

The other day we told you that Brent Jones, a Scientologist who served as a legislator in Nevada for one term, 2015-2017, is now running for lieutenant governor in that state.

An alert reader pointed out that Brent’s wife Aimee Jones is also running for office, trying to win the seat that Brent lost to a Democrat in the 2016 election.

Aimee Jones has a campaign website, Facebook page, and a GoFundMe going, and in her bio she talks about working with her husband at their business that sells “Real Water” — a company that uses L. Ron Hubbard technology for its business administration concepts.

Brent has a long history with Scientology, but we wondered if Aimee did as well.


We called up her campaign Tuesday and spoke to her campaign manager, Laurel Fee. We explained to Laurel that it’s extremely unusual for Scientologists to run for office in this country, and so we wondered about Aimee’s involvement — we found in a 2016 issue of Scientology’s Source magazine that Aimee Jones was listed as completing an expensive and high-level auditing service, the “L11 New Life Rundown.”

But Laurel denied that Aimee and Brent are Scientologists.

“Neither one of them are,” she told us. “Brent, in his Real Water business, he uses the applied philosophies of L. Ron Hubbard. But they are not members of the church.”

She said the campaign was working on some “cease and desist” letters “against some of these articles” that have written about Brent’s Scientology involvement.

We pointed out that Scientology publications list Brent completing Scientology courses many times and going back more than a decade — and we believe his involvement goes back at least into the 1990s.

“Aimee and Brent have both taken courses to learn the business model, I will say that,” Laurel told us. “But you don’t have to be a Scientologist to take their courses. All kinds of people take their courses. All kinds of people use those courses for a business model.”

Both Brent and Aimee Jones are listed in Scientology publications as completing L11. We told Laurel that Scientology itself would certainly consider anyone doing such high-level and expensive courses to be Scientologists.

“I really don’t focus on other people’s religion. And I don’t think she’s a working Scientologist. They don’t go anywhere and worship. Many companies use these things,” she said. “It is true that they use L. Ron Hubbard applied statistics, and it is a separate entity from Scientology, the religion.”

We pointed out that Affinity Lifestyles, the company that puts out “alkalized” Real Water with added electrons, lists the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) as a charity that it supports. CCHR is Scientology’s most unhinged front group, going after the psychiatry industry with claims, for example, that it was behind the Holocaust. Church leader David Miscavige speaks openly about Scientology’s goal to eradicate the mental health industry and replace it with Hubbard’s ideas.

But Laurel pointed out that Real Water benefits many other charities, and that CCHR’s criticism of psychiatric medicine is one a lot of people share.

We asked her to check with Aimee Jones about her L11 completion. In an email, we asked the potential legislator how the abilities she gained on that experience might benefit her work as a lawmaker.

In the meantime, we asked our resident tech expert, Sunny Pereira, to help us understand what a Scientologist goes through during the L11 Rundown, which, according to a 2007 price list, runs about $24,000.

One has to be well up onto the Bridge to receive this auditing step. The person has to have completed Scientology drug handlings, which includes the controversial Purif, as well as Grades, up to Grade IV, which is supposed to help a person communicate better, and operate better in general in life. The first step has the person read the bulletin title “Justification” aloud. He or she has to read it aloud perfectly. Any flaws in reading has the person looking through what they read to find a word they can’t define. Then they look it up fully, clearing all definitions, then keep reading the entire bulletin this way. Then the person is asked to write an essay of how the bulletin applies to them. The second step addresses the subject of overrun. Overrun, in Scientology, is defined as something that has gone on too long (a marriage that is over, yet continues, for example). Hubbard states that a being (a spirit, thetan) can do anything forever. The only time it gets into overrun is when the person themselves decides to stop it. Hubbard states that when a person starts wanting to stop one thing, it can become obsessive to where he irrationally or obsessively stops things all around him. These continuous efforts to stop things turns into ridges, which make mass. (ridges are pictures, generally perceived as right in front of the person’s face, that contain energy and emotion and make a person irrationally unable to process things right in front of themselves. They can last forever, per Hubbard). The third step has the person, while attached to the E-meter, find the exact date, down to the last millisecond and the location of exactly when they received the implant “To Harm.” (Such implants are put into us between lives.) The fourth step has the person listing out their evil purposes to the auditor, while again connected to the meter. They will keep listing out these until one has a large reaction by meter, which is what is the main answer to the question. Then they again date and locate when that evil purpose was. The fifth step is to go over a long list of words. The auditor gives the person one word and the person must respond with what comes to mind first. Let’s take the word “restrain” as example. The person might answer with “police have to do that.” This is then converted into a question to ask the person: “Who or what would find that police have to restrain?” This particular step does not explain much about what its purpose is, except to clear off aberration on those words. The final step is basically asking for thoughts, ideas and so forth about “the character of man” until the person has a realization about something.

Now that sounds like a whale of a time. And such a bargain at $24,000.

“The L Rundowns are reserved for the most dedicated Scientologists,” says former Scientology spokesman Mike Rinder. “You have to be heavily committed to Scientology and buy into the power of auditing to afford the astonishing price of the L’s. They are the most expensive Scientology service per auditing intensive. The reason given is that they can only be delivered by a Class XII auditor, the Scientology equivalent of a Harvard Law Professor. The L’s are not for the ‘part-time’ or ‘not really’ members. They are for the hardcore (and wealthiest).”

Surely the voters of Nevada would love to hear all about that experience, wouldn’t they?



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Make your plans now!

HOWDYCON UPDATE

We’re just a little more than two months out, and Chee Chalker is working hard to make sure things are going to run smoothly at this year’s HowdyCon in Chicago, June 21-23. As in past years, we’re looking forward to meeting readers of the Bunker, culminating in Saturday night’s main event.

The biggest difference this year is that our Saturday night event is separate from that evening’s dinner. Chee is setting up an inexpensive pizza dinner that you don’t need to pay for ahead of time, after which we’ll walk over to the theater where our event, hosted by Chicago Fire star Christian Stolte, will take place.

Because it’s a separate event, we’re asking that you pay $10 each to get into the Saturday night event, which will help us recoup what the Bunker paid for the venue. (We have never made a penny on our HowdyCon meetups, we only try to break even.)

Please email your proprietor (tonyo94 AT gmail) in order to reserve your spot for Saturday night’s main event. Seating is limited, and we’re going to have some really interesting people on stage and they may make a few announcements that you don’t want to miss.







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Posted by Tony Ortega on April 14, 2018 at 07:00

E-mail tips and story ideas to tonyo94 AT gmail DOT com or follow us on Twitter. We post behind-the-scenes updates at our Facebook author page. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.

Our book, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper, is on sale at Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook versions. We’ve posted photographs of Paulette and scenes from her life at a separate location. Reader Sookie put together a complete index. More information can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2017 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Undergound Bunker (2012-2017), The Village Voice (2008-2012), New Times Los Angeles (1999-2002) and the Phoenix New Times (1995-1999)

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS: We read Scientology’s founding text cover to cover with the help of L.A. attorney and former church member Vance Woodward

UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists

GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice

SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING: Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts

Other links: Shelly Miscavige, ten years gone | The Lisa McPherson story told in real time | The Cathriona White stories | The Leah Remini ‘Knowledge Reports’ | Hear audio of a Scientology excommunication | Scientology’s little day care of horrors | Whatever happened to Steve Fishman? | Felony charges for Scientology’s drug rehab scam | Why Scientology digs bomb-proof vaults in the desert | PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Our non-Scientology stories: Robert Burnham Jr., the man who inscribed the universe | Notorious alt-right inspiration Kevin MacDonald and his theories about Jewish DNA | The selling of the “Phoenix Lights” | Astronomer Harlow Shapley‘s FBI file | Sex, spies, and local TV news