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The Church of Scientology has a long history of harassing those individuals who dare question their controversial doctrines. While they mostly utilize legal channels to do so, there have been more than a few whispers over the years that they sometimes deploy members of the church to do the harassing in person (the most recent example being Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake, the couple whose mysterious dual suicides were recently chronicled in the pages of Vanity Fair). Now author Ian Halperin, who infiltrated the Church and wrote about in a book called Hollywood Undercover, has drawn so much attention from Hubbard's mobsters that the scribe has been forced to go into hiding. Defamer received communication from Halperin late last night regarding threatening phone calls he had just received, phone calls that prompted him to get outta Dodge for awhile:

"Tonight I received a call from an unknown number saying, 'If you enjoy breathing, shut your fuckin' mouth,' and then they hung up. Tomorrow I think I'll go stay at a friend's place up in the mountains for a while until it all dies down."

Yikes! While we sometimes wake up in fear that crazed LRH disciples have left the severed head of Kirstie Alley in our bed, we are beginning to have some suspicions that perhaps Halperin is getting a wee bit paranoid during his fifteen (well, to be fair, thirty) minutes of bold-faced fame. That said, you can never be too careful.

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