PODCAST: ‘Oppenheimer’ and Scientology, with physicist Bruce Hines

The highly anticipated new film Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan, hit theaters yesterday, and we had a crazy idea: Watch the film on opening day here in New York while former Scientology auditor Bruce Hines caught it in Denver, and then talk about it!Why Bruce? Well, not only has he been a great contributor to the Underground Bunker, writing really terrific narratives about his time in the Sea Org and auditing some really interesting people (such as Nicole Kidman and Mary Sue Hubbard), but he’s also a physicist!And we wanted to discuss with him the totally nutty way that Scientology and the Oppenheimer film actually do intersect, thanks to a particularly bombastic tall tale from founder L. Ron Hubbard, who claimed to have been involved with the scientists working on the first atomic bombs.You can read about that in this 2015 piece we put together with help from researcher Lauren Wolfe. It’s amazing stuff, and we know Bruce would have some fun things to say about it.Once again, choose your poison. You can listen to the audio podcast (above) or watch the video version at YouTube, which is embedded below.Want to help?You can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to [email protected], an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail).Thank you for reading today’s story here at Substack. For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in historyAvast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at seaOverheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a timePast is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientologyRandom Howdy: Your daily dose of the CaptainHere’s the link to today’s post at tonyortega.orgAnd whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.Paid subscribers get access to two special podcast series every week…Up the Bridge: A weekly journey through Scientology’s actual “technology”Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars on the week’s news This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tonyortega.substack.com/subscribe