Tony Ortega Thu., Aug. 2 2012

This weekend, we published a two-part story about the rather amazing 32-year Scientology career of John Brousseau, whose adventures included driving for L. Ron Hubbard, spending time in the Sea Org’s prison program the RPF, and working in the Cruise household with Tom and Katie Holmes.

What seemed to generate the most comments, however, was Brousseau’s involvement in the creation of Scientology’s notorious office-prison for its top executives, variably known as “CMO Int,” the “A to E Room,” the “SP Hole,” and simply “The Hole.”

It was Brousseau who was ordered to put bars on the doors and locks on the windows to turn a set of offices at Scientology’s International Base east of Los Angeles into a prison that housed out-of-favor church executives from 2004 to the present day.

But over that time, Brousseau tells us, the conditions of The Hole changed, and so did the roster of people kept inside. After the jump, what we know about the place, and a list of people who spent at least some time there.

Full story

Today Tonight - Australian Senate Inquiry Release Special - 2010-09-07 from Zhent on Vimeo.

British diplomats compiled evidence 30 years ago that the founder of Scientology, L Ron Hubbard, was a “fraud”, according to National Archive papers.

Alastair Jamieson - 06 Aug 2009

Whitehall officials discovered the science-fiction writer, who invented a religion now followed by celebrities such as Tom Cruise, awarded himself a PhD from a sham college he had acquired in California.

The information was gathered in secret by workers at the British consulate in Los Angeles on behalf of the government, which feared a libel action following its 1968 decision to ban followers from entering Britain to visit the sect’s headquarters in East Grinstead, West Sussex.

The documents show Britain was not alone in probing Scientology. The dossier of evidence, gathered during the 1970s, included the extraordinary claim by an American official that the sect had sent bogus doctors to hypnotise a legal investigator and declare him ‘mentally ill’ to thwart his inquiries into their activities.

Full story

AP - 2009/2/11 (via Cryptogon)

SWEENEY CANYON, Wyo. (AP) — The construction began last summer, stirring up dust that wafted down this desert valley and into a small community of off-the-grid homes.

As many as 20 heavy trucks a day hauling construction materials and equipment rumbled down the valley’s main gravel road, passing into a gate marked with a “No Trespassing” sign. Helicopters flew in sling loads of cargo. Powerful work lights lit up the valley at night.

Public planners in southwest Wyoming’s Sweetwater County — a sagebrush expanse roughly the size of Massachusetts — say the contractor hired for the project has told them it intends to build a 22,000-square-foot underground storage vault to store documents.

Whose documents exactly? Apparently, the writings of the late L. Ron Hubbard, the Church of Scientology’s founder, and other church records.

(more…)

Rick Ross - 09.26.08

Virginia Commonwealth University Professor David Bromley, often referred to as a “cult apologist,” has been a recommended “religious resource” of Scientology.

Bromley has also been touted as an “expert” on “new religions,” commonly called “cults,” by the so-called “new CAN” (Cult Awareness Network), a former anti-cult organization taken over by Scientologists.

Now the man Scientology looks to for cover, has been asked by Associated Press (AP) to explain “charismatic leaders,” and the people that follow them.

Full story

Dr. Lilly von Marcab - 1 September 2008

The Scientology cult’s internal prison gulag currently holds hundreds of people of various nationalities. This is happening right now in the USA at the “Rehabilitation Project Force” (RPF) centers run by this “church,” where members who have disagreed with Scientology management are sent for punishment and re-indoctrination. The average internment is 2 to 10 years. Many of these people were granted USA visas as “religious workers” or “students” of Scientology. There are also RPF centers in the UK, Australia and Denmark.

Scientology staff and even “public” Scientologists are heavily recruited to join the “Sea Organization,” or “Sea Org.” The Sea Org is a bizarre, paramilitary order of Scientology, where all members are required to sign a “billion year contract” to help Scientology “clear the planet” and “obliterate psychiatry.” Any person who joins the Sea Org and then later disagrees with its practices will soon find him- or herself confined in the RPF. The conditions these people live in are inhumane and violate many national laws, as well as prisoner of war standards held by the United Nations and the Geneva Convention.

Full story here …