More evidence that Cult leader David Miscavige has gone stark, staring mad is surfacing by the day. While he employees round the clock teams of between one and two dozen Private Eyes and OTAs on me and Mike Rinder each, his empire is going down in flames. Janet Reitman is only beginning the promotion tour for her book Inside Scientology. And her central conclusion that the church is imploding and reform is only possible from without is being published far and wide in her initial interviews. Miscavige cannot do anything about Reitman because virtually all of his resources are tied up in Texas and Florida making lulz videos. Implosion, meltdown, or tipping point? Or all three in one? Rome burns while Nero plays with his fiddle.
2011 group photo 90 folks up from 48 in last years. Number of people willing and able to travel from 19 states and 4 foreign countries (including France, UK, Australia and Canada) and manage to make it to the photo shoot.
Today also marks the Four Millionth visit to this site.
Current Alexa Blog Stats:
International Reach Ranking:
Scientology.org 98,035th
markrathbun.wordpress.com: 93,179th
US reach ranking:
Scientology.org 57,583rd
markrathbun.wordpress.com: 26,118th
On a few occasions over the past two years we have crossed graphs and surpassed Scientology.org and its 1,400 linking sites and Miscaviges millions spent on enhancing its ranking (while we spend nothing). However, we have exceeded their rankings almost continuously since mid April, right when their current, non stop daily insanities started being performed on our doorstep (The blue shirts first appeared on 17 April).
Dave’s latest PR coup on the blue shirt front appears in the early on-line edition of the Corpus Christi Caller Times:
Church of Scientology members would do well to read the writings of Martin Luther King. In the following one sentence King pithily describes the danger of what they have become individually and collectively:
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
That people would continue to forfeit their homes, their retirement funds, and their children’s educations in order to line the pockets of a head of a cult who spends that money consistently, and now very overtly, for the purposes of destroying the constitutional rights, the livelihood, and the very life of anyone with the fortitude to step out of cult lock-step is anathema to the very principles Scientology is built upon (not to mention America, and Western Civilization). The church’s “creed” for example:
We of the church believe…
That all men have inaliable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others…
And that no agency, less than God has the power to suspend or set aside these rights, overtly or covertly.
Last week the representatives of the 619 people of Ingleside on the Bay Texas, on their own origination and determinism, sought to protect those very rights in their own community:
The Miscavige Cult’s response to this article which was published yesterday was chilling:
1) the cult’s PI Ralph S Gomez stalked my wife and I all day long with three cult members in tow. Seven separate incidents, including the photographing of us at our home and Gomez slowly following us by car during our evening walk.
2) Cult PI Gomez and cult member Joanne Wheaton toured a home across the street from us expressing the intention to purchase it. Once again, under false pretenses.
3) Cult PI Ralph S Gomez foreshadowed a Miscavige cult legal threat to the city. While denying his affiliation with the cult to many citizens over the past weeks, and lying about his identity and affiliations, Gomez wanted to know whether the ordinance was directed at he and his cohorts because of their “religion.”
This coming Tuesday at 7 p.m. the town council will consider the Cult’s application for a 5-day permit to shoot a “documentary” in Ingleside on the Bay. Notwithstanding the fact they have spent ten weeks disturbing Ingleside on the Bay using the cover of “just filming a documentary.” The Cult has applied for the permit under the name Squirrel Busters productions notwithstanding Gomez’ and Wheaton’s exchange last week with an Ingleside Police Officer memorialized in the officer’s report as follows:
I asked Wheaton where she worked, and she confirmed that she and Gomez worked for Squirrel Busters. At that time, I asked Wheaton and Gomez both if they had any business cards for the company, and they both replied no. I asked who the producer was, who the filmographer was, and who the company is owned by. Neither Wheaton, nor Gomez could answer my questions, and continued to tell me they are filming a documentary on Mr. Mark Rathbun, and have simple questions that they want to answer, and until Rathbun does, they will continue to follow him. I asked Wheaton and Gomez if they would have the common courtesy to allow Rathbun privacy while eating dinner, and they both replied, not until we get answers. Neither Wheaton, nor Gomez produced any identity cards that state they work for Squirrel Busters Productions…
They have asked what they might be able to do to help. While none of you have any duty or obligation to do a darned thing about all this, if you feel you and your community are in any way being disturbed, abused, or gamed by the Los Angeles based cult of Scientology (aka Squirrel Busters, aka Falcon Investigations) you might want to weigh in on the cult’s permit application at IOB City Hall Tuesday 5 July at 7 p.m.
Thank you all for your continuing strength, courage and wisdom.
June 28 morning update (10:15 a.m.). I just got back from a six mile bike ride. Thanks to the good citizens of IOB I am afforded such luxuries because as you will see a number of unnamed heroes have got my back. I was followed down a relatively desolate 2-lane hiway by a gold sedan manned with cult spies with cameras. As I returned to IOB I was greeted (in what was supposed to be an ambush) by three cult members in a golf cart as I rounded the corner into our little town. All of this was witnessed and then reported by locals the moment I arrived home.
June 27 morning update. The incident captured on video immediately below occurred at ten a.m. this morning. It is apparently the Miscavige Cult’s response to the post that follows:
My name is Mark “Marty” Rathbun. I live at 115 Bayshore Court . My wife Monique and I have been residents of Ingleside on the Bay (IOB) since November 1, 2006. For three years we rented the light blue house at 902 S Sandpiper from Janie and Pat Hunt. We leased a home on the canal on Woodhaven for a year before moving to our present location last November.
Us
I worked for the Coastal Bend Herald (The Conscience of the Coastal Bend) and We the People monthly newspaper in Corpus Christi and did a number of other writing assignments from essay writing to contribution to an historical book. Until recently Monique worked as a supervisor at Superior Health Care in Corpus Christi.
I worked for the church of Scientology from my twenty-first birthday in January 1978 until Dec 12, 2004. Wikipedia has a relatively accurate and succinct account of my career in the church:
Between 1982 and the time I left the organization I answered to no one but the head of Scientology, David Miscavige. Wikipedia also includes a fairly accurate summation of Miscavige’s career:
I moved to IOB primarily to write, fish, boat, and spend some years enjoying some of the fundamental virtues that drive humanity but that I found so lacking during most of my adult life in the church of Scientology.
In 2008 I learned that several former high level Scientology officials had followed my lead and left the church of Scientology. Some of those old friends found me through the internet and came to visit. The more stories I heard about how the organization had continued to deteriorate under Miscavige’s command after my departure, the more I grappled with responsibility for doing something
effective for those who continued to suffer in part for my having helped
empower what had become a ruthless madman.
I was also urged by many friends to make myself available to help former members “decompress” and make sense of their time within the cult. That necessarily involved application of some of the principles of the philosophy of Scientology. I found many former members of the cult felt most robbed – and the chief reason they stayed in an abusvie, cult-like environment – was
their fear of the cruel, well funded attacks Corporate Scientology had become
infamous for leveling against those with the temerity to say, as the first
Protestants did in 16th Century Europe, “I do not need the imprimatur of a corrupt priest to read, understand and live the words written by the Founder of my chosen faith.”
I put up a website in Feb 2009, which expanded into a blog in July that year, that announced what I intended to do, Moving on up a Little Higher.
Within days Miscavige’s cult took extraordinary measures to intercept three of the first five people who expressed interest in seeing me. Also within days I received requests for interviews from news media around the world. I chose the St Petersburg Times (the largest newspaper in Florida) because I knew its writers and editors, knew they had integrity, they had a lot of experience
investigating Scientology for decades and would not back down like other
media. The result was a several part series entitled the Truth Rundown. The Times put over three hours of taped interviews with me on their website with the
series, where I discuss in detail my entire history with Corporate Scientology
from the beginning to the day I left. While I subsequently did a five part series on CNNs’ Anderson Cooper 360, a two-part ABC Nightline special, and an hour-long documentary aired on British Broadcasting Corporation, the Times videos are the most comprehensive, least edited account of my history directly from me. That video interview – organized by topics – can be found at:
A consequence of my having spoken out as loudly and thoroughly as I did was the creation of an exodus of sorts from the Scientology cult. Houghton-Mifflin publishing company commissioned a two-year objective study into Scientology. The author of the resultant book (which will be officially released next month) Janet Reitman was interviewed this week by the Editor in Chief of the New York Village Voice, Tony Ortega. She concluded her interview with the following which probably serves as the best explanation why the cult of Scientology’s head David Miscavige has directed unlimited funds be utilized to destroy me utterly:
Which brings us to the reason for this post now. Many residents of IOB have been surprised, shocked, or simply intrigued at the antics of the cult and its hired private investigators over the past several weeks. Prior to about mid April their activities against me were limited to:
Hacking my email.
Illegally buying my phone records.
Buying my trash from BFI and searching it for
any clue they could use against me.
Setting up 24/7/365 surveillance of my every
move; they have had agents embedded in Ingleside and IOB for over a year.
Hacking airline computers to get my flight plans
so that every time I left town in the past two years, i) my wife was confronted by two unidentified cult members each time, and ii) I was picked up by teams of private investigators at each destination airport.
The hacking of my blog and shutting it down.
Putting up 28 websites in attempts to slander and discredit me – including such allegations that my wife is in fact a man and
that I murdered my own brother thirty years ago. The cult is well heeled and will invent and publish the most vicious defamation, inviting libel suits so that they can ruin the plaintiff utterly by
abuse of court processes.
Sending private investigators to every former member who has met with me, multiple times, offering cash incentives to bad mouth me in any way.
Sending private investigators to harass each of Monique’s associates, friends, and even her former husband.
Sending teams of dummies to put cameras and microphones in my face in restaurants, sidewalks, airports, and other public places, obstructing my path, then bringing bogus assault charges against me for gently guiding them out of my way when they obstruct me, my wife or friends. To give you an idea how insane it gets, they hired a former FBI agent lawyer in Corpus to heavily lobby to have me prosecuted for grasping a microphone they stuck in my face, over my own property line after I had to herd four of them off my doorstep. Four unidentified intruders who traveled from California for the exclusive purpose of harassing me on my doorstep. The county attorney who evaluated the case said she
had seen nothing more frivolous in her career (and could not believe anyone in their right minds would spend money to have an attorney try to lobby for such a case). They have done this to me nine
times that I am aware of in three states. All nine cases have been heavily lobbied by their expensive lawyers and cop private investigators. All nine have been laughed out of existence
by the officials receiving them. Zero for nine.
Here is the unedited video tape of the 17 April incident at my own home referred to above:
Which brings us to the present. Rather than take a hint that their acts are
making them abhorrent in the public eye, Miscavige has decided to damn the
torpedoes and sink me by any means necessary. In the past two weeks, his blue shirts have made a practice of harassing us daily by overtly training cameras on our home from the street, then travelling to the entrance to Bahia Marina to do the same to the other side of our home. They harass us at Ingleside restaurants. They have added to their couple of covert surveillance properties by leasing real estate in IOB to overtly harass me and my wife.
All harassment efforts are being coordinated by the cult’s chief private investigator, one David Lubow dba Falcon investigations from Los Angeles.
David Lubow - Chief Cult Private Eye
First, they attempted to rent the apartment directly across the canal from our bedroom at Bahia Marina. This photo of their target apartment is taken from our bedroom window:
Luckily, the good people at Bahia caught the investigator lying about his intent and identity and refused on the basis that they would not rent to people attempting to spy on neighbors:
Then, they attempted to purchase several prime lots directly across the canal from our home. Here is the view of the property from our deck:
Again, another true American refused to sell out to the cult.
Finally, under false pretenses, Ralph S Gomez, making big cult dollars working for Lubow, lied to a local real estate agent in order to rent these premises on Bayshore Circle, less than a quarter of a mile from our home:
This is their staging area for two to three daily visits to the front of our home for filming and to the rear of our home for more filming of our home. Several other drive bys are done of our home by vehicles during each day. Gomez has been seen driving three to five cult members around IOB wearing baby blue t-shirts to perform these “religious” rituals. The T-shirt have photographs of my head on them with the international strike out symbol across it in red:
While the Bayshore Circle Cult headquarters is just less than a quarter mile from our home by road, it is less than a couple hundred yards as the camera records. Here is Cult HQ – the wood sided home with orange trim – taken from the front deck of our home:
Gomez also uses the Bayshore Circle headquarters to drive cult members to Ingleside to interrupt and harass us in town.
Gomez is working for the cult’s most notorious private detective, David Lubow from Falcon Investigations in Los Angeles. Lubow has worked for the cult for more than twenty-years and will stop at nothing, violate any law he can get away with violating, because he is a card-carrying member of the cult. Gomez has consistenly refused to indentify himself while stalking my wife and I. He has lied to a number of people in Ingleside and IOB. It has been established he is working for David Lubow.
Ralph S Gomez
This past Thursday night Gomez was escorting his merry pranksters around IOB in a golf cart clad in their “bust Marty” t-shirts. Gomez spent three hours trying to prevent us from finding out where the golf cart would wind up. Finally, he dumped it on Starlight drive and had a cult driven van whisk five cult members away. Gomez trespassed through a closed chainlink gate and hid behind the home at 721 Starlight. With my headlights all over the place Gomez emerged.
I asked Gomez whether he had rented the place since he was deep into the property hiding and there was a for-rent sign in front. Gomez said “no”…..”but I have the owner’s permission to be here.” A later call and visit by me to the owner confirmed Gomez’s assertion to be an unadulterated lie. Gomez,
caught in the hot-seat, finally broke down after weeks of following the cult
script: “we are a media company, we are here to do a documentary, we just want to interview Marty, etc.” Gomez made a big mistake and let a little bit of truth eke out. Gomez told me that I just need to go “fix it” with Miscavige’s cult. Gomez told me that all of what they have been doing to me would go away if I simply caved in and settled with Miscavige’s cult. Gomez admitted to me that if he was the recipient of what they had dished out to me over the past several weeks he personally would long ago have “flipped out.” Gomez told me all the harassment would cease if I simply surrendered.
Unfortunately for Gomez, Miscavige and those misguided cult
members doing his bidding, the evidence of their real intent, as admitted by
Gomez in a moment of fear when he was separated from the pack of cult members, has been provided to the Federal Bureau of Investigation which has an ongoing Human Trafficking investigation with Miscavige as the main target, and several local law enforcement agencies.
The cult has two weapons and two weapons only: a) harassment to a degree unprecedented in a civilized society, and b) money to buy the victim of “a” when he is put into an amenable frame of mind. Just so everybody knows, as Miscavige just won’t seem to get it through his head, I will never fold to any pressure no matter how intense, and I am not for sale – at any price.
To the many IOB and Ingleside residents who have expressed and provided support, Monique and I cannot thank you enough. You have deeply touched our hearts and greatly increased our faith in humanity. If you have any questions or you would like more background on the matter feel free to stop by anytime or email me at rathbunmark@yahoo.com
NOTE for regular readers of Moving On Up a Little Higher:
I am posting this open letter to the members of my immediate community
here so interested people can readily get to the truth of the situation playing out in their community. I believe it will be of interest to most of the regular readers too. It recaps the history of how I got into all this and how it has wound up to where things are currently at. As we approach four million visits to this site, I recognize not everybody has been here from the outset or had the ability to read the more than 2000 pages of text that this blog now contains. It also of course provides further evidence of how the hard earned monies of many parishioners are being mis-used by Miscavige and his cult, in grotesque violation of IRS regulations concerning tax exempt “churches.”
I am backlogging on essays of great interest and import to Independent Scientologists. One reason is the news flashes of the now daily over-the-top, inane behavior of the Cult of Miscavige (note: I am no longer granting his dead organization the privilege of using and thereby destroying the name “Scientology”).
Because of the plethora of video material of interest to the public at large that we are amassing, I will start posting it on my You Tube channel without (in most cases) distracting the blog from more important matters. You can access my channel and subscribe to it (to receive alerts when new matter is posted) at:
For now on when I post a new post on Moving On Up A Little Higher or a new video on my Youtube channel, I will tweet the fact on my twitter account. You can follow me on twitter to receive the new material alerts at:
Following me on Twitter saves you the time of having to check periodically for updates on either Moving On Up A Little Higher or my Youtube channel. Instead, you’ll receive a text the second something new appears on either.
Incidentally, Dave’s strategy of overtly stalking and harassing Mosey and me is making us: a) a rapidly increasing circle of good friends locally, b) ever increasing new channels to educate the public at large on the difference between the philosophy of Scientology and the Cult of Miscavige, and c) increasingly strong and dedicated Independents.
The pdf version of a Church of Scientology International document linked below gives the names, ranks and serial numbers of dozens of OSA (Office of Special Affairs – Corporate Scientology’s dirty tricks network) operatives for the Western United States (west of the Mississippi). You may need to use the zoom function under the view tab of your computer to make the names and information legible. Please feel free to share information you may have on these folk so that dots may be connected. Also share any dot connecting you can do from your own experience and data so that others may understand, and thus be protected from, Corporate Scientology’s dirty ops arm. Realize many deep cover intelligence operatives are not named here – but your recognizing connections to some of these official OSA resources may lead to the exposure of such moles. Note that this document is a work in progress (see instructions on top for DSA’s to update it) and though relatively recent is not up to date.
Some names you will recognize as folk who have already declared independence. In fact, Bert Schippers who has declared independence from the church – and has previously publicly acknowledged and taken responsibility for his OSA volunteer work – on this blog confirmed the accuracy of the entries on him and his wife Lynne Hoverson. May many more on this list follow the ethical, principled path blazed by Bert and Lynne.
“Sunshine is the best disinfectant” – Louis Brandeis
Here is the Freedumb crew harassing Mike and his business associates yesterday:
Today Leblow and four goons in baby blue anti-Marty t-shirts and head cameras were chased out of my neighborhood by the neighbors, then chased away from Monique’s former place of employment by her friends and erstwhile co-workers.
While Miscavige has jacked the daily PI budget on us to close to twenty thousand a day, his minions are apparently fixin’ to renege on yet another of his big shot words; namely, a promise to pay the City of Clearwater fines for delaying his SP building for a decade:
Funny how the man who told them “money is not an issue”, but is now begging for mercy, is spending parishioner donations like a cocaine addled banana republic dictator.
It was wonderful meeting with you this past Friday at the Enterprise Car return lane at LAX. Unfortunately, Lublow, Allender, et al had to interrupt – but, you are gonna continue to carry fleas as long as you sleep with unkempt dogs. (see video below)
Thank you for promising to read my blog. Mosey is on the Student Hat course and came across a gem she wanted to share with you knowing you are conducting an investigation and study as part of your doubt formulas.
The reference from Monique:
from Evaluation of Information, L Ron Hubbard:
So now, let’s realize that part of our understanding when we are engaged in secondhand observation – which is to say study on a via or something…we are engaged upon this – then our understanding must include an evaluation of the reliability of the information we are being given. You follow that? Our understanding must include the understanding of whether this is good dope or bad dope, whether this is straight data or this is data with a curve. In other words, we have to be capable of evaluating the truth of the relayed observation.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 