Scientology’s response to Whitney Mills lawsuit is to lie about suicide instruction

Jun 20, 2024

On Friday, we posted the language from the wrongful death lawsuit filed by Leila Mills, mother of Whitney Mills, the OT 8 Scientologist who ended her life in such a tragic way in 2022. Several Church of Scientology entities have been named as defendants, including the Flag Service Organization, which runs Scientology’s Flag Land Base, its “spiritual mecca” in Clearwater, Florida.

The lawsuit alleges that Whitney, who was 40, was undergoing extreme mental distress, but her Scientologist handlers, and Scientologist medical doctor David Minkoff, kept her from getting proper mental health care because Scientology demonizes the psychiatric profession. Instead, the suit alleges, they encouraged her either to handle her condition with Scientology training routines (as Minkoff suggested) or, to “drop the body” and end this lifetime in order to begin another.

Tuesday, the Church of Scientology put out an angry response to the lawsuit. We’re going to show you the entire response, and then we have some reactions to it from Claire Headley and Mike Rinder.

First, here is Scientology’s response in full, with their use of emphasis:

June 18, 2024
Church of Scientology Statement
The passing of Ms. Mills was an unfortunate tragedy. In addition to its impact on her family, it affected her friends, many of whom are Scientologists.
It is frankly disgusting that anti-Scientologists have latched onto Ms. Mills’ passing in an attempt to forward their own agenda, as evidenced by the blatant falsehoods contained in the complaint regarding Scientology beliefs and practices.
1. There is no such thing in Scientology as an “assist to drop the body,” by this or by any other name. No such belief or practice exists. It is a pure FABRICATION. There is NOTHING in Scientology that even arguably means such a thing.
2. Ms. Mills was at home and not under the Church’s care or supervision at any time prior to her passing. None of the people caring for Ms. Mills at her home were staff of any Church. Any claims to the contrary are TOTALLY FALSE.
3. Ms. Mills had many friends, business associates and family members with whom she was in constant contact prior to her passing.
4. Church policy is crystal clear: if a Scientologist is in need of medical care, he or she must see a medical doctor. Any and all decisions regarding medical treatment are solely the decision of the individual. The Church does not provide medical advice. See Scientology.org FAQ on medical care. Public records show that Ms. Mills visited more than a dozen medical professionals in the months prior to her death.
It is unfortunate that Ms. Mills’ mother filed this lawsuit. Based on available information, it appears Ms. Mills was in her mother’s care, if anyone.
The Church continues to express its condolences to all those affected.

We were struck by the claim that there was no “drop the body” assist in Scientology. So we called Claire Headley, who testified as an expert on Scientology at the Danny Masterson criminal trial.

We asked Claire about Scientology’s claim that there is no such thing as an assist to drop the body.

“They’re full of shit,” she said. “Of course there is. If there’s not such a thing then why do all Scientologist know the term, ‘drop the body’? Every Scientologist knows that. Of course there is such a thing. That’s what they told Rosemary Brown when she was in the hospital.”

But as usual, she says, Scientology is playing games.

“This is where it gets complicated,” Claire adds. “Are you going to find it in the technical volumes? No, you’re not. But there are many ‘LRH advices’ that talk about this. And the drop the body assist, that is what the Cause Resurgence Rundown is based on.”

For years, we’ve noted what an odd thing the Cause Resurgence Rundown is, also known as “the Running Program.” Scientologists from around the world come to the Flag Land Base for various arcane experiences, and one of them is to pay about $3,000 in order to do the rundown, which literally consists of putting on a track suit and running around a lighted pole in a giant dark dome for hours and hours until you have a “cognition” — some kind of epiphany, probably brought on by exhaustion.

The premise of it, Claire explained, were LRH advices that after you drop your body, before you, a disembodied thetan, can be whisked away by invader forces, you go find a rock to run circles around.

“It’s the basis for the Running Program because one of the instructions is to circle an object in space until you can get yourself oriented and back to Earth,” Mike Rinder says, agreeing with Claire. “If this suit goes forward some of the really weird Hubbard stuff is going to be exposed,” he added. “They are hoping this will go away and they won’t have to defend these statements under oath. Obviously they’re ridiculous. They’re playing word games.”

We don’t know if this lawsuit will ever get to a trial, but if it does, we look forward to Scientology trying to convince a jury that L. Ron Hubbard never talked about such stuff, and people like Claire Headley or Mike Rinder arguing that he did. What a show that will be. (And one that Scientology leader David Miscavige will spend millions making sure never happens.)

We asked Claire what she thought about Scientology’s second point, that no one handling Whitney was a Scientology employee.

“Nobody is more expert at covering their ass than the Church of Scientology,” she said.

As usual, Scientology’s attorneys will play games with the precise meaning of words and whether someone is an “employee” or not. But according to the lawsuit, the Scientologist handling Whitney who had suggested the “drop the body” assist was an OT 8 Scientologist.

“An OT 8 would have been reporting back on her every day. And all of that would have been funneled to David Miscavige directly,” Claire says.

We also wondered about Scientology’s response making no reference to Minkoff, who was also involved in the Lisa McPherson case, and lost his medical license for a year for prescribing McPherson sedatives without ever actually examining her in person.

His involvement in this case seems even more problematic. As the lawsuit states, Minkoff had provided Whitney with several bogus diagnoses for her problems, including telling her she had ovarian cancer, which she did not have. And when Whitney begged for help with acute mental illness, Minkoff’s text message response was, the lawsuit says, “astounding”…

Got it. Got it. Drugs could numb you but you are OT. Put TR O in. It’s a sensation. It’s noise. It has no power over YOU. That’s the truth. Eye of the tiger. You are loved. You have friends and LRH. Duplicate it. Dissolve it. That is your power. You can be tone 40 with your TR O. That’s you as cause. I know you can. ML, dm.

But Claire cautioned us about assuming that Scientology, by not mentioning Minkoff in its response, was preparing to throw him under the bus.

Minkoff and his daughter, celebrity hand-bag designer Rebecca Minkoff, are major church donors, and David Minkoff, Claire points out, was sticking by Scientology principles.

“He did what they asked him to do.”

Yes, he did that. Tracey McManus, in her story about the lawsuit last week, said that Minkoff would likely soon be facing a medical malpractice lawsuit. But we wonder when the medical establishment itself is finally going to do something about this quack and the ridiculous diagnoses he makes.

We look forward to seeing Scientology’s actual legal response to the lawsuit, but this public statement appears to be an indication of where they will be going.

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 bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, 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 tonyo94@gmail.com.

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

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 a special podcast series…

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars on the week’s news