PODCAST: Michelle ‘Emma’ Ryan provided a landing place for people fleeing Scientology
This week, we had the extreme pleasure of hearing from someone we have long admired. We last spent time with her on a trip to Australia, when she took us on a lovely trip to the zoo.
We’re talking about Michelle Ryan, known also for her nom de guerre, Emma. It was Michelle who started up the Ex-Scientologist Message Board in 2007, and provided an important landing place for people coming out of Scientology, a place where they could find each other, tell their stories, and share information about this controlling organization.
As she explains, the place was swamped by Anonymous when it arrived on the scene a year later, and her interactions with that group ended up getting her arrested as Scientology, once again, convinced law enforcement to do its dirty work.
Michelle provided her forum for 12 years, an eternity on the Internet, before archiving ESMB in 2019 (a replacement forum has sprung up in its wake). She dropped us a line this week after she heard Patty Moher’s episode on the podcast. We’re so glad she did. We think you’ll enjoy what she had to say, and see the unusual direction that our conversation took. (It caught us totally by surprise!)
Today, we’re releasing the eleventh episode of The Underground Bunker Podcast to our paid subscribers at Substack. You should receive it presently at your email inbox if you’re on the list.
Not a paid subscriber? Well, we have something for you, too. Last week’s episode was with Jefferson Hawkins, helping us decode David Miscavige’s latest marketing efforts. In the weeks before, we talked to Marc Headley, Patty Moher, Geoff Levin, Pete Griffiths, Sunny Pereira, Jeffrey Augustine, and Claire Headley.
Those first ten episodes are now free to all of our subscribers, paid and unpaid. All of our podcast episodes can be found here.
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 history
Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea
Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time
Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology
Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain
Here’s the link to today’s post at tonyortega.org
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