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 On Sundays, we enjoy showing you the latest Scientology mailers and fliers that have been forwarded to us by our worldwide tipsters network.
This week, we have another entertaining collection of what we call Sunday Funnies, including a call for help that indicates just what sort of trouble the church finds itself in these days. We think you’ll agree that our first flier contains some of the strangest wording we’ve seen in a while. But we also think our Funnies this week may be overshadowed by today’s SMERSH Madness matchup, which is the heartbreaker of the first round: we don’t envy you the choice you have to make in today’s voting! Continue reading Hurry, Scientology Needs Your PR Help!
 In 1990, author Jon Atack published what is still one of the very best books on L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology, A Piece of Blue Sky. Atack now has a new edition of the book out, and it reminded us what an encyclopedic resource he is. So join us as we rely on Jon’s expertise to 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, it struck us (based on what you wrote in Blue Sky) that you and Paul Haggis had about the same reaction to Scientology’s most legendary stop on the Bridge, Operating Thetan Level III. For those new to the subject, we’ll summarize that material in a moment, but we wanted to know, what are the range of reactions that Scientologists tend to have when they encounter OT III? And how literal are church members supposed to take it (even if some ex-church members are now calling it metaphorical)? Continue reading Scientology Mythbusting with Jon Atack: Xenu the Galactic Overlord, Part 1!
 Our international tipsters have been busy lately, and this morning we thought we’d take a look at some of the Scientology stories making headlines around the world.
A few days ago, we read about yet another Scientology front group targeting very young children. In this case, the church’s anti-psychiatry front, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), is targeting Australian kindergartens. Also, we have an update on the situation in Sweden, where a newspaper continues a hard-hitting investigation of Scientology infiltration of an elementary school. And we also have some interesting news from South Africa. All that, plus this morning’s SMERSH Madness after the jump! Continue reading Scientology Targets Aussie Kindergartners, Swedish Grade Schoolers
 The Underground Bunker has learned that Gary Smith, CEO of Scientology’s flagship drug rehab facility, Narconon Arrowhead, has been stripped of his drug counselor certification by the National Association of Forensic Counselors.
The NAFC’s CEO and president, Karla Taylor, confirmed today that her organization has sent out letters that suspend or revoke Certified Chemical Dependency Counselor (CCDC) certifications to numerous employees of Narconon programs in Oklahoma and Georgia — two facilities that have been the center of controversy after patient deaths, criminal investigations, and multiple lawsuits. Taylor says she has confirmation that Smith has received his revocation notice. Mary Rieser has also lost her CCDC, but the former Narconon Georgia executive director may have bigger problems with the state continuing a criminal insurance fraud probe of the facility. Continue reading NARCONON CEO GARY SMITH LOSES COUNSELOR CERTIFICATION
 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.
[ALSO TODAY: Below, we have analysis of the Garcia federal fraud lawsuit from attorney Scott Pilutik, and our first SMERSH Madness match that features an online forum — ESMB!] After that last chapter, with Hubbard’s exploration of perversion, it’s only natural that the next one, “Emotions and the Dynamics,” would prove to be something of a letdown. But there are some good passages here for us to explore. At this point, things are really getting thick as we’re moving into second- and third-order make-believe, and Hubbard assumes that we’ve forgotten how earlier layers of this fantasy were formed. It was clear, for example, when he first introduced the idea of “Zones” of survival that they were arbitrary estimates of an organism’s relative health. And from that, he pulled some numbers out of the air to begin describing “tone levels” of emotion that go with them. Many pages later, those guesses have now become scientific-sounding, hard rules about how someone experiences life. Of course, if you get to invent the conditions that plague a life, then you can just as easily invent the methods for how to cure them. Continue reading Blogging Dianetics, Part 10: Killing the Grizzly Advertisement
 We’ve just got our hands on the Church of Scientology’s response to the federal fraud lawsuit filed by Luis and Rocio Garcia.
As we expected, Scientology is asking federal judge James Whittemore to compel the Garcias to accept Scientology’s own internal arbitration system to resolve this dispute, and throw it out of federal court. As in previous cases, Scientology will be trying to convince Whittemore that the Garcias signed various agreements that they would resolve matters through Scentology’s own “ethics” system. And any attempt for a civil court to intervene would be a violation of the church’s First Amendment rights. After the jump, we have the 25-page document. Continue reading Scientology Response to Federal Lawsuit: Force The Garcias to Use Church Arbitration
 One of the things we do at the Underground Bunker is monitor information coming in from our worldwide tipster network, trying to get our best sense of what’s happening in the Church of Scientology in real time.
One result of that is our Sunday Funnies, our weekly feature which shows the latest fliers and mailers going out to church members. Over time, those fliers give us some sense of how things are going with Scientology’s constant fundraising. (And when the church is reduced to begging $75 to sponsor a doorknob or asking members to cash in their gold and silver, things are not looking good.) Scientology is in a deep crisis right now, with non-celebrity, non-wealthy members nearly tapped out from the various money-sucking programs run by church leader David Miscavige. Continue reading Scientology's New Strategy: Attack of the Clones!
 We’re starting a new feature today, and we’re really excited that Claire Headley has agreed to help us out! Claire is well known among Scientology watchers for the way that she and her husband Marc escaped from the International Base after many years as “Sea Org” workers. She spent years working with Scientology’s “tech,” and was trusted to oversee the auditing of Tom Cruise. And now she’s going to help us as we take a trip up L. Ron Hubbard’s famous “Bridge to Total Freedom.” That’s right — we’re all going to train to be Scientologists, and tally up the costs along the way!
Claire, we don’t know if this was always the case, but at least in recent decades, for most people their first encounter with Scientology is the “Oxford Capacity Analysis.” When we see signs that advertise a “free personality test,” they’re talking about the OCA, right? But when they say “free stress test,” is that something else? Continue reading Today, You Begin Your Training as a Scientologist
 The Underground Bunker has obtained thousands of new internal Scientology documents which detail, among many other things, how the Sea Organization interrogates its workers about their sexual histories.
In October, we published a current version of the lengthy application that Sea Org hopefuls fill out as they sign their billion-year contracts to join the most fanatical of the church’s employees. But even after being accepted, workers are required to produce even more detailed dossiers about themselves called “life histories.” We now have actual examples of those histories which are only a couple of years old. They demonstrate in disturbing detail the invasive interest Scientology has in the sex lives of its workers. (And we mean that. Please be forewarned that there is extremely distasteful material ahead.) Continue reading Document Leak: Scientology Sexual Histories
 On Sundays, we love to reveal the latest Scientology mailers and fliers that have been going out to members, encouraging them to give, give, give until it hurts.
This week, we have a particularly special item to begin this week’s collection. You might remember, last summer, when Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes split, reporters were asking whether Suri was really old enough yet to get indoctrination in her father’s church. She was six years old (and now almost seven), and we all wondered if kids that young were really subject to Scientology training. Well, wonder no more. Continue reading Sunday Funnies: Get Your Infant Audited!
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On Sundays, we enjoy showing you the latest Scientology mailers and fliers that have been forwarded to us by our worldwide tipsters network.
