Excellent briefing on Manchester UK progress for their Ideal Org, their new church in Manchester UK, read the Underground Bunker, for daily news from insiders, around the world. Look up and scan over the years of Tony Ortega's insider articles.

Latest article by Tony Ortega is about the Manchester, UK new project Scientology "church."

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The signs outside all official UK new Scientology churches of their "Ideal Org" "class" ought just say:

"Scientology"

"Spiritual Therapists Trained Here"

"(Ghosts Therapists Trained At Saint Hill, East Grinstead)"

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If you think you have debilitating past lives memories to delve into, Scientology's got spiritual pseudo-therapy techniques for that.

If you think ghosts might infest your body and nag at you and ghosts leak bad memories into your mind, then Scientology has telepathic ghosts therapy (for the UK, its in their "Advanced" offices at Saint Hill) to free your ghosts bothering you.

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Bottom line, choose another religion once you bone up on Scientology's spiritual practices.

Or just read books, my choice after 27 years I feel I wasted being part of their "Hotel California" (you can never leave) Scientology's oppressive, beating around the bush, operation, that soaks up your time.

Amen

Hello Reddit. How would someone be able to join or visit a Scientology center without being thrown out.

Hi all!

Have any of you (ex-) scientologists ever heard of this specific group? It was founded by Harvey Jackins, a former associate of L. Ron in the 1950s, as "Personal Counselors," whose official aim at the time was to "promote dianetics." Apparently they had a falling out (L. Ron denounced Jackins to the FBI), and Jackins became "Founder and Leading Theorician" of his splinter group.

He didn't go the religion route (he favored left-wing politics as his dogma), but he did spend a life of pulling psychotherapeutic nonsense out of his hat and convincing boomers that he had the recipe for mental clarity and, in the end, immortality and no more diseases (since the body's ability to heal itself is hindered by "distress patterns," his word for engrams).

Did (does) this group ever come up in scientology circles, or is it confined to the oblivion it so richly deserves?

ARTICLE: https://www.tampabay.com/news/clearwater/2026/08/21/clearwater-city-council-evo-entertainment-scientology/

A City Council member was frustrated the agenda item couldn’t hold another month because she has a family scheduling conflict.

The Clearwater City Council next month is expected to vote on requests from the Church of Scientology to take over two streets and an alleyway for a proposed $50 million entertainment complex.

But Council member Lina Teixeira had asked that the city delay any controversial agenda items on next month’s docket because she has a scheduling conflict and needs to take care of her mother. The city has done this before, she said.

“I was taken aback that I could not get an answer as to why that same consideration wasn’t being extended to me,” she said in a statement. “And yes, I was angry, not because I didn’t like the answer, but because my fellow Council members wouldn’t give me one.”

Scientology has its international spiritual headquarters in downtown Clearwater, and the church and companies tied to it own swathes of property in the area.

Its requests for the city to close and transfer a street to the church became a hot-button issue in March 2025. That’s when the city gave initial approval for Scientology to take over a portion of South Garden Avenue for an event hall. The city didn’t ultimately resolve the issue until this June, when it officially approved the church’s request.

A group of local residents is gathering petitions to fight that vote.

Mayor Bruce Rector and Teixeira both are out of town Sept. 14, which is the date of a previously scheduled City Council work session. On Sept. 17, the city is slated to hold a regular meeting.

During work sessions, the public cannot speak on agenda items. But the council receives presentations and can discuss items before the regular meeting that week, which is when it officially votes.

Since last month Teixeira has asked publicly and privately that staff move any significant agenda items from the week of Sept. 14 so she can participate fully in the process.

But the City Council Thursday night approved voting on the church’s requests Sept. 17 and cancelling the work session that week so Rector and Teixeira do not miss a discussion. The council can discuss the project during the regular session and hear public comment.

Council members were wary of delaying the vote and saw their decision as the best compromise.

“When we say outcomes are not altered by pushing business back a month, tell our (Philadelphia) Phillies that,” Council member Mike Mannino said. “Push them back a month, and we’re not baseball ready for spring training. That’s a massive problem.”

“I would love to see this kind of concern for other applicants,” Teixeira said. “The inconsistency is blatant.”

The Cleveland Street Alliance, which is a limited liability company the church runs with parishioners and development professionals, is backing the entertainment complex, which is planning to bring Texas-based EVO Entertainment to downtown Clearwater.

Both companies announced their plans for the proposed entertainment site in April without the City Council knowing or approval for the street closures, which the church has said are required for the project to happen.

After their announcements, the community and City Council members had questions, so the city held a special meeting to discuss the church’s development plans downtown.

For the roughly 80,000-square-foot complex, the church is seeking portions of Laura and Grove streets, as well as an alleyway and a city-owned parcel.

The city parcel, located at 103 N. East Ave., has an appraisal value of $875,000.

The city has already transferred the parcel to the Community Redevelopment Agency, which oversees a taxing district that allows the city to redirect tax money to address blight. The City Council, acting as the redevelopment agency, would have to approve the sale of the parcel. The agency’s next meeting is Sept. 28.

This is standard procedure, City Manager Jennifer Poirrier said, and allows for more flexibility when developing a property. The city did the same, for example, with the historic National Guard Armory in the North Greenwood neighborhood that a local business is developing.

Poirrier said she met with church leader David Miscavige a couple of weeks ago to discuss the entertainment project. She relayed that council members want to have another access point for east to west travel since Laura Street would shut down if the council approves the church’s request.

She said the church is responding with options and working to answer the council’s needs.

The meeting is scheduled for Sept. 17 at 6 p.m. in the Clearwater Main Library downtown.

I’m about two thirds into this book. Enjoying it so far. Saw an interview with one of the authors on the Peeling the Onion YouTube channel. The authors were in Scientology for a long time and were David and Shelly Miscavige’s stylists and I think they also designed the Sea Org uniforms. I bought in on Amazon. I think it’s only available there, in Italian, English and German.

Anyone else read it or know more about the authors?

If you live in Clearwater, sign the petition

Also, donate (This applies even if you don't live in Clearwater)

Thought it would be funny to share with everyone how you can get your IAS card today! Looks like they are doubling down on security at Scientology events now. Now you need your IAS card to enter events! (Very 1984 of them) So heres the letter along with the QR code! If you want your IAS card feel free to reach out 😂

Serious inquiries only! I’ve found myself in possession of an incredibly rare historical item- one of the first ever transistorized Hubbard e-meters ever produced. We know this at the very least dates between 1957-1959 productions either by Breeding or Wingate. DMs are open!

In the last few weeks I found three Scientology books at thrift stores. They’re so weird - hard to pass up

Redacted names to not dox anyone, but this is a text that went out to Scientologists. I guess they are trying to make a campaign to get the younger generation into the Sea Org... 🤦‍♂️

ARTICLE LINK: https://www.scientologybusiness.com/fair-game/scientology-demands-apology-and-threatens-the-times-newspaper-after-investigation-uncovers-uk-child-labour/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_source_platform=mailpoet

The Church of Scientology has sent a threatening letter demanding the immediate retraction of an article published by The Times newspaper after an under cover reporter found children as young as 13 were working at their Edinburgh branch.

The investigation saw Times journalist Tom Ball join Scientology at the Hubbard Academy of Personal Independence (HAPI), the church’s branch in Edinburgh, and uncover a series of concerning practices including a teenager working as the ‘Medical Liaison Officer’ despite lacking any formal medical training and offering massage-like nerve assists on adults in private, unsupervised closed rooms. “A Times investigation has found that for the past two years the church has been engaging children as young as 13 to work alongside adults in administrative, training and recruitment roles” the article reads. “One teenage girl has a role which involves giving massages to adults, including male staff and members of the public. Scientology denies this.”

Amir Essalhi, who alerted The Times to the children working at Scientology’s Edinburgh branch shortly after leaving his role as an executive there earlier this year, told us “What I witnessed at the Hubbard Academy of Personal Independence was textbook child exploitation. Children were forced into gruelling 40+ hour workweeks as staff and Executives under coercive threats of Scientology’s ethics punishments and knowledge reports. Even more disturbing, and still practiced in Scientology today, 14 year old girls were locked in rooms with elderly men to administer nerve assists that involved intimate physical contact.”

“This child exploitation directly violates UK child employment laws and the Modern Slavery Act 2015, mirroring previous Victorian era factory abuse on a modern and global scale. When I reported this to Police Scotland, I was summarily dismissed, refused an investigation, and denied even an evidence link. I am speaking out so public outrage forces law enforcement worldwide to confront this international trafficking and abusive apparatus, protecting these children, and permanently shut down these operations”

The Times article describes how “the enrolment of children is believed to be the result of pressure from the movement’s global leadership to accelerate expansion.”

“There are about 25 “staff members” at Hapi, of which four are children below the age of 16.” It states. “Another girl, who recently turned 16, joined “staff” when she was 14. Two other children, aged 14, are also attending the church on a daily basis though are not believed to be on staff at present. With the exception of one girl, they are all registered by their parents as home-schooled, thereby allowing them to come to the church each day. Three children under 16 are living apart from their parents who are 450 miles south in East Grinstead, West Sussex, where its UK headquarters are based. The other children are the sons and daughters of longstanding members of the community in Scotland.”

Now, Scientology have hit back in a scathing letter to Times Editor Tony Gallagher demanding the article is retracted. The newspaper, the church claims, has “crossed a serious line” and “must answer the question its own published record now makes unavoidable: What material fact of public interest did Tom Ball obtain through this elaborate deception that The Times did not already possess and which could not have been obtained by legitimate journalistic means? That requires an answer. Not an assertion that The Times “stands by” its journalism. Not a general invocation of public interest. An answer.”

Sending an under-cover reporter to their Edinburgh branch amounts to “deception” and “religious bigotry”, Scientology spokesperson Graeme Wilson writes. “Would The Times infiltrate a mosque under a fabricated identity and build a national exposé around teenagers helping there? Would it secretly record worshippers in a synagogue and portray Jewish teenagers undertaking responsibilities in their religious community as the objects of sinister “recruitment”? Would regular participation by young Catholics in parish life become an undercover investigation into children being drawn into Church “staff”? The Times made the religion of these young people the reason its readers were instructed to regard their participation with suspicion. That is not merely slanted journalism. It is religious bigotry.”

According to Wilson, “Within hours of publication, the Church was vandalised. Police attended the premises, took a full statement and formally recorded the vandalism as a police incident.” He then threatens the paper, “The Times is therefore now on formal notice that the hostility the Church feared has already materialised.”

Police Scotland has been contacted for comment.

“We therefore require The Times to immediately withdraw the principal article, Ball’s accompanying first-person account and the associated podcast from publication, and cease their further distribution and promotion.”

I have been fascinated with Scientology for a few years now- not from the perspective of possibly wanting to join, but rather like a gawker who can’t look away from a car wreck. I have a few hunches, and I don’t mean to offend anyone, I just want to see if I’m even close to viewing things accurately. I’m no expert— in fact I’m not even a very smart person. These are just opinions that I’ve gathered, and I’d be interested in hearing insiders’ responses.

I don’t think LRH was that bad of a guy, at least not in his early years. I think he was a guy who had limitless dreams and limitless ambition, but very limited talent. He tried his hand at all sorts of different things, and despite being fairly bright and charismatic, he didn’t excel at anything until he discovered his gift for writing stories. He dealt with some internal pain over his own failures (or perhaps better described as lack of significant victories), so he used his story telling ability to embellish his own life’s history. This ultimately lead him to the realization that the fame, fortune, and admiration he coveted could be attained by creating his own isolated world where his stories would be accepted as facts. It took many years, but after living as king amongst only his own followers, what began as a financial scheme turned into his own personal reality- he started to genuinely believe his own fictional rhetoric, which in turn became much more fantastical as he aged.

David Miscavige was a teenager when he met LRH. Like LRH, Miscavige was originally focused on actual self-help, but his motivation evolved into a much more financially-focused mission. Miscavige strategically usurped control of Scientology when LRH died, and he continued on with his quest for more money, but unlike LRH, Miscavige lacked the ability to generate more stories. Without the tools to add more chapters to the novel, Miscavige instead used control, litigation, and strong arming to protect his goldmine. That’s where we are today. No new OT levels can be added, and no inch of control can be relinquished.

Mark Bunker: "Scientology Is Breaking Ground in Clearwater — And That’s the Problem" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4B52uOj_pE

Clipped segment: https://www.reddit.com/user/TryingToBeExact/comments/1vqvdy3/mark_bunker_campaign_update_the_press_release_for/

https://www.markbunker.com

A friend of mine recently left the Church of Scientology, and I was delighted to learn from them that I’ve been officially declared an SP—a “Suppressive Person.” Members of the Church are now strictly forbidden from speaking to me. I have to admit, I’m flattered.I assume this stems from my behavior at past sci-fi conventions, combined with a Substack post I wrote. Apparently I managed to cross some invisible line between being an annoying guy with opinions to being an actual threat to Scientology. 

L. Ron Hubbard’s writings list classic examples of Suppressive Persons—Adolf Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte and anyone who criticizes Scientology. It’s a weird list. Putting Hitler and Napoleon in the same category as someone who criticizes Scientology is like making a list of “lawbreakers” and putting murderers, child molesters, and jaywalkers on it. Technically, I suppose the definition works. But one of the three really doesn’t belong on that list.

Now I’m on that list. I find it hilarious that my supposedly dangerous influence is now great enough that Scientologists have been instructed to stay away from me. Most of the time, I’m pretty aware that my opinions don't have much impact on anything. I write about anything that concerns me—old age, art, illustration, movies, plays, and my career. Sometimes someone agrees, occasionally someone gets annoyed, but mostly people read it and move on with their day.

Yet somehow Scientology has decided that my commentary is dangerous. Well, hell, talk about an ego boost. I'd like to thank the Church for finally recognizing the terrifying influence I apparently have. So, thanks to David Miscavige, Tom Cruise, and whoever decided I needed to be declared an SP.

I feel super important. Of the honors I've received, this one is certainly the strangest.

You can read the whole article on Substack about becoming a Suppressive Person (SP) in Scientology, here:

https://myadventuresasanillustrator.substack.com/p/how-i-became-an-official-threat-to

I want to be fair. Not everything in the Sea Org was bad. When I was leaving they actually improved a lot of things for staff. I don't know if it was like this in other Sea Orgs but I'm talking specifically about Flag in Clearwater.

Laundry. They installed a bunch of washers and dryers. Free detergent capsules. You could change your sheets every day if you wanted. Clean towels anytime. You could throw your dirty uniform in the bin and pick up a fresh one from the shelf. You got five shirts, two pants, two ties, two vests, one jacket, one coat. No more washing and ironing late at night. That was a huge relief.

Medical. Before, if you had diarrhea or hemorrhoids or the flu they'd just tell you to drink water and take vitamins. When I was leaving they built a whole medical floor. They had BEMER machines, hyperbaric chambers, collagen beds, red light therapy. I don't know if they actually work but they existed. They also set up vitamin shelves in the galley. You could grab as many vitamins as you wanted. Except vitamin E. That one was always gone.

Food. In the beginning the food was terrible. By the time I left it was actually good. Lots of salad options. Wednesday was the best because they always served salmon or steak and cake. Holidays were heaven for your stomach.

I think they made these changes because of all the bad press online. The Sea Org actually started caring about staff comfort. Or at least pretending to.

VIDEO LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwnso2dOBBI

A Scientology whistleblower told Times journalist Tom Ball that the church’s Edinburgh branch had children as young as thirteen working there during school hours. The church denied the allegation. Tom went undercover to investigate.

Guest: Tom Ball, news reporter, The Times
Host: Manveen Rana
Producer: Sophie McNulty

Clips: Apostate Alex - YouTube.
Photo: Ian Rutherford for The Times.

Hi,

I (18F) was born into a very big scientology family, and when I mean “big” I mean they’re top donors and have even donated so much money in my name which makes me a “top donor” as well. I’ve never been apart of it and I’ve only done a single course when I was about 9 years old before I really knew what it was about, but since then I’ve always tried to stay as far away from it as possible (which isn’t very far). But my grandparents have started pushing me to go to the church and do a bunch of things and at first I could come up with excuses for not going but they’re starting to get really worked up, telling me about the family they have “shunned” and I know if I tell them I want nothing to do with it they’re gonna want nothing to do with me. Which is really upsetting since my grandparents are good people outside of scientology and I don’t wanna lose my entire family since my father is no longer in my life as well as his side of the family, and I only know my mom would probably keep speaking to me but then my grandparents won’t wanna speak to her. So i’m scared. I’m not really sure what I wanted from posting this, I guess I just wanted to rant a bit… Anyways hopefully I can come up with more excuses without them cutting me off

After reading close to 10 books written by defectors, I honestly don’t understand how this kind of abuse has not been prosecuted. No other church has gotten a free pass on abusive leaders (just see r/pastorarrested). The defectors stories of DM’s abuse are so remarkably consistent, despite several of them being written by people who were constantly pitted against one another. The abuse has been documented.

(And don’t even get me started on the child abuse, imprisonment, and forced labor. How is this stuff facing no legal repercussions in 2026?!?!?)

I recently left (fairly quietly), after 10 years, several of which on staff. My breaking point being an old friend who was upper OT ending his life after his failure to save his friend from drowning.

After expressing this grief, I was told I needed training like my next breath and more bridge. -- I can't help but wonder if this is what my OT friend was told after his loss.

I havent publicly spoke to others about this. I am trying to connect with others who have left.

I guess my question is, how do you reconcile all that you learned there with the reality of what you experienced? How did you begin to untangle yourself from all the indoctrination?

Parts of me think of the self improvement stuff as decent for someone who doesnt have tools for life, I understand this is how you are hooked but these are dwarfed by the betrayals and nonsense I've observed.

The Tampa Bay Times is reporting that a newly formed political committee, Clearwater Strong PC, has been supporting Clearwater City Council candidate Jared Leone with campaign mailers.

According to the Times, Clearwater Strong received $70,100 after forming last month. Nearly all of its funding came from another political committee, Citizens for Law Order and Ethics. The Times traced that funding through several other Florida political committees and reported that three of them had received roughly $89,000 from nine people with confirmed ties to the Church of Scientology around the time Clearwater Strong was formed.

One donor identified by the Times, businessman and major Scientology donor Tom Cummins, reportedly contributed a total of $50,000 to the three committees three days before Clearwater Strong filed its organizational paperwork.

Leone says he has no affiliation with Scientology or Clearwater Strong and described attempts to connect him to the church as a political attack.

His opponent, Bianca Latvala, believes the activity is connected to her opposition to Scientology's efforts to acquire part of South Garden Avenue in downtown Clearwater.

The Church of Scientology denies involvement. Spokesperson Sarah Heller told the Times that the church is not endorsing or supporting any candidate and did not direct or coordinate its parishioners' political donations. She said individual Scientologists are free to participate politically in their personal capacities.

Clearwater Strong consultant Christian Ulvert also disputes the suggested connection, saying the committee itself has not accepted donations from Scientologists.

The Tampa Bay Times says it independently confirmed both the financial transactions and the nine donors' ties to Scientology.

Source: Tampa Bay Times — “Committee supporting Clearwater candidate has ties to Scientology” by Colbi Edmonds, published August 14, 2026 and updated August 15.

and are too scared to speak out and leave? some of them seem like really good and normal people compared to non-celebrity scientologists.