How does yet another self-published book revealing the “secrets” of Scientology stand out with so many others appearing in the last few years?
Well, we guarantee you haven’t read one like this.
Vance Woodward is a Bay Area lawyer who fell into Scientology at only 14, spent 22 years struggling through the church’s auditing, and handed over about $600,000 along the way.
On December 5, 1995, a 36-year-old woman perished while several people were taking her to a hospital in Florida.
Within a few years, the mysterious and strange circumstances around the death of Lisa McPherson — who had been a Scientologist since the age of 18 — had the Church of Scientology facing a criminal prosecution, generated the worst publicity for the church since it was raided by the FBI in 1977, and inspired a new generation of critics who ever since have kept close watch on the controversial organization.
We wrote that as part of a short remembrance to show our respects to a woman who suffered needlessly.
Today, on the 17th anniversary of Lisa McPherson’s death, we have a very different message.
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It’s time the state of Florida’s investigation of Lisa McPherson’s death is reopened.
We have to hand it to Scientology. The church never gives up, and it never loses faith that its front groups will someday help L. Ron Hubbard’s church spread like wildfire.
Among the stealthy efforts to spread Scientology is a slim booklet of bland life advice that Hubbard penned in 1980, when the church was mired in bad news following a 1977 FBI raid.
Since then, Scientology has felled entire forests printing and handing out copies of The Way to Happiness, which contains such stunning commandments as “take care of yourself,” and “do not murder.”
And now, the church wants to put a copy in the hands of every Eagle Scout in America.
UPDATE: See what we’ve learned about the Rathbuns’ new home so far, below.
We have to admit, this really took us by surprise.
Earlier tonight, Marty Rathbun posted what appears to be an announcement that he and his wife Monique are pulling up stakes and leaving Ingleside on the Bay, Texas.
For those of you who have followed along our reporting for more than a year on the kind of harassment the couple has been through at the hands of the Church of Scientology, this is a startling development.
We’re trying to get Rathbun on the phone to find out where he’s headed.
For 24 years, they followed one man for the Church of Scientology. Then, for just over a single day, they came in from the cold.
By Tony Ortega
[Paul Marrick reunites with his old boss, Marty Rathbun]
This week, we learned that a lawsuit filed against the Church of Scientology by two of its former private investigators was quietly settled, and no terms were made public. In September, before settlement negotiations began, the two detectives spent just more than 24 hours giving the only interviews to reporters they ever will. Here now is one account of that brief period that provided a rare window into the shadowy world of Scientology surveillance.
This new video by two people who call themselves “Pete” and “Hannah” popped up yesterday. It’s an awfully fun mashup of Scientology and old school video gaming, and the production values are very high.
The Church of Scientology is very clearly mentioned in it, and the church’s practices are solidly parodied.
But are Pete and Hannah pushing their little project a bit too far?
New revelations in the 17-year Lisa McPherson saga keep coming as evidence mounts that the Church of Scientology spent tens of millions of dollars in an attempt to corrupt the investigative and judicial systems in the state of Florida.
Now, we have found more evidence from inside Scientology that tends to corroborate testimony given by Marty Rathbun, formerly the second-highest ranking official in the church.
Rathbun testified to Scientology’s huge expenditures that were used to influence attorneys and judges as the church tried to undermine a criminal investigation and then a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the McPherson estate and attorney Ken Dandar.
Now, another former Scientology official says he watched that money drain from Scientology’s accounts from his position as a treasury secretary inside the church.
We talked with Mat Pesch (pictured), a former longtime member of Scientology’s elite “Sea Org,” who was the treasury secretary of the Flag Service Organization (FSO), which operated Scientology’s spiritual mecca in Clearwater, Florida (known as the “Flag Land Base”).
“I watched them drain $20 million in reserves for the Lisa McPherson fight,” Pesch tells us.
“Hey, I was just in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by…”
Ken Dandar continues on his quest to convince federal Judge Virginia Covington that he was the victim of a conspiracy by the Church of Scientology to corrupt Florida’s state court system.
On Sunday, Dandar filed an affidavit by Sue Rudd, the former clerk of the late Susan Schaeffer, a Florida state judge who presided for two years over the contentious Lisa McPherson wrongful death civil lawsuit, from 2001 to 2003. (The case was settled in 2004.)
While the case was still before Schaeffer, Rudd says in the affidavit, she remembers getting an unusual visitor.
“To my surprise, David Miscavige, head of the Church of Scientology, appeared at my office at the courthouse located in St. Petersburg, Florida, and requested to see Judge Schaeffer,” she says. But Schaeffer was in Tallahassee. “I further advised Mr. Miscavige that it would be improper for him to meet with Judge Schaeffer without the presence of opposing counsel.”
Professor Stephen Kent is one of our favorite voices on Scientology. The University of Alberta scholar has one of the deepest archives of material known to exist, he is unafraid to speak truth about such subjects as the Sea Org’s RPF prison program, and he has regularly testified in court cases about his research.
He let us know that he’s published a new article with one of his graduate students, Terra Manca, about Scientology’s long war against psychiatry in the journal Mental Health, Religion & Culture.
As you’d expect, the scholarly work is weighty and rich, and we expect to be gleaning information from it for some time. And we’re happy here at the Bunker to make it available to our readers in its entirety, with permission from the good professor.
After a long day of testimony in a Clearwater, Florida courtroom, Ken Dandar tells us that retired Judge Crockett Farnell has scheduled written closing arguments in his secret trial to be submitted by December 27.
Today’s proceedings, which involved Scientology submitting evidence to bolster its claim that it deserves to be awarded more than $1.1 million in sanctions against Dandar, were closed to the public and press, and Scientology even requested that windows in the court doors be covered to prevent anyone from seeing inside (see photo above).
