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 On February 3, Monique Rathbun’s attorneys produced surprise evidence in her harassment lawsuit against the Church of Scientology and its leader, David Miscavige.
That was the first day of a crucial hearing regarding Scientology’s “anti-SLAPP” motion. A week earlier, Scientology had been ordered to turn over any evidence it had in the form of video or photographs produced in the church’s years-long surveillance of Monique and her husband Mark ‘Marty’ Rathbun. As a result of that order, the church turned over a terabyte of video on an external drive, with hours and hours of surveillance footage. Despite the volume of that evidence, Monique’s attorneys came to court on February 3 with a surprise. One of the segments of video that the church turned over was about a minute and a half long, had no audio track, and showed Monique Rathbun being filmed pulling into her driveway. Continue reading WATCH: The 10-minute video of Scientology stalking Monique Rathbun in 2010
 Claire Headley and Bruce Hines are taking us on our journey to train as Scientologists. Claire spent years working with Scientology’s “tech,” and was trusted to oversee the auditing of Tom Cruise. Bruce was in Scientology for 31 years and spent about half that time as a senior case supervisor. Go here to see the first part in this series.
Bruce Hines is helping us again as we push on into the upper Operating Thetan levels, and boy, are we excited. This week, we’re up to Original OT 6, and the title for this level’s materials is “Familiarisation as a Thetan Exterior with the Physical Universe.” Hey, that’s sounds major! After some review and preparation, we proceed to Step One. “Be three feet in back of your head,” we’re told, the classic Scientology instruction to go “exterior” from our bodies. Continue reading Going three feet back of your head: Scientology’s Original Operating Thetan Level Six!
 Just yesterday, we told you about information that was leaked about Scientology’s plans for its Los Angeles headquarters. Now, we’ve received another leaked e-mail which suggests that the dates of the grand re-openings have been moved back a week. And we have some additional details.
Renovations in LA have been going on for some time, and now we’ve learned why: Scientology’s “Advanced Orgs” — where church members go for high-level and expensive processing — are also being upgraded to “Ideal” status. On Saturday, the Advanced Org in Copenhagen (AOSHEU) went through a grand re-opening that featured Scientology leader David Miscavige. A similar party is being planned for LA — will Miscavige be in town? We’re hoping our LA correspondents can be on the scene to find out. Continue reading NEW DATE: Celebration details of Los Angeles Scientology facilities leaked
 We told you it was coming, and yesterday, Scientology’s “Advanced Org” in Copenhagen went “ideal.” (Photo of DM courtesy of Black Rob at WWP.) We’re not really sure what that entailed — maybe a new coat of paint and some fancy TV monitors, perhaps? But we imagine it was quite a party as the Ideal Org program now also is being extended to the small number of places where advanced courses are delivered.
And now we have an e-mail which was leaked to us that suggests another advanced org — in Los Angeles — is going “ideal” in just a week! Boy, someone’s sure in a hurry. We had heard that the Advanced Org facilities in LA — the American Saint Hill Organization (ASHO) and the Advanced Organization of Los Angeles (AOLA) — had been going through renovations. And now, apparently, it’s time for a grand re-opening party! Continue reading Sunday Funnies: Scientology is having a grand re-opening at Big Blue this Saturday!
Last week, a flattering interview with John Travolta showed up in the Telegraph in advance of the actor’s appearance this weekend in London. Since then, numerous media outlets have been making much of one statement Travolta made in the piece about how he coped after the 2009 death of his son Jett… “I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t had the support of Scientology. I don’t think I could have got through it. They were with me every day after Jett died. They even travelled with me when I needed to get away. And for a solid two years it was like that. It was only in the second year that I started to take a break of a day or two just to see how I was doing on my own.” If Travolta intended for that to make Scientology look beneficial, it’s had the opposite effect — he seemed to indicate that church handlers were watching him so closely for more than a year, at some point he needed to get away. Continue reading Did John Travolta reveal too much about Scientology?
 On Wednesday, we told you about Quinn Bennett, a 10-year-old girl the Church of Scientology is touting as its “youngest self-made humanitarian,” which is Scientology-speak indicating that young Quinn has personally donated at least $100,000 for the church’s expansion efforts.
(For those of you who keep bringing up an anonymous commenter over at Mike Rinder’s blog who claims that Quinn didn’t donate her own money, we’ll point out that our issue is with the church promoting this young girl as a ‘humanitarian’ in order to set an example for other church members.) Continue reading Scientology’s $100,000 girl records a video promoting a fundraising event in California
 Our video source has a fun item for us this week. It’s another “quote video” made to market another L. Ron Hubbard lecture — in this case, Scientology 8-8008 and the Philadelphia Doctorate Course.
The PDC came early in Scientology’s history — December 1952 — but like everything else Hubbard did, this series of lectures was meant to be taken as gospel (which explains why it’s still on sale and at premium prices). But we like this video in particular because it features a passage by Hubbard which may be among the most nonsensical word salads he ever uttered on tape. Give it a look, and then take a look at our transcription of the second half of it… Continue reading Scientology video: Some of the best L. Ron Hubbard word salad ever
 Yesterday, former Scientology spokesman Mike Rinder posted a stunning new flier at his blog.
The flier was part of a series describing the fundraising for a project to replace the Mountain View, California church with a new facility that will be known as the “Silicon Valley Ideal Org.” More than 10 years after it started, Scientology leader David Miscavige’s “Ideal Org” push has put church members under intense pressure to donate huge sums so expensive buildings can be purchased and renovated, in many cases so they can replace normal “orgs” which may not really be deficient or need replacing. Continue reading This is Scientology today: Oregon 10-year-old celebrated for donating $100,000
 Claire Headley and Bruce Hines are taking us on our journey to train as Scientologists. Claire spent years working with Scientology’s “tech,” and was trusted to oversee the auditing of Tom Cruise. Bruce was in Scientology for 31 years and spent about half that time as a senior case supervisor. Go here to see the first part in this series.
This week, Bruce is helping us as we soldier on into the strange environs of New Operating Thetan Level Five. We’re now moving into a new realm — New Era Dianetics for OTs, which is usually shortened to NOTs. We’ll have Bruce explain that in a bit. But first, let’s take a look what we ran into as we leafed through the materials for New OT 5. Continue reading It’s time to wake up our space cooties on Scientology’s New Operating Thetan Level Five!
 Hey, we’ve been traveling for several days and just got back to the Bunker. While we try to catch up, we thought we’d point out something we saw in an excellent article about Scientology which Premiere magazine published way back in 1993.
The point of the piece was how Scientology maintained a grip on Hollywood, and about a third of the way into it, writer John H. Richardson paused to survey the landscape of Scientology’s entertainment dominance… Continue reading MEDIA ADVISORY: Stop saying that Scientology is infested with big movie stars already
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On February 3, Monique Rathbun’s attorneys produced surprise evidence in her harassment lawsuit against the Church of Scientology and its leader, David Miscavige.
