The Underground Bunker Podcast

Yesterday evening, Alex Barnes-Ross joined your proprietor as we made our first experiment with Substack’s new live video feature.Paid subscribers got to watch it and comment and ask questions, and now everyone can see the result. We hope you’ll be interested in becoming a paid subscriber and joining us live for the next video. 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

We had a feeling that Judge Barber was going to reject the motion for reconsideration by Valeska Paris and the Baxters. But that doesn’t make their situation any less infuriating.We thought we’d add a little more background and details to this morning’s news.Want to help?Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special material for subscribers. Or, 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). E-mail tips to [email protected] 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 a special podcast series…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

We’re still reeling over what happened in a Los Angeles courtroom today, when Scientology managed to keep a ruling that was devastating for them from becoming final.How? By having David Miscavige send his personal attorney down to the courthouse to tell the judge he was off the case. How did he get away with that in a case that was filed last August?We explain how Miscavige is using his wealth and privilege to game the system, and US Courts are simply not equipped to deal with an organization like Scientology that only deals in bad faith.Want to help?Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special material for subscribers. Or, 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). E-mail tips to [email protected] 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 for 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…Up the Bridge: A 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

What a week Phil Jones has had, with his stealth operation in Los Angeles to put up a billboard on behalf of the Aftermath Foundation, and then the controversy that then ensued.We wanted to ask him even more questions about what went down and how he’s feeling about it, and we hope you enjoy our conversation.As usual, you can listen to the podcast (above) or watch it at our YouTube channel, below…Want to help?Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special material for subscribers. Or, 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). E-mail tips to [email protected] 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…Up the Bridge: A 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

With a little more than a week before election day (and with early voting already underway), it was great timing for Mark Bunker that Tracey McManus revealed in the Tampa Bay Times this week that Clearwater police determined it was a couple of Scientologists who were caught stealing Bunker’s yard signs.So we checked in with Wise Beard Man about how the miscreants were caught, what they’re doing about it, and how his campaign has been going otherwise.We also brought up some other Scientology news to get his reactions, and of course that turned out to be a lot of fun.As usual, you can listen to the podcast (above) or watch it at our YouTube channel, below…Want to help?Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special material for subscribers. Or, 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). E-mail tips to [email protected] 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…Up the Bridge: A 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

We waited a long time for the four-year drought to end and for Scientology leader David Miscavige to start putting on his Ideal Org dog-and-pony shows again. But imagine how long the wait was for the poor saps who had been gouged for donations to pay for the thing as far back as 20 years ago!We were reminded of what those Scientologists were put through when Kat, a former Austin stand-up comic, returned to remind us that a few years ago she had helped us put together footage of those wild fundraising days after her own infiltration of the Austin org in 2017. She was curious about the Ideal Org opening last week, and when she went by she was stunned to hear David Miscavige actually making reference to that “Crazy Town” fundraising, and gave us a fun report about it.So we asked her to come on the podcast and reflect on all of it — her infiltration of the org, the people she met there, the crazy fundraising, and Saturday’s celebration of Miscavige’s ambition. As usual, you can listen to the podcast (above) or watch it at our YouTube channel, below…Mexico City goes Ideal! (Again)This morning Scientology released photos of its Ideal party in Mexico City last night as the church opened its second Ideal Org in that town.Once again, David Miscavige got the adulation he so craves. “Remember, the very essence and life force of an Ideal Org is, as our Founder envisioned, ‘An activity where people came to achieve freedom and where they had confidence they would attain it.’ That is what we celebrate today. It is the gift you are extending. And the vision made true by you, the heroes of this movement, in creating this Ideal Org. You want to see history in the making in this Latin American megacity? Well, the moment is upon us—right here and right now.”As for shills, Scientology managed to attract a Mexican congressman! First up, however, was Cristian Badillo, identified as “Director of the National Consciousness for Religious Freedom Foundation.” Sure, that sounds legit.He was there to heap praise on Hubbard’s little booklet of plagiarized moral sayings.“To realize the Mexico we want, the truth inside The Way to Happiness must be passed on, person to person, until it stretches from Baja to the Yucatán. I’ve been privileged to deliver the precepts into barrios and congregations of faith. I’ve delivered them into juvenile prisons. And, just as I personally experienced, I witnessed others have their own recognition of the truth. A truth as certain as the ground beneath one’s feet. At which point, it was undeniable: L. Ron Hubbard has written a universal language. And we owe it to humanity to tell people of every background, every faith, everywhere, ‘You can discover your own way to happiness!’”Next up was Congressman Luis Zamora Romero of the state of Nayarit.“I searched sky and earth for ways to show people their human rights—until I discovered you. We share the belief that human rights are not only a right, but a duty from one person to another. That’s why we have taught both the victims and those who violate them. We even hosted a national youth day celebration with over 7,000 in attendance. Working together, we arranged 9,000 Human Rights booklets on the ground to spell out ‘Know Your Human Rights’ and thus creating the longest such sentence in history. In so doing, we not only demonstrated our collective dedication, we set a Guinness World Record! And so, united we will soon set another world record as the largest movement on Earth.”Oh, brother.The congressman was followed by Fabián Aranda García, identified as legal advisor to the National Human Rights Commission.“The pursuit of justice is what drove my most important challenge—and thus my partnership with the Church of Scientology and CCHR. It was when a new law declared, ‘A doctor could lock an individual up and decide the person could no longer determine the future of their own health, their money, their education.’ Because, in the eyes of the law, they are just a zero. If I didn’t fight this, I wasn’t a victim, I was an accomplice. With you we went straight to the National Parliament. We presented our cases and gave Mexico’s leaders the facts. And with the future of thousands—even millions in the balance—we won, and that totalitarian law was canceled!”And finally, the stage was graced by Father Manuel Corral, who is the executive secretary of Institutional Relations of the Catholic Church in Mexico. “It’s time to no longer make any distinctions between any creeds. We may all have different ideologies, but we must all fight as one. And by your every action you have demonstrated an authentic religious unity, and you have actually brought religions together. This is my dream come true. And this is your Founder’s dream come true. What’s more, you have planted a symbol of that unity in this soil—and it is an awe-inspiring wonder before our eyes. As we celebrate this glorious new Church of Scientology, let’s now dream of a better Mexico City and a brighter Mexico. And in honor of Mr. Hubbard, let’s make it a reality—together!”We certainly remember Hubbard bashing the Catholic Church in the old days, but shills never worry about that. And hey, there’s a great rooftop deck!Want to help?Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special material for subscribers. Or, 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 for 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…Up the Bridge: A journey through Scientology’s actual “technology”Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars on the week’s new 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

Readers have been raving about the pieces that Val Ross has been writing for us lately, so we thought it would be fun to have a conversation with her for our latest podcast episode.Wow, we were not disappointed as Val goes into some really striking moments from her life as a Scientologist.After we recorded it, however, she let us know that she had some things a bit mixed up on her chronology, and asked us to post this errata…Back when all that was happening with Mark it was so chaotic for me. My brother and I worked out the correct timeline of the events, so if you could add this errata for the listeners.On my birthday in 1983 was when my mom died of a stroke at age 49, I was still with Mark. My brother remembers that because after my mom died, he dropped out of college to take care of my dad and was there when my dad was on the phone trying to talk me into staying with Mark because being alone was the worst thing in the world. So when Mark beat me up it was my birthday in 1984. I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer February 1984, my dad died Easter Sunday 1984.As usual, you can listen to the podcast (above) or watch it at our YouTube channel, below…Want to help?Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special material for subscribers. Or, 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

Well, we’ve done it again. We’ve gone and collaborated with Apostate Alex and we think you’re going to like the result.Over at his website, Scientology Business, we have a fun piece about some emails Alex obtained with a records request that help explain the shenanigans Scientology that was up to with the help of local officials to try and squelch the IAS protest last November.We also talked about Dave’s Ideal Org mess and more. As usual, you can listen to the podcast, above, or watch the video version at our YouTube channel, below.Want to help?Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special material for subscribers. Or, 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

November 1966. February 1995. December 2021.Those are the three epochal turning points in a remarkable life that is the subject of this week’s podcast.Last week, we were in Los Angeles to cover a couple of hearings in Leah Remini’s lawsuit. After the first one, we got a message from a surprising source. It was someone, a legend really, whom we had admired and written about for many years.It was Dennis Erlich, inviting us to lunch.This was the “OG” we mentioned in the Group Therapy podcast over the weekend, that we were so excited to meet, finally.For the newcomers: In 1995, a spectacular battle occurred between Scientology and the Internet as the church and David Miscavige attempted to strangle an information revolution as it was just beginning. The first and most shocking battle in that war broke out on February 13, 1995 when Scientology agents, accompanied by police, raided Dennis Erlich’s Glendale, California home and seized his computers because he had been quoting Scientology policies in online debates. More people were raided later that year in the US and Europe as Scientology tried to kill the discussion of its secretive policies on the early Internet. Scientology lost that war, and we all owe Dennis a debt of gratitude that he went through years of legal battles so that the rest of us, nearly 30 years later, can write freely about Scientology’s controversies and abuses on the web.But as you’ll learn in today’s podcast, Dennis has influenced our culture in other ways as well, which we talk about as we discuss the three epochal eras of a fascinating life. November 1966. February 1995. December 2021.We hope you are as enlightened and moved as we were to discuss this with such an important figure.As usual, you can listen to the podcast, above, or watch the video version at our YouTube channel, below.Want to help?Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special material for subscribers. Or, 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

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

Alexander Barnes-Ross continues to produce results, and this time he has a remarkable update: His meddling with Scientology's affairs has resulted in an MP calling for an investigation of the Church in Britain.We're in California and yesterday we took a cycling excursion to visit a favorite aunt, but we managed to do a Zoom call with Alex on our phone.Alex tells us that he had written to his Member of Parliament, a woman named Diane Abbot, and she stunned him with the letter she sent…“I have written to HMRC, who brought the case against the Church of Scientology for ruling that their ‘chapel’ was a place of worship, urging them to look again at options to appeal this decision and also to more broadly investigate the church's finances for fraudulent activity. I will share with you any response I receive.”Wow. That seems pretty significant.Please watch the video and let us know your reaction.Want to help?Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special material for subscribers. Or, 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 CaptainAnd 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 special podcast series 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

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

Tammy Synovec’s tale about sitting down next to a Scientologist on a flight out of Los Angeles generated a big reaction. For three hours, she had an opportunity she’d been hoping would happen for a long time: To talk to a current Scientologist about the problems she saw when she was a member.We’ve been talking to Tammy behind the scenes for some time now, and we know that her experiences in Scientology are heartbreaking. We’re fortunate that she wanted to tell that story in our latest podcast episode.We did our best to keep things to an hour, which means she couldn’t go into every detail, but we think you’ll see that Scientology put her into some pretty impossible situations as yet another family was ripped apart by David Miscavige’s organization.As usual, you can listen to the podcast, above, or watch the video version at our YouTube channel, below.Help for Mark Plummer’s familyWe’re still stunned that we’ve lost Mark ‘Warrior’ Plummer, who died unexpectedly this week at 72. We heard from his daughter Alisha, who says that she and her brother have a couple of issues they’re dealing with now. First, expenses related to their father’s passing. And second, what to do to secure Mark’s massive collection of Scientology materials.Go here if you’d like to help Alisha out with those expenses, and for inquiries about Mark’s collection, drop us a line.Want to help?Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special material for subscribers. Or, 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

In August 2022, we talked to Andreas Heldal-Lund about his diagnosis with terminal cancer, and the brave way he was facing the end of his life. So his death this week was something we had sadly been anticipating, but it hit us hard nonetheless.We came to know Andreas in 2001 because of the way he helped Tory Christman leave Scientology, and the kindness and wisdom he displayed. We had been a big admirer of him ever since.In our podcast episode, Tory tells us again that amazing story with new details we hadn’t heard before, and we get a chance to celebrate, once again, this man of integrity who did so much to help expose the abuses of the Church of Scientology with one of the most important sites on the Internet, Operation Clambake (xenu.net). As usual, you can listen to the podcast, above, or watch the video version at our YouTube channel, below.Want to help?Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special material for subscribers. Or, 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

Twice now, we’ve partnered with “Apostate Alex” Barnes-Ross to bring you the speeches of Scientology leader David Miscavige. On November 3, Dave addressed the IAS gala under the big tent at Saint Hill in East Grinstead, England. And last Saturday, he gave a stemwinder to the audience at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.Both times, those speeches were leaked to us, and Alex put out the audio track while we posted the full transcripts.Dave made lots of claims in those speeches, and so we thought we’d discuss that with Alex, and also catch up with him on what else he’s been up to.As usual, you can listen to the podcast, above, or watch the video version at our YouTube channel, below.Continuing our year in review: The stories of March 2023We checked in on Dani and Tami Lemberger at their independent Scientology mission in Haifa, Israel. It was sad and surprising to hear that former Scientology Sea Org member Jenny Burpee, who had played such an important role in Kat White’s life, had died at only 39.Scientology tells Judge Gail Killefer that it has assembled an arbitrating panel for Valerie Haney’s case, but it won’t tell Valerie which people have been chosen. And for good measure they say they want $107,000 in sanctions from Valerie. (They didn’t get it.)What a treat: For our podcast, we interviewed ‘Q: Into the Storm’ figure Fredrick Brennan, who turns out to be very knowledgeable about Scientology!Clarissa Adams joined the podcast to tell us how Scientology continues to rip families apart to the present day.Clearwater’s mayor, Frank Hibbard, suddenly resigned, and we talked it over with Mark Bunker. What a strange move.We figured it was time to tell you about John Blosser, Scientology’s latest reporter shill, who had begun targeting Graham Berry, but who has been targeting your proprietor, Mike Rinder, and Leah Remini for years. A disgraced former reporter for the National Enquirer (and imagine how hard you have to work to become disgraced from that job), he sometimes admits that he’s working for Scientology’s Freedom magazine, and other times keeps quiet about it. What a job.With all of the recent action in Valerie Haney’s case, she agreed to an interview about it which we placed at Rolling Stone. Nearly four years after filing her lawsuit, she was facing the prospect of having to submit to Scientology’s “religious arbitration.”On March 28, Judge Olmedo made a series of important rulings ahead of Danny Masterson’s retrial, which included the great news that she’d be allowing Claire Headley to testify as an expert on Scientology.Then, on the last day of the month, a devastating setback in the labor trafficking lawsuit filed by Valeska Paris and the Baxters: Saying his hands were tied, Judge Thomas Barber granted Scientology’s motion to force the case into “religious arbitration. Incredible.A LOOK BACK AT MARCH 2022: Valerie Haney’s motion for reconsideration is turned down, and she’s still stuck in arbitration. Jane Doe 1’s 2004 letter to Scientology’s IJC requesting permission to report Danny Masterson to the LAPD. The latest roster of wealthy whales keeping Scientology afloat. We were shocked to learn of the death of Ginger Sugerman. Will Smith’s fateful slap of Chris Rock at the Oscars naturally aroused curiosity about Smith’s involvement in Scientology. And we were stunned to learn that Hanan Islam, still under indictment, had died of cancer.A LOOK BACK AT MARCH 2021: First new footage of Shelly Miscavige in years, from a 2001 event. Steve Fishman got out of prison years early. Scientologist-owned ‘Real Water’ turned out to be poisoning people. ABC Mouse honcho Doug Dohring forked out another $10 million to Scientology and its “LRH Hall.” Rizza Islam named one of the twelve worst sources of online antivaxx disinformation.A LOOK BACK AT MARCH 2020: Grant Cardone pushing pushing bogus stem cell cures. David Miscavige was briefly scheduled for a deposition. Danny Masterson’s accusers spoke out in sworn declarations. The pandemic arrives and cancels the L. Ron Hubbard birthday event. Mark Bunker gets elected to city council in Clearwater. We got our hands on David Miscavige’s secret briefing for Scientologists calling the pandemic a “planetary bullbait.”A LOOK BACK AT MARCH 2019: R.M. Seibert made the entertaining Scientology-US Government-NY Yankees connection. Evidence that Tom Cruise and John Travolta both attended the LRH Birthday event. Sunny Pereira remembers when Lisa Marie Presley brought Michael Jackson into the Celebrity Centre. The London Org sends out an auditor training success story by Isabella Cruise. Man (later identified as Brian Statler) is shot dead at the Inglewood Ideal Org.A LOOK BACK AT MARCH 2018: Scientology TV finally debuted, and featured David Miscavige in a short monologue. That same night, Leah Remini asked ‘Where’s Shelly?’ on the Aftermath. Arnie Lerma shot his wife in the face and then turned the gun on himself. And we learned that Kirstie Alley had achieved OT 8.A LOOK BACK AT MARCH 2017: Scientologist actor Danny Masterson was under investigation for multiple rapes. Joy Villa mulled a run for Congress. We caught Marty Rathbun helping his old nemesis, the Church of Scientology, in a court case. We traced Marty’s dramatic arc from Scientology critic to Scientology attack dog. Leah Remini turned out to have helped finance the Scientology/NOI dance. Kuba Ka charmed us in a lengthy interview. And Reza Aslan laid an egg.A LOOK BACK AT MARCH 2016: Attorney Ken Dandar dodges a million-dollar bullet. Tabatha Fauteux’s boyfriend tells us what really happened in her death while training for Scientology’s Narconon network. Belgium blows its prosecution of the church. And the saga of former Scientology helper cop, Skip Young.A LOOK BACK AT MARCH 2015: Federal Judge James Whittemore hamstrung the Garcia fraud lawsuit with a stunning ruling, we dug up even more evidence that L. Ron Hubbard used the threat of “R2-45” to intimidate former church members, Paul Haggis gave us his thoughts as Alex Gibney’s Going Clear debuted on HBO, and we got to hear Sylvia DeWall being declared an SP while it was happening,A LOOK BACK AT MARCH 2014: John Travolta mangled Idina Menzel’s name at the Oscars. We interviewed Russell Miller as his book Bare-Faced Messiah came back in print after 27 years. Jillian Schlesinger told us her gripping story of escape from the Sea Org.A LOOK BACK AT MARCH 2013: We had fun with SMERSH Madness. We leaked Sea Org life histories. Narconon Arrowhead CEO Gary Smith lost his professional certification.Want to help?Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special material for subscribers. Or, 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

Alex Barnes-Ross, a/k/a ‘Apostate Alex,’ continues to be on a roll. Fresh off of his success with his three days of protest at Scientology’s IAS weekend, he dug into one of the details of the third day, the Sunday charity concert.Images showed that East Grinstead’s mayor was there to pick up a large charity check, and then later at Twitter he defended his cozy relationship with Scientology.In particular, the mayor pointed to Scientology’s large presence in town. But Alex crunched the numbers and showed that Scientology’s percentage of the population in East Grinstead is well less than 1 percent. So why is the mayor going out of his way to keep Scientology happy?We discussed this, as well as the upcoming event in Los Angeles, and once again we found Alex a delight to have on the podcast.Either listen to the podcast above, or watch the video version at our YouTube channel, embedded below.Want to help?Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special material for subscribers. Or, 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 for 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 new 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

Alex Barnes-Ross, the former London Scientology staffer who goes by ‘Apostate Alex,’ just can’t stop getting into trouble.After the triumph of last week’s protest he planned at Scientology’s IAS gala in East Grinstead, he and Jeff from Canada, a/k/a YouTuber ‘PTS for Life,’ who had come over for the demonstration, made a side trip up north.They decided to swing by the Scientology org in Sunderland, and wow, did they get a surprise. The two of them tell us all about it in today’s podcast. And here are some images they took that go along with the tale they tell.Once again, choose your poison. Listen to the podcast (above), or watch the video version from our YouTube channel, below.Want to help?Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special material for subscribers. Or, 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

On Friday, we had a great time checking in with Alex Barnes-Ross after what turned out to be a very successful day protesting Scientology’s IAS gathering at Saint Hill Manor in East Grinstead, England.But what really seemed to catch Scientologists by surprise is that Alex and some of the other protesters came back for more on both Saturday and Sunday, which they found was not the case in the past.On Saturday, a smaller crowd of church members arrives dressed in black tie for the Patrons Ball, and on Sunday the locals are invited for a charity concert. But things really got interesting this time, Alex told us, when they stumbled upon the Scientologists holding an Ideal Org-like grand opening for a new “Qual” building on Sunday. We think you’ll enjoy hearing Alex explain the strange things that happened next!Take your choice: Listen to the audio podcast, above, or watch the video version at our YouTube channel, 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

Yesterday we told you that Alexander “Apostate Alex” Barnes-Ross had succeeded at getting the main road to Scientology’s UK headquarters shut down for his planned protest and march, making it a challenge for the Scientologists to get to their event, which begins on Friday.We also had some fun with the news that Scientology celebrity and Dharma and Greg actress Jenna Elfman will be emceeing the Sunday night charity concert.But last night we figured we better get on the horn with Alex again after he told us there was some troubling news: He was getting conflicting reports about whether Scientology had managed to use some leverage with local officials to get the protest’s road closure shut down.Doesn’t that sound just like Scientology? Well, we thought you’d like to see our conversation as we got the latest from Alex. You can listen to the podcast above or watch the video version below at our YouTube channel.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 for 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

We’ve really enjoyed working with Alexander “Apostate Alex” Barnes-Ross lately, and we’re pretty thrilled by the idea that he’s planned a major protest to greet Scientologists on their way to the IAS gala in East Grinstead, England this coming weekend.We recorded this conversation before Alex got the news that his request for a march in East Grinstead had been approved. (Read about that development here.)We had a lot of fun talking about the big impact he’s made in a short amount of time, and we hope you enjoy it too.As usual, pick your poison: Either listen to the podcast (above), or watch the video version at YouTube, 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 for 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

Last week, we had a great time talking with Trish Conley and her sister Liz about what it’s been like for these former third-generation Scientologists to struggle with parents so dedicated to this abusive, totalitarian organization.And there’s more to the story, particularly with how Trish was declared a “suppressive person” and saw her parents and all other Scientologists disconnect from her as she was raising a child. 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 for 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

It was pretty big news around here last month when “Ellen,” the woman who we featured in our 2015 story about a Scientology “Daycare from Hell,” decided to come forward and identify herself publicly.She was Trish Conley, a close friend to Leah Remini and someone who grew up a third-generation Scientologist. Originally from Australia, she and her sister Liz decided to speak out about what it’s been like to leave the church while their parents insist on staying behind.Now they’re taking the even bigger step of appearing in our podcast, and we’re honored that they’ve decided to take on the abuses of Scientology right here at the Bunker.Imagine, losing access to your parents because of their regard for Tom Cruise and their hopes for the (nonexistent) expansion of Scientology to take over the world. These women have been through so much.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

It’s Day One of Mark Bunker’s campaign for re-election, and we’re fortunate that he stopped by to spell out his platform!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 for 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

The gang is back together this week for some Group Therapy, but given the magnitude of this week’s Scientology news, we thought we’d make this episode available to everyone.If you like what you hear, please consider becoming a paid subscriber of the Underground Bunker. For $7 a month, you’ll not only help keep this place going, but you’ll get access to future episodes of Group Therapy and other special items we are planning to put together.Hey, the news is only going to get more interesting at this point. Please join us as we inject Scientology news with a little J&D!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 for 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

We’ve been talking to Sandy Holeman for years, and we should have introduced you to her long ago. And when she told us that she had attended the San Jose world premiere of ‘Brothers Broken’ last month, we decided to make up for lost time.Imagine, at only 19, making the decision to leave behind everything to join a ship in the Mediterranean and serve the leader of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, aboard the yacht Apollo.And then to be assigned the task of auditing Scientology’s books so it could get its IRS tax exempt status back! (Something that wouldn’t happen for another 20 years.)Sandy Holeman was such a fixture on the Apollo, she ended up being featured in the original ‘What is Scientology’ book with Hubbard’s goofy photos shot in Trinidad and Tobago.And part of the reason she was at the ‘Brothers Broken’ premiere was that she had actually gone to the same high school as Robbie and Geoff Levin, and had a photo of them performing at the school in a 1967 yearbook.Yes, we certainly had a lot to talk about, and it’s good to finally get Sandy’s story out now. 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 for today’s post at tonyortega.org And 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

We’ve had a lot of fun recently talking to great reporters who have covered Scientology like John Sweeney, Mark Ebner, and Steve Cannane. So of course we wanted to check in with our man in Paris, one of the very best journalists we know, Jonny Jacobsen.It was really fun to go back over his work to see how early he was to stories like David Miscavige beating his staff, and that his blog ‘Infinite Complacency,’ contains such amazingly detailed and well-researched material. But we’re also indebted to Jonny for being the Underground Bunker’s Paris correspondent over the years. We can always rely on him for thorough and smart coverage that really explains the larger context of what’s going on over there.Once again, choose your poison. You can listen to the audio podcast (above) or watch the video version at YouTube, which is embedded below.Judge sets Dec 4 hearing in Leah Remini’s lawsuitJudge Randolph Hammock has set an initial hearing date of December 4 in Leah Remini’s lawsuit against Scientology and David Miscavige.In the meantime, Leah has submitted evidence that she’s served the defendants (Church of Scientology International and the Religious Technology Center) or at least attempted “substitute service” on the third defendant, David Miscavige, at his 6331 Hollywood Blvd address, the Hollywood Guaranty Building.But we’ve seen how that goes. We expect now that CSI and RTC will make their initial response to the lawsuit, but Miscavige will send down an attorney to make a “special appearance” and say that Miscavige has not been served properly and should not be a part of the lawsuit. Let the drama begin.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 for 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

We’re such huge admirers of Sands Hall, a luminous writer and musician, whose memoir about her time in Scientology was first published in 2018.It’s out in paperback now, and with a slightly different title. We talked about why that’s so, and how she continues to think about Scientology and the process of writing about it.Also, if you haven’t seen her 2019 piece for the Los Angeles Review of Books about how she lost her voice during the Portland Freedom Crusade, you really must.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 for 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

Oh wow, what a treat it was to get to talk to both “Brothers Broken” — musicians and former Scientology Sea Org members Geoff and Robbie Levin — for our podcast this week.We’ve discussed their story before: They were the core members of the band People! that had a big 1968 hit, “I Love You,” but then were sucked into Scientology and helped Yvonne Gillham as she was creating the Hollywood Celebrity Centre. Robbie soon soured on the Sea Org and left, and then Scientology’s toxic “disconnection” policy kept them apart as Geoff spent a total of 46 years in the organization, becoming a mainstay of the Celebrity Centre and creator of some Scientology’s most iconic music.Finally, after Geoff nearly died and began making his way out of Scientology, the brothers were reunited and People! was reformed. But disconnection has not loosened its grip, as Scientology has separated Geoff from his own grown children.Now, after several years of hard work, Geoff and Robbie are premiering their documentary in theaters, and you have a chance to go!Here are the dates and times.The US premiere of Brothers Broken…Cinequest Film Festival, San Jose, CA Sunday August 20: Hammer Theatre Center, 4:30 pmSaturday August 26: Mountain View ShowPlace ICON Theatre & Kitchen, 11:30 am.Also, the Los Angeles premiere...At the Studio City Film FestivalSunday Sept 3, Laemmle NoHo 7, 5240 Lankershim Blvd, North Hollywood, 7:30 pmBut today’s podcast is about more than what’s in the movie. In fact, Robbie told us a story about David Miscavige we’d never heard before, and it’s really something: In 1983, Robbie and Geoff threw a party for Scientology’s celebrities as a way to lure in Miscavige, and it worked! You have to hear Robbie tell this tale.Once again, choose your poison. You can listen to the audio podcast (above) or watch the video version at YouTube, which is embedded below.Hoax 1983 document coming up again?We can certainly understand Amy Scobee’s excitement about being sent what appears to be a 1983 document written by David Miscavige and ordering, in typical foul language, to have fake footage of L. Ron Hubbard created to pass off as genuine to gullible Scientologists. Amy featured it in a video yesterday, suggesting that it was a new leak.In fact, that document has been floating around online since at least 1995, and it purports to come from a year, 1983, that we’ve noticed was the source of some questionable documents from breakaway factions that were taking advantage of the absence of L. Ron Hubbard.In a 1999 sworn declaration in the Wollersheim lawsuit, Miscavige himself testified that this particular document, titled “RE: SMASH SQUIRRELS PJT” was a forgery that had been certified as such in a previous court matter:The resultant attempts to harass me in litigation extended to not just creating false allegations, but false documents as well. In 1984, a former church staff member then employed by one of those splinter groups, created a document entitled SMASH SQUIRRELS PJT. This forged document, allegedly written by me, purported to show that the taped message by Mr. Hubbard denouncing their movement was actually created by me through use of a digital sampling device. Putting aside that lie, no digital sampling device was, or is to this day, capable of accomplishing such a task. Moreover, the digital device referred to, and by which I allegedly accomplished this impersonation of Mr. Hubbard's voice, was an early generation musical instrument, capable of replicating a short sample of natural sounds for use in playing music. Notwithstanding the absurdity of the allegation, the ramifications of this forgery had a severe impact on me. It implied I intended some form of harassment of apostate Scientologists (colloquially called "SQUIRRELS" in Scientology). The document was widely circulated to Scientologists and to the government in an attempt to discredit me. It also was circulated by civil litigants, and continuously used against me in litigation. I had to fight this issue for years, until the document was examined in 1993 in a Freedom of Information Act case, Miscavige v. IRS, No. CV 88-7341 TJH (C.D. Cal.) by Special Master Jack Tenner, who found that it was, in fact, a forgery. That conclusion was affirmed in an order issued by Judge Terry J. Hatter of the United States District Court for the Central District of California. [Ex. E, order of Judge Hatter.]So, while we are always skeptical of claims by Miscavige, the least we can say is that the authenticity of this document has been heavily questioned numerous times over many years, and it is not a new leak. We’re sorry to spoil the party, but we tend to believe that this document is most likely not what it purports to be.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 for 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

Karen Pressley is in Los Angeles to celebrate the 25th anniversary of her decision to leave the Church of Scientology, and she’s visiting other escapees, including her good friend Spanky Taylor.Spanky, of course, appeared in the 2015 HBO documentary ‘Going Clear,’ and she’s a longtime friend to the Underground Bunker.We had a lot to discuss with both of them, but we definitely wanted to sound them out about this week’s bombshell news about Leah Remini filing a lawsuit against the church and David Miscavige.The two of them also wanted to talk about the testimony in the Danny Masterson trial that exposed how Scientology punishes members who admit to being victims of crime, and they each related their own experiences seeing this. Both Spanky and Karen were important figures at the Hollywood Celebrity Centre in their eras.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

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

We didn’t really need an excuse to bring Mark Ebner back to the podcast, but what the hell, we figured Tom Cruise coming out with another movie was reason enough to call our old pal for his thoughts.What we didn’t realize is that Ebner was once a close friend to the man film reviewer Luke Y. Thompson called a “Cruise-Whisperer extraordinaire,” writer and director Chris McQuarrie.Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One, which opened this week in theaters, marks the third film in a row in the franchise with McQuarrie directing. But Ebner knew McQuarrie before that bromance bloomed and he spilled some tea in this episode that you are possibly never going to forget. All we can say is, be prepared for maximum Ebner at his most graphic, and don’t say we didn’t warn you!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

Luke Y. Thompson (AV Club) once again knocked us out with a great film review at the Underground Bunker, this time for the premiere of Tom Cruise’s new actioner, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. Last year Luke made us laugh over his review of Cruise’s ‘Narcissistic Navy Jesus’ in Top Gun: Maverick. And our association with him goes back more than 20 years.So we figured it was about time we had him on the podcast to pick his brain about Cruise, Scientology, and the movies.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

Jon Atack’s piece for us this week about Charles Manson and Scientology was such a hit with our readers, we knew we had to get him on the podcast this week to chat with him about it further.Once again, choose your poison. You can listen to the audio podcast (above) or watch the video version at YouTube, which is embedded below.Also, as he mentions at the end, Jon now has an audiobook version of his short overview, Scientology: Cult of Greed. We recommend you give it a listen.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’shappening 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

In another round of howling to the Tampa Bay Times, Scientology’s Clearwater spokesman Ben Shaw made numerous not very nice accusations about Vice Mayor Mark Bunker.So naturally we thought we’d ask Wise Beard Man about that, and we had lots of fun.Listen to the podcast or watch the video version, which we’ve posted at YouTube.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

We had heard from some of you about our video interviews not going out on the usual podcast feed, so we think we have figured it out this week.Our interview with Christian Stolte will go out both as an audio version on the usual Podcast feeds (above and at Spotify, etc), but you can also watch the video version of it if you’d like, embedded below as a YouTube video.Christian is one our favorite people, and he’s been involved here at the Bunker for quite a few years. If you were at HowdyCon Chicago in 2018, you even got to see him sing a song about Scientology! We think you’re really going to enjoy what he has to say about his own involvement in the church, his brush with ‘disconnection,’ and his thoughts about the Danny Masterson trial.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

We can’t believe it’s been 11 years since we put Kate Bornstein on the cover of the Village Voice. It’s one of our proudest moments during our five years at the Voice, and it was a real treat to spend time catching up.Kate’s an avid reader of our Danny Masterson retrial coverage, and now that we’ve finished with testimony in the case (closing arguments are scheduled to take placed on Tuesday), we thought we’d check in.We ended up having the tables turned on us as some really interesting questions about the trial came our way.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

We first wrote about Tory Christman in 2001, and 22 years later it’s still one of our favorite stories of all time — about a woman who went from one of Scientology’s most reliable foot soldiers to one of its most resilient critics.She was in the courtroom this week at the Danny Masterson retrial, and we were curious about how it compared to some of the trials she had attended as a church operative. We think you’re going to find her observations fascinating. But we also enjoyed having her on because Tory is so fun to talk about anything with. She’s a hoot!So please enjoy this recording as we trade notes about the trial, and consider Tory’s career as a whistleblower.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.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

With the Danny Masterson retrial starting tomorrow, we’re shifting gears and preparing for some hard work in the weeks ahead.So, in that spirit we thought we’d let the larger community in on something our subscribers have known about for a few months now: On Sundays, they receive a copy of our special podcast series we call “Group Therapy.”Each week, some of our longtime Underground Bunker favorites get together to discuss the Scientology news of the week, and we have a lot of fun doing so.This week, we’d like the rest of you to listen in and get a sense for what fun we have.If you enjoy the episode, please consider joining our list of paid subscribers. You’d not only help support the work we do here, day in and day out, but you’ll also get access to the special podcast series we’ve been doing with Sunny Pereira, “Up the Bridge.” (Go here for a sample episode we recently made available for everyone.)— Your ProprietorThank 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 for 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

In 2013 we began a very popular series at the Underground Bunker which lasted more than a year.We called it “Up the Bridge,” and with Claire Headley’s help we explained something about every step on Scientology’s “Bridge to Total Freedom,” from beginning to end, and tallying up the costs along the way.We wanted to give non-Scientologists some sense of what it was like to go all the way from beginner to Operating Thetan, and learn something about what Scientologists actually do all day as they’re making their way to that goal.Recently we decided to try that again, but in a special podcast series for our subscribers, and with the help of our technical expert, former Hollywood Celebrity Centre officer and Sea Org veteran Sunny Pereira.For several weeks now Sunny has been taking us on a pretty strange and entertaining journey through what it’s like to go through Scientology courses and auditing. And now, with everything about to change as we head back to LA for the Danny Masterson retrial, we thought we’d let the rest of you get a listen to what an episode with Sunny has been like. So, for this week, we’re making the new installment available to everyone. As you’ll see, we’re now up to Grade One on the Bridge, and things are only getting stranger!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

When we took a photo of John Sweeney pouring a cup of tea on a visit to London, we didn’t know that in a few years he’d not only be a best-selling author of multiple books, but that he’d become known for reporting from the Battle of Kyiv in an orange wool cap.We’re fortunate that we caught the very busy former BBC journalist, and for a fun trip down memory lane about reporting on Scientology. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did!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

Louise Shekter has written some dynamite pieces for us at the Underground Bunker. She not only was in some amazing places to witness Scientology history during her tenure (1969-2000), but she’s a terrific writer of evocative prose.We thought it was time to bring her on the podcast, and we told her we had a special subject in mind. Louise is a member of a pretty select club: She worked closely, for years, with both Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, and the man who succeeded him, David Miscavige.On the yacht Apollo, she was one of Hubbard’s longest-serving personal aides. For Miscavige at Gold Base, she was a film director. She saw both men up close, and worked with them on major projects. How many people today who have left Scientology can say the same thing, we thought.We asked her to compare her experiences with these two ultimate leaders of Scientology, and we hope you find her answers as fascinating as we did.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 for 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

One of the people who reached out to us about the unfortunate news about Jenny Burpee was Clarissa Adams, who knew Jenny in the Sea Org.It’s been a while since we had talked to Clarissa, and so we were anxious to catch up with her, and then we invited her on the podcast to talk about the terrible example of Scientology disconnection that has ripped apart her family.Clarissa was a second-generation Scientologist who grew up in the church, spent time in the Sea Org, and then paid a heavy price when she finally broke away. We think her story is important because it illustrates how Scientology ‘disconnection’ is actively harming current and former members of the church in the present day.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 for 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… 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

We hope you had a chance to see HBO’s excellent 2021 investigation into the origins of the QAnon phenomenon, Q Into the Storm, directed by Cullen Hoback. One of the surprising stars of the series was Fredrick Brennan, the young man who had founded 8chan, the imageboard that became the nursery for the QAnon movement, something Brennan came to regret. In the series, he helped Hoback unearth the history of the Q phenomenon, which has led to credible threats to his life.It turns out that Fred is a regular reader of the Underground Bunker and had reached out to us. We invited him on for a rollicking fun podcast episode to talk about the similarities between Scientology and QAnon, and other subjects. 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… 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

One of our favorite people in the whole world is Australian journalist Steve Cannane. We first became aware of Steve’s work because he was tearing it up at the ABC with story after story about Scientology in the land Down Under. In particular, he was the first reporter to interview Valeska Paris, who alleged that for more than ten years she had been a prisoner on Scientology’s cruise ship the Freewinds. We then interviewed Valeska for the Village Voice, and it became the most popular story we ever published there.Today Valeska is suing Scientology for labor trafficking in Tampa, and it’s been several years since Steve’s terrific book about Scientology in Australia, Fair Game, came out and was sued in court — but not by Scientology. (Go figure.) And let’s not forget that part of Steve’s book tour included stopping by HowdyCon 2017 in Denver!We wanted to catch up with Steve, especially after seeing some of the reporting he’s done from the war in Ukraine. Amazing stuff!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… 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

Karen Pressley spent almost 20 years in Scientology, and then turned her experience into a terrific book, Escaping Scientology: My Journey with the Cult of Celebrity Spirituality, Greed & Power.We’ve posted an excerpt of it in the past, but we wanted to check in with Karen because of her experience working at the Hollywood Celebrity Centre. This week, Scientology really took it in the shorts when Judd Apatow, speaking at the Directors Guild of America Awards this weekend, aimed some barbs at Tom Cruise.You no doubt saw reporting on it, but we wanted to go over Apatow’s zingers with Karen and ask her, how would Scientology, when she was at CC, deal with this kind of fallout? We think you’ll find her answers very interesting.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 for 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… 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

Way back at the turn of the century, your Proprietor and Mark Ebner were both slaving away for a newspaper that no longer exists that was called New Times Los Angeles. We both took on Scientology as a subject, and we’ve been good friends ever since, with Ebner contributing some unusual and hilarious items for us here at the Bunker over the years. (Remember Gay Ribisi’s Scientology plaques, for example?)Ebner has done some terrific work on Scientology, but the one piece we admire most was his first: His epic 1996 article for Spy magazine about the time he actually joined Scientology for a short time to learn what it was like. Titled, “Do You Want to Buy a Bridge?” it’s a classic.And we thought it was time to have him on the podcast to revisit that work, and ask him about the newest book he has out now, Off the Deep End: Jerry and Becki Falwell and the Collapse of an Evangelical Dynasty. But be prepared, this is Ebner we’re talking about, and there’s rough language ahead!(At Dresden in Los Feliz, blowing off steam after the mistrial, Nov 30.)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… 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

Bonus material! We have for you another excerpt from our podcast for subscribers, which we call Group Therapy.Each week we bring together four of our Underground Bunker regulars, Andrea 'i-Betty' Garner, Lynette 'Observer' Waggoner, Phil Jones, and the enigmatic Pan.We spend an hour talking about the Scientology news of the week, and we have a lot of fun.To give you a sense of it, this week we're pulling out about ten minutes from this week's episode when we discussed the quandary that Valerie Haney finds herself in, regarding her lawsuit that has been forced into Scientology arbitration.You'll see that Phil Jones came up with a pretty creative suggestion for Valerie, and we wanted to share it with the rest of you. It's a small part of what you would have heard if you received Group Therapy on the weekend, and we hope you consider subscribing to get future episodes and to support the work we do here at the Underground Bunker. Thank you very much.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 for 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… 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

We were very happy we got the chance to catch up with Mark Plummer this week. Mark has been a friend to the Underground Bunker for many years, supplying us with killer documents that he took out of the Church of Scientology when he left it in the early 1980s. We met him in person for the first time in Austin on our book tour in 2015. And we’ve been grateful for his friendship and his deep knowledge about Scientology’s history.We knew that some of our readers may not be familiar with this important researcher of all things Hubbardian, and so we were glad to talk with him this week about his Scientology journey.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… 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

Over the last few days, you’ve probably noticed some breathless tabloid claims that Scientology’s leader David Miscavige has gone “missing.”This is a mischaracterization of a story that we’ve been covering for more than three years now — that Miscavige has gone to extreme lengths to evade process servers in a few different lawsuits that are attempting to name him as a defendant.In other words, as our podcast subject Clearwater City Councilman Mark Bunker explains, Miscavige isn’t missing, he’s hiding.Bunker attended a key court hearing for us last week, and wrote an inspired report about the shenanigans coming from Miscavige’s attorneys, who are trying to justify the evasive behavior of Scientology’s diminutive leader.We really enjoyed getting into it with Bunker, and also revisiting some other instances of Miscavige trying not to be seen, including a wild day in Portland that Mark Bunker reminded us of. What a great trip down memory lane.We hope you enjoy it!And hey, here’s a bonus. Mark mentioned shooting this video in the Tampa Ideal Org when it opened in 2011. What a great look at that time!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… 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

Well, we did it once again this week.We got into some newsy stuff on our new podcast that we created for our subscribers, which we call Group Therapy.We've brought together four of our Underground Bunker regulars, Andrea 'i-Betty' Garner, Lynette 'Observer' Waggoner, Phil Jones, and the enigmatic Pan.We spend an hour talking about the Scientology news of the week, and we have a lot of fun.This time, we described something surprising that happened during our conversation with Mike Rinder for the Mark Twain House. When we asked a question the both of us get all the time — who will succeed David Miscavige as leader of Scientology — Mike surprised himself with an intriguing answer.He suggested that Shelly Miscavige might be in a position to take over in Dave's absence.And then, we heard from Phil Jones another surprising suggestion which might be even more plausible.And it's his own son-in-law, John Goodwin, who runs Galaxy Press out of Author Services, Inc. ASI is L. Ron Hubbard’s literary agency, and David Miscavige once ran it before he took over Scientology itself, so there’s some precedent.Could these be plausible scenarios? We’re looking forward to reading your thoughts.And as for that discussion with Mike about his book, Mark Twain House has now put the hour-long talk on YouTube. Please dive in and let us know what you think of our questions and Mike’s answers.We have a feeling that Pan is correct: Now that John Goodwin has been suggested as a possible successor to Dave, his goose is cooked.But it made for some interesting discussion this weekend.So that's a small part of what you would have heard if you received Group Therapy on the weekend and we hope you consider subscribing to get future episodes and to support the work we do here at the Underground Bunker.She's baaaack!Years ago we were approached by a woman who claimed she was dying in a Canadian hospital, that Scientology wanted her dead, and that she had been brought up a sex slave to Scientology leader David Miscavige, who kept her in an underground lab beneath Gold Base, where she was forced to bear him four sons, and also to be used for bizarre experiments in growing body parts. She was a complete fabulist, of course, and we tried to warn folks about her nonsense. But to this day, there are still some gullible folks who take this woman's claims seriously.And now, she's returned with a new story. We found out last night that she is claiming to have been sent lewd texts and photos from one of Scientology's wealthy donors.We just want to caution you if you hear these claims you should just dismiss them out of hand. This woman needs serious mental health help. 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 for 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… 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