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 We told you recently about Per Wickstrom, who owns a number of drug rehab centers in Michigan. Per’s businesses have been associated with Scientology’s drug rehab network, Narconon. But we’ve noticed that in recent years, he’s been getting away from the Narconon brand — and can you blame him? With Narconon mired in controversies and investigations and lawsuits in places like Oklahoma and Georgia — and attracting national media attention — word is getting out about the network’s shortcomings.
In Battle Creek, Michigan, Per owned a facility called Narconon Stone Hawk, but in 2008 he re-christened the place “A Forever Recovery,” and not only dropped the Narconon name, he’s doing his best to make it look like he’s severed ties with Scientology altogether. At its website, A Forever Recovery says it offers Christian-based, Native American-based, and “holistic” approaches to addiction and calls them “evidence-based, comprehensive, and personalized.” Continue reading Per Wickstrom Denied Expansion of Drug Rehab, Sues Michigan Town
 Claire Headley is taking us on our journey to train as Scientologists. She and her husband Marc were Sea Org workers who escaped from Scientology’s International Base in 2005. She spent years working with Scientology’s “tech,” and was trusted to oversee the auditing of Tom Cruise. Go here to see the first part in this series.
We’re continuing to learn what Scientologists actually do as they pay hundreds of dollars an hour to move up the “Bridge to Total Freedom.” This week, Claire tells us about Expanded Grade 1. What’s this level all about, Claire? CLAIRE: We’ve covered “objective processes” before and how they are targeted to deal with “Control, Communication, and Havingness” (CCH). This level specifically deals with addressing the issues most people have with help, control, and problems. Continue reading Scientology Makes the Grade: Touching Walls to Total Freedom
 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 on Saturdays he’s helping 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.
This week, Jon, we wanted your thoughts on the whole schmear. L. Ron Hubbard’s ideas about the human mind and the physical universe really don’t comport with what science tells us about how the world works. But how does Hubbard’s worldview still continue to work for some people? JON: Explaining the cosmology of Scientology for A Piece of Blue Sky was a struggle. Continue reading How Does Scientology’s Cosmology Really Work? Historian Jon Atack Has a Theory
 On Sundays, we love to reveal to you the Scientology mailers and fliers that our tipsters have forwarded us during the week. And this time, we have a huge selection of fun stuff to share with you.
As Scientology nears its apocalypse, er, rather, its ginormous celebration of flowing theta when it opens the Super Power Building on October 6, it seems that it is pulling out all the stops to get its members to give, give, give! It’s almost like they know some sort of point of no return is coming, or something. This week, we have to hand it to the folks in Miami for getting the most creative when it comes to begging for your cold, hard cash. Continue reading Sunday Funnies: A Scientology Advertising Bonanza!
 The Tampa Bay Times broke the news Friday night: Finally, after almost 15 years since it first broke ground, Scientology’s “Super Power Building” is set to open on Sunday, October 6.
On Friday the Church of Scientology approached the Clearwater, Florida city council to obtain permits for a grand opening celebration on that date. Continue reading SCIENTOLOGY SUPER POWER IS COMING: OCTOBER 6!
 We’re still hearing from people about the Church of Scientology’s denials that it forces “disconnection” on members who have been excommunicated (“declared a suppressive person”).
Cindy Plahuta, of Colorado, has a sadly typical story of how she learned about disconnection. After more than 20 years in the church, she became concerned about things she couldn’t ignore — that the president of the Church of Scientology International, Heber Jentzsch, has reportedly been a prisoner of “The Hole” since about 2004, for example. When Cindy asked her daughter, Kara Landry, what she thought about Heber’s plight, Landry reacted by turning in her own mother to church ethics officers. (Previously, they had been very close — that’s them in a photo taken on Kara’s wedding day.) Landry subsequently disconnected from her, and since then Cindy has heard nothing from her daughter, who works at Scientology’s South Coast Mission in Orange County, California. Continue reading Scientologists Say the Darndest Things In Their Disconnection Letters
 Hey, gang. We received a very interesting communication recently from a librarian in Illinois, and we can’t wait for you to read what he sent us.
We’ve heard from librarians several times in the past because of Scientology’s incessant efforts to get the books of L. Ron Hubbard into libraries that generally don’t want them. But that hasn’t stopped the church, particularly in the last year as it made a major push for the new “RON” encyclopedia (pictured, right). We saw mailer after mailer begging church members to donate money so the L. Ron Hubbard Series could be put in every library on earth — it was presented like a countdown. According to those mailers, by now you’d expect thousands of copies of that encyclopedia to be in every lending book institution from Milan to Minsk. Continue reading Scientology is Obsessed with Getting Books in Libraries — Here Are the Real Stats!
 After we reported last week that the National Council of Churches had filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the Church of Scientology’s petition in the forced-abortion lawsuit of Laura DeCrescenzo, at least one member of the NCC has expressed its disapproval.
Readers of the Underground Bunker reached out to members of the NCC, and one of those members — the Episcopal Church — reacted by saying it was never informed by the NCC that it was filing the brief, and informed the NCC that it objected to being included. From the details of the amicus brief, it was hard not to conclude that the NCC was unaware that the lawsuit brought by DeCrescenzo is about a 17-year-old girl forced to have an abortion so she could continue to work 100-hour work weeks for pennies an hour in church employment. Continue reading Episcopal Church Objects to Being Included in Supreme Court Brief Supporting Scientology
 Claire Headley is taking us on our journey to train as Scientologists. She and her husband Marc were Sea Org workers who escaped from Scientology’s International Base in 2005. She spent years working with Scientology’s “tech,” and was trusted to oversee the auditing of Tom Cruise. Go here to see the first part in this series.
Claire, we’re starting to get into some serious money this week as things suddenly kick up. And that’s exciting. Up to now, we’ve noticed that our trip up Scientology’s Bridge to Total Freedom has contained a lot of repetition and rather simple concepts about communication, learning, and control. So far, there’s been no space opera and even less excitement in our Scientology training. But with the price increasing, can we expect some thrills? Continue reading In Scientology, When the Prices Kick Up, What Do You Get for the Money?
In the wake of Leah Remini’s defection, Church of Scientology spokeswoman Karin Pouw has repeatedly claimed that there is no Scientology policy of forced “disconnection,” which compels a church member to cut off all ties from someone who has been excommunicated (“declared a suppressive person”) — even if it means cutting off ties with a close friend or family member. When Pouw’s predecessor, Tommy Davis, made the same claim on CNN in 2008, it was a disastrous move: many church members who had been affected by the policy were deeply offended. One of those was director Paul Haggis, and we’ve heard from many others who say Tommy’s denials helped convince them to leave the church. Today, Pouw is stepping into that mess once more, and it’s angering current and former Scientologists all over again. Claire Headley responded by showing us the written — and therefore inviolable — church policy that lays out in black and white how families get ripped apart by rules that force church members to choose between Scientology and their reliationships with friends and relatives. And now, Sindy Fagen has given us an even more devastating example that should be hard for Pouw to refute. Continue reading THIS IS THE SOUND OF SCIENTOLOGY’S FORCED DISCONNECTION
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We told you recently about Per Wickstrom, who owns a number of drug rehab centers in Michigan. Per’s businesses have been associated with Scientology’s drug rehab network, Narconon. But we’ve noticed that in recent years, he’s been getting away from the Narconon brand — and can you blame him? With Narconon mired in controversies and investigations and lawsuits in places like Oklahoma and Georgia — and attracting national media attention — word is getting out about the network’s shortcomings.
