You’ve just been through Scientology’s Wall of Fire: It’s time to party!

We know you’re hearing some pretty grim things about Scientology’s prospects these days, with dwindling membership, damning lawsuits, and terrible press, but as we never hesitate to point out, Scientology never gives up.

And those still caught in its clutches do their best to pretend that things have never looked better for L. Ron Hubbard’s devoted fans.

In particular, we’ve noted how the staff of Scientology’s London ‘Ideal Org’ does more than most other staffs as far as putting on a show to make it seem that all is well.

Of the London staffers, we’ve been fascinated by Sandrine Mootoo, who, maybe more than anyone else there, works the PR line like an old pro.

And wow, does she have something to crow about now. On the one hand, a staffer completing OT 3 might be a sign that things are so slow at the org the staffers actually have the time to complete OT levels.

On the other hand, Sandrine has completed OT 3! She’s learned about Xenu and galactic genocide and body thetans and that the reasons for her upsets are not her own fault but caused by countless invisible alien entities attached to her, invisible entities she’s going to be spending the next several years trying to get rid of!

Hip, hip, hooray!

Well, check for yourself how happy she is about finally getting through what Hubbard called the “Wall of Fire.”

We love the touch in the photo, above, that her fellow staffers got out fire extinguishers because she’s been through the Wall of Fire. Very cute.

You see, Hubbard claimed that in order to discover this stuff — like that Xenu was a galactic overlord who planted disembodied alien souls on earth 75 million years ago — he had to push through mental booby-traps laid in by evil psychiatrists, and getting to the truth nearly cost him his life. Getting through it, he said, was like getting through a wall of fire, and now his followers can do the same with less fear of injury — but at a much higher cost to your wallet. Sandrine presumably got to do OT 3 at a discount rate as a staffer. But mere mortals have to shell out hundreds of thousands to get through all the steps on the Bridge up to OT 3.

What are you waiting for, pilgrim!

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Mark Bunker shows he’s a class act

You probably saw Tracey McManus’s story yesterday about two Scientologists who were found to have stolen many of Mark Bunker’s re-election yard signs in Clearwater and were confronted by police on March 1.

Bunker is seeking another four years after a first term when he was repeatedly in the news for fighting against Scientology’s ongoing smothering of that city’s downtown core. When his yard signs were stolen, he suspected Scientologists may have been behind it. But McManus reported that police actually did get a license plate number in a surveillance video and determined that two Scientologists in their 30s were behind the thefts.

Bunker, however, chose not to press charges, and so McManus didn’t name the two miscreants, which was a class move by both of them.

We just hope the news story helps boost Bunker’s chances of winning re-election on March 19.

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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

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