Here's a shocker:

Scientology is up to their old "fair game" tactics again. For the uninitiated, "fair game" is a policy developed be the deceased madman L Ron Hubbard whereby the cult launches "noisy investigations" to intimidate, harass and attack their enemies.

Last week, a colleague of mine covering the "TomKat" baby affair pulled into the Celebrity Centre in Hollywood and was promptly surrounded by shreiking, sailor-suited Scientology swabbies. The Centre is open to the public, but they kicked him out. When he returned the next day, he witnessed one of the staffers papering flyers on automobiles (including his) parked on the public street outside the Centre. The flyer he grabbed from his windshield had his photo on it, with a bold caption reading: PEDOPHILE.

I will post the offending flyer as soon as my colleague sends it on, but in the meantime, enjoy my latest "fair game" folly... [...]

Recently I spent two weeks undergoing an initiation to Scientology for this magazine. My experiences constituted only the beginnings of the beginnings of what this cult is all about, but it was enough to leave me strung-out with fear, watching my back, and wondering where the next element of harassment was going to come from.

Scientologists don't like it if you leave. Even if you leave quietly. There is a saying adherents fondly quote: "The way out is the way through." Deep thoughts passed on by decade-dead megalomaniacal psychopath Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, in whose writings church followers find a labyrinth so complex, so full of elitist jargon and weird science that those trapped in it cannot see that the way out is the way through—the fucking door.

So, of course I had to join...

[...]

Day 6, The Elect

In the suit against Time source Steve Fishman, Scientology's former head of security, Andre Tabayoyon, filed a 60-page deposition declaring that cult leaders keep special files on the stars that contain supposedly confidential information derived during auditing sessions. However, he went on, "the contents of such folders have been culled and used against people. . .{as they could be against} John Travolta {and others} should they ever attempt to leave the Scientology organization."

[...]

Day 9, Angel

Call a Scientology organization and ask what it can do for, say, asthma. A phone call to one of its outfits got a promise of a "guaranteed" cure for the ailment based on L. Ron Hubbard's "asthma rundown." Registrars will promise you a life free of illness and psychological maladies. The promises, like almost everything else, sound scripted.

A recently disaffected Scientologist (and established entertainer) confides: "I was brainwashed from the second I walked in because of the way they insisted I'd get better and successful, and my stomach problems would be healed. While spending nearly $35,000 on auditing, I was constantly sick, and never got well."

[...]

Day 11, Release

No doubt, after this article, I will be declared an SP, and I'm certain my Dead Agent Pack will be disseminated. This does not frighten me. Heck, lie and tell the world I am gay or annouce that my AIDS test came up positive. You no doubt hold the threat of revealing sexual orientation over the heads of more than the odd celebrity to keep them from defecting.

I've seen your Dead Agent packets. Nice job you've done slandering Priscilla Coates of the Cult Awareness Network, an altruistic housewife with two parking tickets on her record. Lemme see...what about the Dead Agent pack of lies you created about ex-high ranking Sea Org Scientologist Hana Whitfield? Your libelous reportage in the ironically titled org-speak rag Freedom Magazine falsely accused her of murdering her father. Your tactlessness in publishing and disseminating alleged photos of his dead body was also a sweet move in the name of religion.

[...]

…Had John and Kelly been at the screening, they might have a better understanding of the disorder reportedly affecting their 14 year-old son, Jett. Sadly, the Scientology couple cannot even publicly admit that their son is afflicted with a neurological disorder, lest – according to the incontrovertible doctrine of Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard – he be labeled a “degraded being” that brought his affliction onto himself. Instead, the Travoltas have long blamed their son’s disability on Kawasaki Syndrome-related “environmental toxins,” specifically carpet cleaning chemicals.

New York Times best selling author Mark Ebner is an award winning investigative journalist who has covered all aspects of celebrity and crime culture for Spy, Rolling Stone, Details, Los Angeles, Premiere, Salon, Spin, Radar and New Times among other national and international publications. He has repeatedly positioned himself in harm’s way, conducting over fifty in-depth investigations into such subjects as Scientology, Pit Bull fighting in South Central Los Angeles, the Ku Klux Klan in Texas, celebrity stalkers, missing porn stars, sports groupies, college suicides and Hepatitis C in Hollywood. Ebner has produced for and/or appeared as a journalist-commentator on NBC, MSNBC, A&E, The BBC, National Public Radio, Court TV, FX, VH-1 and E! Entertainment Television. He has been a featured guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, Fox & Friends, Catherine Crier Live, and a host of other television and radio programs in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom and Asia. In 2000, Ebner hosted his own nationally syndicated radio program, Drastic Radio, and co-authored the New York Times/Los Angeles Times best-seller, “Hollywood, Interrupted” in 2005 with Andrew Breitbart of the Drudge Report. He recently consulted on one of the highest rated episodes of South Park for Comedy Central, and he blogs breaking news at www.HollywoodInterrupted.com.