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Marc Headley reveals the embarrassing technological secrets of Scientology

We have another treat for you today. Jeffrey Augustine has Marc Headley back for his latest podcast, and it’s a good one.

Marc worked at Scientology’s secretive Int Base for 15 years, and got a rare view inside of the technical side of Scientology. He was intimately involved in the production of Scientology’s lectures and videos and e-meters.

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AUDIO: Full police interviews of Scientology spies and their stalking of Ron Miscavige Sr.

We’ve been hearing some brief segments of the police interviews of the Scientology spies who were arrested in Wisconsin in 2013. Now, we have the full interrogations of Dwayne and Daniel Powell, who were being paid $10,000 a week to stalk Ron Miscavige Sr by his son, Scientology leader David Miscavige.

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See the message a Scientologist sends to disconnect from a best friend, forever

Here at the Underground Bunker we’ve brought you many stories of “disconnection,” the toxic Scientology policy that rips families apart. But not every order to disconnect involves the kind of family heartbreak that we saw with Sara Goldberg, for example, in Alex Gibney’s film Going Clear.

When Scientology orders people to cut off ties, it can have consequences not only for families but for close friends and in unexpected ways.

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Another wacky Scientology testimonial video — and an Underground Bunker announcement!

Scientology has sent out another frenetic video to its members, including it in a DVD that they’ve mailed out with a glossy magazine, ‘International Scientology News.’

Continue reading Another wacky Scientology testimonial video — and an Underground Bunker announcement!

Scientology hit with another federal lawsuit over refunds — but with a twist

A new federal lawsuit was filed this week by former members of the Church of Scientology who are asking the organization to return money that they had put on account. John A. (pictured) and Mary Lou Dettmer of Avon, Indiana are suing Scientology’s Illinois branch after it refused to return $77,810 that the Dettmers had paid years ago for courses that they now have no use for.

The lawsuit is so new, Scientology doesn’t even know it’s coming yet, says Fred Pfenninger, the Indianapolis attorney for the Dettmers, who spoke with us yesterday. “They don’t even know, to my knowledge, that it’s been filed. We have not sent the summonses out,” he said.

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Is France dropping its anti-Scientology fervor because Tom Cruise is just too délicieux?

We have another report today from our man in Paris, British journalist Jonny Jacobsen. Recently, he wrote here about a Scientologist’s 2006 suicide in France that prosecutors were trying to pin on Scientology itself. But an inability to track down three key witnesses had jeopardized the state’s investigation. Later, at his own website, Jonny summarized information that he’d received about the possible location of at least one of those witnesses.

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Scientology spy caught trying to interview Paul Haggis as fake ‘Time’ magazine reporter

On April 7, film director and screenwriter Paul Haggis received an email asking for a Time magazine interview. Haggis tells us the request seemed reasonable. The writer, Mark Webber, said he was talking to a number of directors for an article about the “golden age of film.” Webber also mentioned Crash, the Oscar-winning Haggis film that is coming up on its 10th year anniversary since it was released in theaters on May 6, 2005.

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Another leak of outtakes from 1997’s ‘Secret Lives’ — Scientology’s finance ‘dictator’

We have another leak of a lengthy interview that’s never been made available in full before. It’s a talk with Mike Goldstein, who had been a member of Scientology’s Sea Organization in the 1970s and had been L. Ron Hubbard’s financial controller.

Portions of the interview appeared in Channel 4 UK’s excellent 1997 documentary, Secret Lives — L. Ron Hubbard. Over the last couple of months we’ve been posting outtakes and uncut interviews from the documentary that are appearing for the first time. Goldstein, for example, is someone who isn’t talked about a lot today, but he was at one time a key official in the Scientology superstructure.

Continue reading Another leak of outtakes from 1997’s ‘Secret Lives’ — Scientology’s finance ‘dictator’

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