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 Luis Garcia, causing trouble Monday evening, the Garcia federal fraud lawsuit against the Church of Scientology heated up when the Garcias filed several declarations from former church members who said Scientology’s refund process is designed to be a sham. [ALSO IN THIS POST — The New York Times strokes Tom Cruise] Now, the church has fired back, asking federal Judge James Whittemore to allow Scientology to file a 10-page memorandum and a set of their own declarations in support of its previous argument and — and here’s the really ballsy part — the judge should then butt out, because the church’s position is a religious one and not something an American court can get involved in. Tonight, the attorneys for the Garcias answered back, saying that the church’s request is unfair (the church has already filed its allotted 25-page response to the Garcias’ original complaint) and, once again, argued that the Garcias are suing over fraud, not religious beliefs. We have both documents. Continue reading SCIENTOLOGY TO FEDERAL COURT: Let Us Refute The Garcia Declarations, And Then Butt Out of Our Religion Advertisement
 Tom Cruise, KSW! Claire, it looks like this week’s course is going to continue to build on what we’ve encountered before. CLAIRE: Yes, “Student Hat” is the big daddy of the BSM — the Basic Study Manual. It’s like the end-all course on study tech, and after you’ve done Student Hat and Method 1 word clearing, you’re categorized as a “Fast Flow student” and you don’t have to get so many star-rate checkouts. Continue reading Claire Headley Tells Us How to Keep Scientology Working
 Marty Rathbun in his RTC days On Monday evening, Luis and Rocio Garcia filed more than a dozen documents with the court in their federal fraud lawsuit against the Church of Scientology. There’s a lot of really interesting stuff in them, including declarations by Luis Garcia and others, as well as current price lists and bills from Scientology’s private cruise ship, the Freewinds. The Garcias are responding to the church’s previous request that federal judge James Whittemore dismiss the lawsuit and compel the Garcias to participate in Scientology’s internal arbitration procedures. This has been a successful strategy for the church in the past when ex-members have sued for the return of money they put on account for services they never received. Now, the Garcias are making the case that Scientology’s arbitration scheme is inherently unfair, and its refund policies are fraudulent. And they’re doing it through a series of declarations by longtime former church members and officials, including the man who was once the second-highest-ranking executive in the organization, Mark “Marty” Rathbun. Continue reading GARCIAS RESPOND TO SCIENTOLOGY: YOU’RE A BIG RIPOFF
 Margery Wakefield surprised us this week by sending us a new affidavit that she decided to put into the public record.
We certainly remembered an affidavit she made in 1993. Margery had startling things to say about working as a volunteer for Scientology’s intelligence operations, the Guardian’s Office, back in the 1970s and early 1980s. Now, she’s revealed even more about her time in Scientology. And though she says it was difficult for her, this time she’s going public with a shocking part of her past: she says the Church of Scientology forced her to have six abortions during her time as a member. Continue reading Margery Wakefield Has Something to Say About Scientology
 Yesterday, Scientologists entered a new age. We’ve been learning lately that Scientology leader David Miscavige has hit upon a new strategy to wring out the last dollar from church members who have already given until it hurts for his “Ideal Orgs” building program.
He calls it “alliances,” and it involves convincing what few Scientologists remain to band together and, well, give even more. Yesterday, these alliances gathered in various places around the world in order to celebrate Miscavige’s notion that a dwindling movement just needs to open up shiny and empty new buildings in order to…well, we’re not sure what he expects will happen. Continue reading Sunday Funnies: The United States of Scientology
 Jon Atack is the author of A Piece of Blue Sky, one of the very best books on L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology. He now has a new edition of the book out, 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.
Jon, what were L. Ron Hubbard’s intentions regarding Rhodesia, the country today called Zimbabwe? Did he really think he had a chance of taking it over to begin his worldwide conquest of the planet? Continue reading African Queen: The Man L. Ron Hubbard Thought He Was
Biographical notes on Tamerlan Tsarnaev, which our friend and attorney Scott Pilutik found at this 2010 photography slideshow about Tsarnaev, taken when he was a US Olympic boxing hopeful. Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with police early this morning in Watertown, Massachusetts. His brother Djohar remains at large. The following captions were included with photographs of Tamerlan at a martial arts center, where he worked out. Disclaimer: We cannot verify the authenticity of these statements. Information about the Tsarnaev brothers is still just coming in. — Tamerlan Tsarnaev practices boxing at the Wai Kru Mixed Martial Arts center. — Originally from Chechnya, but living in the United States since five years, Tamerlan says: “I don’t have a single American friend, I don’t understand them.” Continue reading Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Dead Boston Bomber Suspect: “I don’t have a single American friend, I don’t understand them.” Advertisement
 Over the last several years, Scientology has been rocked by the revelations of former members describing what it’s like to work in the church’s “Sea Org” and at its secretive bases. Invariably, the church responds by saying that information revealed by ex-members is dated and no longer reflects what life is like in the church’s employ.
But now, we have dramatic new testimony from a young man who was working as a Sea Org member just six months ago — and Jason Barclay’s account reflects the same kind of hardships, and extortion, and human misery that so many others have told. Working with Karen de la Carriere for her new YouTube channel, Barclay is featured in three short videos that we are fortunate enough to debut for you today. We also spoke with Barclay, and we’ll intersperse what we learned with these moving video segments. Continue reading Jason Barclay’s Sea Org Adventure: A Fresh Scientology Escapee Details Abuse
 Welcome to our ongoing project, where we blog a 1950 first edition of Scientology’s bible, Dianetics, with the help of ex-Scientologist, Bay Area lawyer, blogger, and author Vance Woodward. Go here for the first post in the series.
Vance, in the chapter “Diagnosis,” L. Ron Hubbard gets down to specifics, instructing an auditor how to assess the preclear that he’ll be counseling. We were surprised when Hubbard suddenly started talking about hysterical blindness and hysterical deafness. Both are outdated concepts that became popular as diagnoses in the 19th century. Today, doctors refer to them as conversion disorder, but the idea of someone being totally blind or deaf from “hysteria” seems a dated idea. Continue reading Hysterical Hyper-Sight, and Other Lost Concepts of Dianetics
For years, she worked closely with Scientology’s leaders, David and Shelly Miscavige. And she was there when it all went wrong. By Tony Ortega  The RTC Building at Int Base Not only are most of the sources for our story not going to be named, neither are we going to identify the main subjects of this tale, a young couple working in Scientology’s “Sea Org.” Before writing about them, however, we obtained eyewitness accounts from multiple sources who each corroborated the others. It’s not our preference to use unnamed sources, but in this case we had no other way of telling this story, which we consider an important one about Scientology’s secretive International Base. — T.O.
The young woman had a front-row seat for the dispute between COB and COB’s Assistant. Advertisement
And when all hell broke loose, the young woman — and her marriage — became collateral damage. Continue reading Love in the Time of Miscavige
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![Tamerlan Tsarnaev [Photo copyright Johannes Hirn]](http://tonyortega.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Tamerlan_Tsarnaev.jpg)
