Aaron Smith-Levin: Scientology | Lex Fridman Podcast #361

00:00:00.000 | If Scientology was just getting auditing,

00:00:04.100 | when you wanted, about the subjects you wanted,

00:00:09.760 | and you could take it or leave it, that would be fine.

00:00:12.800 | It's the fact that it's part and parcel

00:00:14.980 | to this entire organization and this entire experience

00:00:19.060 | that has, as a part of that experience,

00:00:23.100 | taking everything from you, demanding everything from you,

00:00:26.720 | controlling who you can speak with,

00:00:29.220 | controlling who you can have relationships with,

00:00:31.360 | who you have to erase from your life.

00:00:33.240 | This is where, and it's hard to place one pinpoint on,

00:00:37.520 | this is where Scientology goes wrong.

00:00:39.400 | It's really hard to do that,

00:00:40.760 | because the good parts of Scientology

00:00:42.120 | and the bad parts of Scientology are all just Scientology.

00:00:45.520 | The following is a conversation with Aaron Smith-Levin,

00:00:50.640 | a former Scientologist raised in Scientology

00:00:53.560 | and have worked in the organization full-time

00:00:56.040 | for many years as a staff member and a C-Org member,

00:01:00.540 | including the job of training Scientology auditors.

00:01:03.940 | Today, he educates the public about Scientology

00:01:06.700 | on his YouTube channel called Growing Up in Scientology.

00:01:11.020 | This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.

00:01:12.940 | To support it, please check out our sponsors

00:01:14.900 | in the description.

00:01:16.100 | And now, dear friends, here's Aaron Smith-Levin.

00:01:20.000 | Let's do a full overview of Scientology,

00:01:23.500 | its ideas, how it operates,

00:01:25.440 | how it wields its power and influence.

00:01:27.840 | And let's start at the very basics.

00:01:29.400 | What is Scientology?

00:01:31.040 | - Scientology is a belief system created by L. Ron Hubbard

00:01:36.040 | that does fundamentally believe

00:01:39.520 | that we are all immortal spiritual beings called thetans,

00:01:42.760 | that we have native godlike potential,

00:01:48.760 | that there is nothing more powerful

00:01:50.480 | in the universe than a thetan.

00:01:52.560 | So godlike is quite literal here.

00:01:54.540 | And that through various decisions thetans have made,

00:02:00.580 | they have fallen away from their native godlike power

00:02:03.980 | to falling down to a state where most thetans

00:02:09.380 | aren't even aware that they are thetans,

00:02:10.880 | aren't even aware that they ever have lived before

00:02:14.220 | or have these powers,

00:02:15.780 | and that thetans are now in a state

00:02:17.740 | where they're trapped in bodies, trapped here on Earth,

00:02:20.980 | trapped in this prison of a physical universe,

00:02:23.020 | trapped on this prison of a planet,

00:02:24.780 | and that only Scientology can restore a thetan

00:02:29.100 | to its native state.

00:02:31.940 | - Are these multiple beings?

00:02:33.340 | Like is there one thetan inside of me

00:02:36.040 | that's trapped in this prison?

00:02:37.980 | - Well, the thing would be you.

00:02:40.300 | - The thing would be me.

00:02:41.260 | - The thetan is you.

00:02:42.940 | - But I'm presumably limited in some fundamental way.

00:02:46.300 | So this thetan that is me is limited.

00:02:48.860 | So there's like eight billion thetans on the planet.

00:02:51.800 | - There's one primary thetan animating each body.

00:02:56.220 | Later in Scientology you learn there's actually

00:02:58.940 | like tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands

00:03:01.100 | of like sick, unconscious, half-dead thetans stuck to you

00:03:06.100 | that are now an additional cause of problems for you.

00:03:10.300 | - Sure.

00:03:11.140 | - But fundamentally at the lower levels,

00:03:13.220 | the non-confidential levels,

00:03:14.680 | there's just one thetan per body.

00:03:17.480 | - I mean, it's an interesting idea.

00:03:18.920 | I just would like to kind of explore the philosophy of that.

00:03:23.080 | So there's a being that's all-powerful that's immortal,

00:03:26.700 | and its projection, its manifestation on this Earth

00:03:29.880 | is fundamentally limited.

00:03:32.720 | And you're trying to, the process of Scientology

00:03:36.280 | is the process of letting go of those limitations.

00:03:39.800 | You know, that's an interesting idea.

00:03:41.240 | I mean, a lot of religions have this kind of idea

00:03:43.480 | that there's, not just religions,

00:03:45.760 | but like we have the capacity as human beings

00:03:49.240 | to achieve greatness in all kinds of ways.

00:03:52.480 | And that's the question we have

00:03:53.880 | with our cognitive abilities.

00:03:55.080 | We start with an embryo and build up and into this organism

00:03:58.280 | and like this world of opportunities before us,

00:04:00.520 | what are we capable of?

00:04:02.400 | And the idea that we're capable of almost anything

00:04:05.000 | is a really powerful one.

00:04:05.960 | And there's a lot of religions,

00:04:07.480 | there's a lot of philosophies,

00:04:08.560 | there's a lot of advice, self-help

00:04:11.840 | that kind of explore those ideas.

00:04:13.440 | And so, it seems like with Scientology,

00:04:16.560 | the application of this religious philosophy

00:04:18.400 | means that we're limited

00:04:21.440 | and we have to break through those limitations.

00:04:23.480 | And there's a process to break through those limitations.

00:04:25.840 | - That would be correct.

00:04:27.080 | So, what can make it challenging to adequately

00:04:31.440 | and completely describe Scientology in the beginning

00:04:35.160 | is what Scientologists believe actually changes

00:04:38.280 | as they progress further into or further up in Scientology.

00:04:43.800 | So, the explanation is that I've given it

00:04:46.480 | is pretty consistent with what you would get

00:04:47.920 | at the lowest levels, right?

00:04:49.520 | You're a thetan, I'm a thetan, everyone's a thetan.

00:04:53.480 | And we have a reactive mind.

00:04:57.360 | L. Ron Hubbard would say the reactive mind

00:04:59.560 | is a collection of these recordings,

00:05:02.840 | mental recordings of any moments of pain and unconsciousness

00:05:06.160 | you've ever had in your life.

00:05:07.320 | It's like the subconscious mind.

00:05:11.200 | It's always recording in moments of pain and unconsciousness

00:05:15.080 | and that these recordings,

00:05:17.440 | L. Ron Hubbard called them engrams.

00:05:19.440 | Now, when L. Ron Hubbard first wrote Dianetics in 1950,

00:05:22.120 | this was before Scientology came along

00:05:24.080 | a couple years later, right?

00:05:25.360 | So, in 1950, when he wrote Dianetics,

00:05:28.120 | it wasn't a spiritual endeavor.

00:05:31.200 | It was supposed to be a mental health,

00:05:33.040 | a science of mental health.

00:05:34.960 | So, as of that time, the earliest engram you could have

00:05:40.240 | was the incident of birth, being born was an engram.

00:05:45.240 | And technically, in Dianetics,

00:05:47.200 | he said you could have prenatal engrams,

00:05:49.240 | like when you're still in the womb.

00:05:50.900 | But there was no concept of past lives

00:05:53.080 | as of 1950 version of Dianetics, right?

00:05:55.660 | And so, the idea there was that the reactive mind

00:06:01.760 | is essentially a stimulus response mechanism

00:06:04.760 | created through evolution millions of years ago

00:06:08.040 | to protect the individual from things that would harm them.

00:06:10.680 | In other words, things that would bring about

00:06:11.760 | pain and unconsciousness.

00:06:13.700 | So, you have these recordings of things that hurt you,

00:06:16.120 | create pain and unconsciousness,

00:06:17.320 | and in present time, these things will react upon you

00:06:20.280 | in a way to cause you to avoid similar things

00:06:25.200 | reacting upon you in a subconscious, unconscious way.

00:06:28.640 | - So, the reactive mind protects you from the trauma

00:06:32.260 | that is inside your subconscious mind.

00:06:34.220 | - Yes, and the idea is we've now,

00:06:37.400 | as human beings, evolved to a state

00:06:39.080 | where it no longer serves us beneficially.

00:06:41.800 | It only serves us negatively.

00:06:43.420 | This was Hubbard's theory.

00:06:46.120 | And he said, "So, you can get rid of these engrams

00:06:48.300 | by basically recalling them and going over them

00:06:50.740 | again and again using Dianetics auditing therapy.

00:06:53.080 | And if you get back to the moment of birth

00:06:55.240 | and erase the earliest engram,

00:06:57.080 | all the other subsequent engrams on the chain would vanish."

00:07:01.480 | - Oh, nice, so there's a chain.

00:07:02.960 | - Early or similar, early or similar,

00:07:04.320 | early or similar, early or similar, okay.

00:07:06.960 | So, that gives you a pretty good understanding

00:07:08.080 | of how L. Ron Hubbard thought of the mind

00:07:12.320 | because that carries on,

00:07:13.760 | has applicability later on in Scientology.

00:07:16.080 | - I mean, that's a pretty powerful model of the mind.

00:07:18.400 | I mean, Freud had similar conceptions

00:07:20.960 | that a lot of our traumas are grounded in

00:07:24.480 | poor formulation of sexuality

00:07:30.820 | or imperfect formulation of sexuality,

00:07:32.920 | you know, childhood, something like this.

00:07:35.040 | And then we're trying to figure out the puzzle

00:07:37.080 | of whatever we formed in early childhood.

00:07:38.840 | - Right. - I mean, it's similar.

00:07:39.680 | Similar kind of-- - It is similar.

00:07:41.400 | Probably what Hubbard took it from.

00:07:43.960 | In the early days of Dianetics,

00:07:45.280 | before he decided psychiatry was evil,

00:07:47.880 | he actually credited Sigmund Freud

00:07:49.840 | with some of the shoulders he was standing on

00:07:52.840 | in writing Dianetics.

00:07:54.060 | - So, he still admired psychiatry at that time.

00:07:57.240 | So, that's an interesting moment of Dianetics.

00:07:58.800 | So, what else?

00:07:59.640 | You mentioned Dianetics auditing was there too.

00:08:01.900 | So, if we just, before Scientology,

00:08:03.960 | what are the ideas that formed what we know as Dianetics?

00:08:08.960 | - As I've just described, that is the fundamental.

00:08:11.480 | - That is. - That is pretty much

00:08:12.680 | the nuts and bolts of Dianetics.

00:08:14.000 | - Was it applied?

00:08:15.040 | Was it applied often?

00:08:16.680 | - Oh yeah, no, that's what Dianetics in the early days

00:08:18.380 | was all about, was just auditing.

00:08:19.720 | Auditing is the process of the one-on-one counseling,

00:08:21.980 | recall a moment of pain and unconsciousness,

00:08:23.600 | run through the engram over and over and over again,

00:08:25.320 | find something earlier, similar.

00:08:26.400 | That is Dianetics auditing.

00:08:28.000 | One of the main things that changed with Scientology

00:08:30.120 | is that birth or prenatal engrams

00:08:32.360 | were no longer the earliest engrams on the chain.

00:08:35.320 | The idea is you have to get the earliest engram

00:08:36.840 | on the chain for the later ones to blow, which is a race.

00:08:39.820 | And so, but all of a sudden now,

00:08:43.180 | with the addition of an immortal spiritual being

00:08:46.800 | into the equation, well now the earliest incident

00:08:49.440 | could be trillions of years ago

00:08:50.720 | in other galaxies and universes.

00:08:52.520 | - Other universes?

00:08:53.400 | So, before the origin of this universe?

00:08:55.080 | - Yes.

00:08:55.920 | - Is there a model of physics integrated in any of this?

00:08:57.960 | - No.

00:08:59.020 | The model is you have the physical universe,

00:09:01.880 | and then above that you have the theta universe.

00:09:05.140 | So, we used the word thetan earlier.

00:09:07.220 | So, in Scientology, they'll use the word theta.

00:09:09.580 | Theta is just basically thetan power.

00:09:13.620 | Thetans collectively.

00:09:15.620 | So, Hubbard would say you have the theta universe,

00:09:18.460 | which is senior to the physical universe,

00:09:20.700 | and creates the physical universe.

00:09:22.340 | And remember, I said native god-like potentials.

00:09:25.420 | So, we're not talking about the god who created the Earth.

00:09:27.840 | We're just, like Scientologists don't believe in a god,

00:09:29.900 | but we'll get into that later.

00:09:32.100 | We're talking about just creating universes.

00:09:34.680 | Like, just think like Matrix.

00:09:36.140 | Like, just, when I say creating a universe,

00:09:37.840 | essentially just creating different thetan simulations.

00:09:40.500 | - But it sounds like a little bit more

00:09:42.780 | like the ideas of Plato,

00:09:44.100 | which is there's these platonic forms,

00:09:46.260 | there's abstract forms that are bigger, more general

00:09:49.740 | than our particular reality here,

00:09:53.420 | and those forms are used to construct the reality.

00:09:56.140 | - Well, I grew up in a cult,

00:09:56.960 | so I'm not familiar with the works of Plato.

00:09:58.700 | (laughing)

00:10:00.660 | - You can't use that as an excuse for everything.

00:10:03.740 | I would like to, you know, non-jokingly steal a man the case

00:10:07.780 | because a lot of philosophies, a lot of religions,

00:10:11.100 | a lot of even scientific endeavors

00:10:13.620 | are a little bit full of uncertainty.

00:10:17.660 | You can call it bullshit, but you're on unsteady ground

00:10:21.380 | because we're surrounded by mystery.

00:10:23.160 | And you have to take these ideas somewhat seriously

00:10:27.200 | and see where those ideas go wrong.

00:10:29.360 | This happens with communism, this happens with capitalism.

00:10:32.620 | These ideas sound beautiful in their ideal forms,

00:10:36.080 | and then they somehow go wrong,

00:10:37.600 | and some go more wrong than others.

00:10:39.480 | And so I don't think, sort of, it's easy to

00:10:43.080 | sort of caricature and make fun of the ideas.

00:10:47.480 | I think if you take them seriously,

00:10:49.480 | you'll start to understand, like,

00:10:51.200 | when you're in it, it was serious.

00:10:53.380 | It can be very convincing.

00:10:54.980 | It's, you know, the devil is going

00:10:56.740 | to be a charismatic person.

00:10:57.940 | He's not going to be a caricature, a ridiculous person.

00:11:00.500 | So that helps us understand which ideas

00:11:03.180 | will sound appealing but will become dangerous.

00:11:06.500 | - I totally agree.

00:11:07.340 | In fact, it's one of the

00:11:08.480 | thrusts I have on my channel,

00:11:12.740 | is wanting to talk about Scientology in a way

00:11:15.140 | that would actually resonate with current Scientologists,

00:11:19.440 | not just resonate with former Scientologists.

00:11:21.820 | I want people who are still in

00:11:23.260 | to be able to hear how I talk about it and go,

00:11:25.180 | "Wow, he's being really fair and really accurate.

00:11:28.580 | "He's not just a hater," you know what I mean?

00:11:30.620 | - If you look at the, you know,

00:11:31.900 | let's take one of the worst places on Earth is North Korea.

00:11:35.940 | You have Kim Jong-un.

00:11:37.540 | And the reality is there's a lot of citizens of that nation

00:11:41.220 | that deeply love the leader,

00:11:43.860 | because they've grew up in that way.

00:11:46.500 | And you, I mean, through fear,

00:11:48.020 | through all kinds of manipulation,

00:11:49.100 | through propaganda and so on,

00:11:50.120 | they're not allowed to love members of their own family.

00:11:52.420 | They're not allowed to have romantic love.

00:11:53.760 | They're only allowed to have love for the leader.

00:11:55.820 | And to reach those people,

00:11:57.280 | you have to empathize with the fact that,

00:11:59.460 | in their eyes, in some sense, this is a great man.

00:12:02.940 | This is a god, a messianic figure.

00:12:05.280 | You can't just make fun of the ridiculousness

00:12:08.240 | of the situation that there's this pudgy person

00:12:10.960 | waltzing around creating propaganda.

00:12:13.120 | Like, how is this-- - With a funny haircut.

00:12:14.680 | - With a funny haircut.

00:12:15.640 | Like, it's so easy, and Hitler too,

00:12:18.240 | to make fun of, to make a caricature of the person.

00:12:20.960 | But this is a real person,

00:12:22.800 | a real person that influenced the minds

00:12:25.580 | of millions of people.

00:12:26.780 | In the case of Hitler, you know,

00:12:29.040 | tens of millions of people,

00:12:30.580 | and created a huge amount of suffering.

00:12:33.140 | Not because of the caricature version,

00:12:37.460 | but because he was a charismatic leader.

00:12:39.020 | He was somebody that people deeply, deeply loved.

00:12:41.340 | And that just, over time, I mean,

00:12:43.100 | with the abuse of any kind of ideology,

00:12:46.380 | this happens over and over.

00:12:48.340 | And so, yeah, it's interesting,

00:12:50.380 | because Scientology is so close to the core

00:12:54.380 | of what is America, because so many Americans

00:12:58.260 | are involved with it.

00:12:59.100 | So it's interesting to study the beauty

00:13:02.080 | and the power of the ideas that underlie it,

00:13:04.260 | and where things go wrong.

00:13:05.660 | - Yeah.

00:13:06.780 | And I'll just say, it's interesting to note,

00:13:08.380 | you would never get a representative

00:13:10.380 | of the Church of Scientology to sit down

00:13:12.100 | and have a conversation with you,

00:13:14.020 | and even be as fair and accurate about Scientology

00:13:17.200 | as I'm going to be, which is noteworthy.

00:13:20.100 | - Do you honestly, deeply believe that's the case?

00:13:22.060 | There's not going to be a high-level official

00:13:25.260 | that would sit down for a conversation?

00:13:28.400 | - No.

00:13:30.220 | - I disagree with you.

00:13:31.420 | - I hope you're right.

00:13:32.420 | - Because I think that, given the current dynamics

00:13:35.140 | of what's happening, I think in order to say,

00:13:37.820 | from their perspective, in order to save

00:13:39.940 | the Church of Scientology, they have to be

00:13:43.400 | transparent and authentic, basically still

00:13:45.660 | mend their case, but better.

00:13:47.360 | - You would think so.

00:13:49.020 | - Well, we'll talk about the other ways you could do that,

00:13:51.420 | which is through manipulation, through propaganda,

00:13:53.180 | through controlled media, and all that kind of stuff.

00:13:54.820 | - They paint themselves into a corner

00:13:56.680 | of not being able to send a representative

00:13:59.100 | out into the world to speak honestly about it,

00:14:00.800 | because you're literally not allowed to.

00:14:03.900 | So when faced, you know, if you're just sitting down

00:14:06.420 | with an entertainment journalist,

00:14:08.220 | a representative might be able to fudge their way

00:14:09.900 | through an interview, but sitting down

00:14:12.380 | for a long-form format interview with someone

00:14:16.740 | who is gonna ask them about Zinu and the body thetans

00:14:21.120 | and Leah Remini and Lisa McPherson, that's a no-go zone.

00:14:25.820 | So I'm representing why it will never happen,

00:14:28.220 | but shit, I would tune in for that interview.

00:14:30.100 | I mean, I hope you do get someone.

00:14:31.700 | - You don't think David Miscavige would sit down

00:14:33.300 | for an interview?

00:14:34.480 | - I would love to be wrong.

00:14:35.660 | - You know, in general, journalists in these kinds

00:14:37.340 | of situations can be, can attack in ways

00:14:42.460 | that doesn't empathize and doesn't come from a place

00:14:44.780 | of deep knowledge and understanding.

00:14:46.620 | And I think it's possible to have serious conversations

00:14:49.380 | with people like that in an empathetic way,

00:14:52.580 | but it's also in a challenging way.

00:14:54.140 | I think there's a huge amount of trust required.

00:14:56.700 | And obviously for a very secretive organization,

00:15:00.820 | the amount of trust, yes, might be too much required.

00:15:04.620 | - Anyone over there, if they've done their homework knows,

00:15:06.740 | you're gonna be as fair as anyone

00:15:08.540 | in the world's going to be.

00:15:10.220 | And yet, they're simply things they're not allowed

00:15:13.220 | to talk about, and they're not even allowed to say,

00:15:14.940 | I'm not allowed to talk about it.

00:15:16.260 | - So that's a fundamental part of the church

00:15:18.620 | of Scientology is the secrecy.

00:15:20.340 | - Yeah.

00:15:21.420 | - So that's where you're trained as you go up

00:15:23.140 | through the ranks, is secrecy, secrecy.

00:15:25.100 | - It's not even a matter of training.

00:15:26.140 | It's that there's an entire, the entire upper half

00:15:29.000 | of Scientology's bridge is simply confidential.

00:15:31.700 | I mean, and I never even did those levels

00:15:33.340 | when I was in Scientology.

00:15:34.500 | I didn't learn what Scientologists actually believe

00:15:37.680 | on those upper levels until after I got out of Scientology,

00:15:40.400 | and I was fricking born and raised in it.

00:15:42.500 | - Let's go there.

00:15:43.340 | Let's go to your personal story.

00:15:44.420 | So you've spent 30 years in Scientology.

00:15:47.360 | - Yeah, I was four years old when my mom got in.

00:15:50.200 | - And then about seven years ago, got out.

00:15:53.320 | - Yeah.

00:15:54.160 | - And you're on what, YouTube channel now?

00:15:56.140 | And you're an educator.

00:15:57.420 | - So I was four years old when my mom got introduced

00:15:59.320 | to Scientology, and she got in really fast, really quick.

00:16:03.400 | So, but I was 12 years old when I was taken out of school

00:16:06.720 | and started officially full-time working for Scientology.

00:16:09.600 | Okay, so in various capacities, I worked for them

00:16:12.480 | from the ages of 12 to the age of 26.

00:16:15.640 | - Yeah.

00:16:16.480 | - Okay, so, and then I was 34 when I officially

00:16:21.480 | parted ways with Scientology, which was really more

00:16:24.860 | them officially parting ways with me,

00:16:26.200 | but we can get into all that later.

00:16:27.800 | That's just kinda how Scientology does it.

00:16:29.400 | - And what do you do now in terms of Scientology?

00:16:32.480 | - So now I run, growing up in Scientology,

00:16:34.400 | the YouTube channel, but what I primarily do

00:16:36.920 | is I help run an organization that helps people

00:16:39.380 | who are escaping from Scientology.

00:16:41.120 | I'm the vice president of the Aftermath Foundation.

00:16:44.280 | And we created the foundation after the television show

00:16:47.960 | Leah Remini, Scientology in the Aftermath.

00:16:50.880 | And there was such an outpouring of support

00:16:53.520 | from non-Scientologists all over the world.

00:16:56.000 | What can we do to help people leave Scientology?

00:16:59.460 | That we decided to create a foundation,

00:17:01.920 | and it's been incredibly successful.

00:17:04.160 | We've helped people escape from all regions

00:17:06.920 | and echelons of Scientology.

00:17:08.920 | We've accomplished, what we've accomplished

00:17:11.840 | is far beyond what we actually envisioned

00:17:14.560 | would be possible.

00:17:15.400 | It's been a huge success.

00:17:16.680 | - So we'll talk about the negative aspect,

00:17:18.840 | the abuses of power, but let's just explore

00:17:20.880 | the ideas a little bit more.

00:17:22.960 | So the public facing three fundamental truths

00:17:26.280 | of Scientology, maybe correct me if I'm wrong.

00:17:30.280 | Man is an immortal spiritual being,

00:17:32.000 | like we said with Thetans.

00:17:33.960 | His experience extends well beyond a single lifetime,

00:17:36.840 | so infinite memory backwards.

00:17:38.960 | His capabilities are unlimited,

00:17:40.600 | even if not presently realized.

00:17:43.280 | The capabilities are unlimited.

00:17:45.600 | - So when I say godlike, I really just mean,

00:17:47.860 | you know, Thanos, like unlimited.

00:17:51.480 | Scientologists don't believe in a god.

00:17:53.460 | So when I say godlike, I just mean the most powerful entity,

00:17:57.800 | the creator, the prime mover unmoved,

00:17:59.960 | except we are all that.

00:18:01.440 | You know, a Thetan in Scientology,

00:18:04.520 | a Thetan has no position in space or time.

00:18:07.000 | A Thetan does not actually exist in the physical universe.

00:18:10.040 | It might choose to locate itself

00:18:12.560 | in the physical universe, right?

00:18:14.520 | And then forget that it made that decision

00:18:16.220 | and then sort of get caught and trapped

00:18:17.660 | in the physical universe.

00:18:18.960 | But that once the Thetan is restored to its native powers,

00:18:23.960 | everything you see here in the physical universe

00:18:27.080 | is just a Thetan playing a game.

00:18:29.540 | Like literally, we are in a simulation right now

00:18:31.440 | of some Thetan.

00:18:32.360 | So like physics doesn't have to make sense

00:18:34.420 | when we're talking about it this way.

00:18:35.640 | Like technically you're a Thetan, I'm a Thetan, we're here,

00:18:38.360 | but this could also all just be another Thetan's game.

00:18:40.960 | - So Thetan's all the way down.

00:18:42.400 | - Yeah, it's just Thetan's everywhere,

00:18:44.080 | Thetan's, it all comes down to the Thetan.

00:18:46.260 | - Is there an idea of a god?

00:18:48.360 | 'Cause I read there's a kind of,

00:18:50.040 | there is a sense of a supreme being.

00:18:52.320 | Is that basically the Thetan that's at the core,

00:18:55.320 | at the bottom of it all?

00:18:56.360 | - Yes.

00:18:58.200 | - Not defined, undefined.

00:18:59.940 | - Correct.

00:19:00.780 | Scientology has this concept of the dynamics,

00:19:02.980 | how Ron Hubbard breaks life into eight different dynamics.

00:19:05.740 | And the dynamic meaning a thrust towards survival.

00:19:09.740 | So he would say, you know, the first dynamic is you yourself,

00:19:12.820 | second dynamic is your family,

00:19:14.180 | third dynamic is any other group

00:19:16.140 | that you're a part of other than your family.

00:19:17.900 | Fourth dynamic is all humankind.

00:19:20.300 | The fifth dynamic is plant and animal life,

00:19:21.980 | all non-human life.

00:19:24.020 | Sixth dynamic is the physical world.

00:19:26.460 | Seventh dynamic is sort of like spirituality,

00:19:28.900 | collectively, Thetans, us as Thetans.

00:19:31.580 | And the eighth dynamic,

00:19:33.540 | Al Ron Hubbard says,

00:19:34.380 | "Scientology doesn't deal with the eighth dynamic."

00:19:36.300 | But we recognize that people have this idea

00:19:38.780 | of a supreme being.

00:19:40.420 | And so Scientology says,

00:19:41.700 | "You can call the eighth dynamic the supreme being dynamic,

00:19:44.700 | "but we call it infinity."

00:19:46.420 | Just the allness of everything without having to define it.

00:19:49.460 | And then they sort of do a little dance

00:19:51.140 | and they're like, "Scientology,

00:19:53.080 | "the purpose of Scientology is to get you to the point

00:19:55.580 | "where you have your own understandings or realizations

00:19:58.220 | "about the nature of the eighth dynamic.

00:20:00.040 | "We don't tell you what you have to believe about that."

00:20:02.700 | And technically speaking, that is true.

00:20:05.140 | Technically speaking, that is true.

00:20:06.580 | There's no point in Scientology where they sit you down

00:20:08.500 | and say you're now required to revoke your belief

00:20:10.380 | in a supreme being.

00:20:11.580 | It's just that everything in Scientology

00:20:13.300 | is inconsistent with a belief in the supreme being.

00:20:17.300 | You can still find Scientologists

00:20:18.940 | who, through cognitive dissonance,

00:20:20.260 | will tell you they believe in a supreme being.

00:20:21.900 | Mostly, they're lying to you.

00:20:23.620 | - How is this inconsistent with a supreme being?

00:20:25.340 | 'Cause like, thetans--

00:20:26.380 | - Because thetans have created everything, not God.

00:20:28.940 | - Okay, so thetans created, they're also a creative force.

00:20:33.060 | They're not just the force that runs everything.

00:20:34.900 | - Right.

00:20:35.740 | - But can't those be just the fingertips of a God?

00:20:38.220 | - Sure.

00:20:39.180 | The only way you could reconcile a supreme being

00:20:43.580 | is if you say a single supreme being created all theta.

00:20:48.580 | - Yeah.

00:20:50.340 | - Like the spiritual Big Bang.

00:20:51.860 | - Yep.

00:20:52.700 | - But that's not what most people think

00:20:53.620 | when they talk about God.

00:20:55.420 | They're talking about a creator of--

00:20:58.580 | - The physical universe.

00:20:59.580 | - Yes.

00:21:00.420 | - That there's no theta.

00:21:01.380 | - Right.

00:21:02.820 | I mean, even as I've described Scientology so far,

00:21:05.420 | none of what I've said is something

00:21:06.620 | I even subject to ridicule.

00:21:08.540 | This is pretty common sense stuff, actually.

00:21:10.140 | I mean, if you believe in spirituality or spirits at all,

00:21:13.100 | there's nothing I've described so far that's crazy.

00:21:15.700 | - Yeah.

00:21:16.540 | - You know, believing in past lives

00:21:17.980 | isn't particularly unique or special.

00:21:20.100 | - Right.

00:21:21.500 | - The fact that Scientology does this little dance

00:21:23.940 | of pretending to believe in a God,

00:21:26.100 | I mean, it's even like a PR line.

00:21:27.580 | Scientology representatives will tell you

00:21:29.700 | you can be a Christian and be a Scientologist.

00:21:32.020 | Well, let me tell you what.

00:21:33.100 | Christians don't believe in past lives

00:21:35.180 | and lives on other galaxies and planets and universes.

00:21:39.620 | And Scientology knows that.

00:21:40.700 | Scientology knows you can't be a Christian

00:21:42.320 | and be a Scientologist, but they will say that.

00:21:44.060 | It's just an example of sort of the fundamental

00:21:45.500 | baked in dishonesty.

00:21:46.580 | - Because it's so important to Scientology

00:21:48.300 | on the organization level to have tax exempt status,

00:21:52.420 | I wonder, do you know the process of what it takes

00:21:55.780 | to prove that an organization is a religion?

00:21:58.660 | - While going through that process with the IRS,

00:22:01.020 | for the second time, by the way,

00:22:02.340 | Scientology actually had tax exemption in the early days

00:22:04.620 | and the IRS pulled it, and then they got it back in 1993.

00:22:08.260 | While going through that process again,

00:22:10.260 | the IRS actually took issue with the fact

00:22:13.500 | that Scientology was claiming you could be a Scientologist

00:22:16.380 | and a member of another religion.

00:22:17.580 | The IRS actually said, pump the brakes there.

00:22:20.820 | If you're gonna say that,

00:22:22.820 | we're gonna say you're not a religion.

00:22:24.940 | And they actually put in writing to the IRS,

00:22:27.780 | no, no, no, no, no, that's not what we meant.

00:22:28.980 | That's not what we meant.

00:22:30.220 | We meant in the beginning, you can be both,

00:22:34.460 | but eventually, you just have to be a Scientologist.

00:22:37.300 | - So you mentioned the eight dynamics,

00:22:40.780 | but you also mentioned survival.

00:22:42.600 | So that seems to be a core principle

00:22:44.700 | that human existence is about survival.

00:22:48.180 | Can you elaborate what is meant by survival?

00:22:50.580 | Are we talking about the survival of the human species,

00:22:52.700 | survival of the individual humans,

00:22:54.740 | survival of the manifestation of thetans in human form?

00:22:59.740 | What's survival?

00:23:01.660 | - So it would be all of that,

00:23:02.780 | because survival is the dominant force

00:23:06.260 | across all the dynamics.

00:23:07.540 | L. Ron Hubbard, it was either Dianetics

00:23:10.620 | or Science of Survival.

00:23:12.220 | He says he discovered the principle

00:23:16.300 | upon which all life exists,

00:23:18.420 | and that is all life, no matter what it is trying to do,

00:23:22.260 | are you ready, Lex?

00:23:23.660 | It's trying to survive.

00:23:25.380 | - That's pretty powerful.

00:23:26.620 | That's pretty powerful.

00:23:27.460 | (Lex laughing)

00:23:28.300 | - Is it?

00:23:29.140 | - No, I gotta tell you, I gotta--

00:23:30.660 | - You might get me back in, Lex.

00:23:32.020 | - No, I'm not trying to get you back in.

00:23:33.800 | I'm trying to get you to take seriously

00:23:36.860 | the power of the ideas behind Scientology,

00:23:39.220 | because I think those ideas are not bad ideas.

00:23:43.740 | They resonate with a lot of ideas throughout philosophy,

00:23:46.460 | throughout religions,

00:23:47.280 | throughout the history of human civilization.

00:23:49.660 | The interesting aspect is how it goes wrong.

00:23:52.140 | - But here's the thing, Lex, here's the thing.

00:23:53.460 | It is consistent with prior efforts or studies.

00:23:58.140 | It's just that L. Ron Hubbard said

00:23:59.700 | this was a watershed breakthrough

00:24:01.140 | that was being discovered for the first time.

00:24:02.820 | That's kind of what I'm mocking, really.

00:24:04.620 | - Yeah, but you can mock Nietzsche for saying,

00:24:06.820 | "Man is will to power."

00:24:08.260 | You can mock Freud.

00:24:09.100 | - But did he claim to be the first person to ever say it?

00:24:10.980 | - Well, Nietzsche, he had a bit of an ego, so.

00:24:13.380 | (Lex laughing)

00:24:14.460 | And he's full of contradictions,

00:24:15.660 | but I'm pretty sure the implied thing

00:24:18.900 | is that he was the first to say it.

00:24:22.340 | There's a lot of scientists.

00:24:23.500 | There's one of the people I really admire,

00:24:25.180 | Stephen Wolfram, who wrote a book

00:24:29.060 | called "A New Kind of Science"

00:24:31.100 | that explores complex systems and cellular automata

00:24:34.540 | and these mathematical systems

00:24:35.740 | that have been explored before,

00:24:37.460 | but he boldly kind of defined,

00:24:39.380 | "I am presenting to you a whole new way

00:24:41.420 | "to look at the world."

00:24:42.620 | And if you just set a little bit of the ego

00:24:45.620 | behind that aside,

00:24:46.620 | there's actually beautiful ideas in there.

00:24:48.460 | They have, of course, been done before and explored before,

00:24:51.020 | but sometimes people declare this is the coolest.

00:24:54.140 | - That's the only thing I'm really mocking is he said,

00:24:55.840 | "This discovery that life is trying to survive

00:24:58.240 | "is greater than the discovery of fire."

00:25:00.220 | Okay, I mean, it gets a little silly, but that's fine.

00:25:02.300 | We can agree that the fact that life is trying to survive

00:25:05.420 | has meaning and is meaningful and is valuable,

00:25:07.660 | and it's true.

00:25:09.020 | I mean, life is trying to survive.

00:25:10.660 | - Also, there's a non-trivial definition

00:25:12.180 | of what is life here.

00:25:14.120 | So this idea of a thing that permeates through lifetimes,

00:25:18.620 | through people, there's some fabric

00:25:21.220 | that is bigger than the individual biological bags of meat.

00:25:25.340 | That's a philosophically interesting idea.

00:25:28.100 | Of course, if it's not grounded in a little bit more

00:25:31.340 | physical reality, then it becomes a little too woo-woo.

00:25:35.380 | And the way L. Ron Hubbard in Scientology

00:25:36.820 | defines survival is very much intertwined

00:25:38.580 | with how they define ethics.

00:25:39.940 | Ethics, anything to be ethical is pro-survival.

00:25:44.080 | To be unethical is counter-survival.

00:25:46.780 | But we were talking about just the concept of the dynamics,

00:25:48.900 | like what does survival refer to?

00:25:50.400 | And it actually does refer to all of them,

00:25:52.140 | but just keep in mind when it comes to the seventh dynamic,

00:25:54.740 | Thetans collectively, involved in here is the idea

00:25:58.300 | that a Thetan cannot die.

00:26:00.860 | There's no such thing as killing a Thetan.

00:26:02.620 | A Thetan can only survive.

00:26:05.860 | And so, anyway, this concept of the dynamics

00:26:10.140 | is one of the most fundamental and important concepts

00:26:12.780 | in Scientology.

00:26:14.060 | But because I mentioned that it also gets tied up

00:26:16.060 | with ethics, and this probably speaks

00:26:18.620 | to what you were just talking about,

00:26:19.520 | is you can have the ideas and the concepts,

00:26:21.340 | and you can have how do they go wrong,

00:26:23.620 | because they hold that Scientology, applying Scientology,

00:26:28.620 | getting people into Scientology,

00:26:30.900 | is the key to basically saving

00:26:33.980 | every spiritual being in existence.

00:26:36.240 | When you're analyzing what is ethical,

00:26:39.860 | it becomes whatever's good for Scientology

00:26:42.940 | becomes by definition ethical,

00:26:46.080 | because anything that's good for Scientology,

00:26:48.260 | which is a third dynamic, is inherently good

00:26:50.800 | for all the dynamics.

00:26:52.280 | So that's where you get the ends justifying the means

00:26:55.580 | to do anything possible, use any means necessary

00:26:59.020 | to forward the aims of Scientology.

00:27:00.420 | - That's kind of where a lot of Soviet implementation

00:27:03.540 | of communism went wrong, is the ends justify the means.

00:27:07.140 | The equality, the justice for the workers,

00:27:10.500 | if we have to kill, murder, imprison, censor,

00:27:14.460 | in the name of that, then it's for the greater good

00:27:17.820 | in the long term to achieve the ideal of communism.

00:27:21.100 | - In some respects, Scientology created

00:27:22.700 | a near-perfect communist experiment in its C organization.

00:27:26.440 | What is it, from everyone according to their ability

00:27:28.180 | to each according to their need or something like that?

00:27:30.980 | Scientology's C organization is damn near

00:27:33.220 | a perfect communist experiment.

00:27:34.780 | Coming from someone who doesn't necessarily know

00:27:37.420 | what a perfect communist experiment really is,

00:27:39.060 | 'cause I grew up in a cult, Lex.

00:27:40.420 | - You can't keep using it as an excuse.

00:27:42.620 | - It's a funny tagline I use in my videos.

00:27:44.220 | - I like it.

00:27:45.060 | - But it is interesting that an organization

00:27:47.980 | that is so hyper-capitalist and so money-hungry

00:27:51.020 | and is known to be very wealthy,

00:27:52.460 | at its core is run by this group of C org members

00:27:55.060 | that live a communist lifestyle.

00:27:58.260 | - We're gonna jump around.

00:27:59.220 | Let's go, what is C org?

00:28:00.500 | What is C organization?

00:28:01.420 | What is this organization?

00:28:02.260 | - The C organization is the most dedicated version,

00:28:04.780 | the most dedicated brand of Scientologists.

00:28:06.900 | So there's three echelons of Scientologists.

00:28:11.900 | There's public, who just live normal lives

00:28:14.260 | in the real world and they pay

00:28:15.500 | to do Scientology courses and auditing.

00:28:17.780 | Then there's staff members, who also live in the real world,

00:28:20.880 | but work on two-and-a-half-year contracts

00:28:24.060 | or five-year contracts at their local Scientology

00:28:26.060 | organization, and then once they finish their contract,

00:28:28.020 | their debt is paid or whatever.

00:28:29.940 | And then there's the C org members.

00:28:31.200 | These are the guys who sign the billion-year contracts.

00:28:34.340 | They don't have lives in the outside world.

00:28:35.980 | They don't own property.

00:28:37.080 | They live in Scientology-provided housing.

00:28:38.980 | They eat in Scientology-run cafeterias.

00:28:41.900 | - Is there an actual contract that says a billion years?

00:28:44.380 | - It's symbolic, but yes.

00:28:46.140 | Like, no, it's not a legally enforceable contract.

00:28:48.700 | (laughing)

00:28:50.220 | They haven't succeeded in enforcing it

00:28:51.540 | in any subsequent lifetimes yet.

00:28:54.020 | - Marriage contracts should be like that.

00:28:55.740 | A billion years.

00:28:56.580 | 'Cause not until death do us part,

00:28:58.660 | but a billion years, it really makes it very concrete

00:29:01.660 | of what you're signing up for.

00:29:02.700 | - Yeah, those are the billion-year guys.

00:29:04.760 | You hear a lot about the billion-year contract,

00:29:06.340 | the billion-year contract.

00:29:07.220 | That's the C org.

00:29:08.420 | And all of Scientology management,

00:29:11.780 | international management, middle management,

00:29:13.380 | continental management, and even some lower-level

00:29:15.960 | service orgs, are composed 100% of C org members.

00:29:20.540 | You're not allowed to marry or date someone

00:29:22.740 | who's not in the C org.

00:29:24.260 | You're also not allowed to have children.

00:29:26.920 | - With anybody outside of C org or in general,

00:29:28.580 | you're not allowed to have children?

00:29:29.540 | - C org members are not allowed to have children

00:29:31.180 | unless they leave the C org.

00:29:32.340 | If you're expected to have an abortion

00:29:35.940 | and stay in the C org, 'cause it's the greatest good

00:29:37.500 | for Scientology, if you accidentally get pregnant.

00:29:40.380 | - Interesting, 'cause it distracts

00:29:41.600 | from the focus of the work.

00:29:42.880 | - Yeah.

00:29:43.740 | - What about sexual relations?

00:29:45.320 | - Only once married.

00:29:46.460 | But that's why people get married after like three days.

00:29:48.680 | You're like, "Hey, you, you look."

00:29:50.140 | - You look all right, let's get married.

00:29:51.700 | - Are you allowed to have divorce?

00:29:53.400 | - Yeah, you get divorced a lot in the C org.

00:29:55.380 | I've known people who get married and divorced

00:29:56.860 | three times by the age of 25.

00:29:59.500 | - Oh, wow.

00:30:00.340 | - Because in the C org, getting married

00:30:01.580 | is practically like dating.

00:30:03.340 | - Right.

00:30:04.160 | - Also, unless you're married, you're living in dorms

00:30:06.640 | with a bunch of other people.

00:30:07.780 | So in order to get your own room,

00:30:09.100 | you also have to get married.

00:30:10.660 | So there's many benefits.

00:30:12.460 | - Oh, wow, okay.

00:30:13.880 | So you mentioned communism.

00:30:16.540 | In which way, 'cause is there a hierarchy inside C org?

00:30:20.940 | Is there a redistribution of influence,

00:30:24.180 | position, money, power inside C org?

00:30:28.080 | - Everyone in the C org makes $50 a week.

00:30:30.900 | Everybody, except David Miscavige.

00:30:32.620 | - Right.

00:30:33.460 | - And some posts might have a cash bonus incentive structure,

00:30:38.460 | but fundamentally their pay is $50 a week.

00:30:41.240 | So even the head of a big Scientology organization,

00:30:46.300 | is getting 50 bucks a week.

00:30:48.020 | - Are celebrities also part of C org or not usually?

00:30:52.260 | So this is really the management layer.

00:30:54.160 | So what's the idea behind $50 a week?

00:30:58.020 | Is that basically live a humble life?

00:31:00.700 | - They don't have to give you anything at all.

00:31:02.100 | It's just, oh, you mean like,

00:31:03.260 | what's the idea behind not paying?

00:31:04.980 | - Yeah, basically not paying.

00:31:06.460 | - Everything you need is already being provided for you.

00:31:09.460 | You're not here for the money.

00:31:11.460 | You're working all the time anyway.

00:31:12.580 | It's not like you don't have days off.

00:31:14.140 | I mean, you're working all the time.

00:31:15.940 | There's no concept of the weekends.

00:31:18.860 | There's no, oh, thank God it's Friday.

00:31:20.740 | Friday is just another day.

00:31:21.940 | - And how are the position, the tasks,

00:31:23.460 | the jobs allocated within the C org?

00:31:26.660 | - What do you mean?

00:31:27.500 | - Like what kind of tasks you're doing?

00:31:29.060 | What kind of stuff you're doing?

00:31:30.620 | - It's very similar to just any other business,

00:31:33.700 | as far as you can have your human resources,

00:31:35.460 | you can have your sales, you can have your accounting,

00:31:37.100 | your operations, your quality control.

00:31:39.220 | It's just that in Scientology,

00:31:40.220 | your operations is delivering courses and auditing.

00:31:43.780 | So your operations and your quality control

00:31:47.100 | where most of the activity occurs

00:31:49.300 | as far as delivering Scientology.

00:31:52.220 | And then you've got your, you'd call it business development,

00:31:55.020 | but that's just bringing in new members, right?

00:31:57.300 | So the function of Scientology's organization

00:32:01.620 | is very comparable to a normal business

00:32:06.260 | in the normal world.

00:32:07.940 | - So let's talk about the products of this business,

00:32:10.820 | auditing and courses.

00:32:11.900 | So what's auditing?

00:32:13.340 | - So auditing is, so we described earlier,

00:32:15.580 | Dianetics auditing, Scientology auditing

00:32:18.260 | is very similar to that.

00:32:19.860 | - So at first glance, it looks like psychotherapy,

00:32:23.620 | a kind of therapy.

00:32:24.860 | - All Scientology auditing is going to look like that.

00:32:28.640 | It's one-on-one talk therapy.

00:32:31.120 | You're in a room by yourselves, no distraction, no noise.

00:32:35.660 | - One-on-one?

00:32:36.500 | - Yeah.

00:32:37.420 | - So like this?

00:32:38.260 | - Yeah, and in Scientology,

00:32:39.660 | they have what's called an E-meter.

00:32:41.820 | - Right.

00:32:42.660 | - Almost all auditing employs the use of an E-meter.

00:32:45.100 | - What's an E-meter?

00:32:46.620 | - So an E-meter is a device that just measures

00:32:50.980 | the resistance to a small electrical flow,

00:32:53.420 | except Scientologists believe that this E-meter

00:32:55.500 | can be used to simply direct the progress

00:32:57.940 | of an auditing session, to determine whether

00:33:00.140 | the auditing has reached a good, satisfactory conclusion.

00:33:08.420 | All auditing sessions have to end

00:33:11.460 | on a satisfactory conclusion.

00:33:13.660 | Like, that's the job of the auditor.

00:33:15.300 | You don't just, it's not like,

00:33:16.500 | sorry, the session sucked, see you next week.

00:33:18.020 | It's not like that.

00:33:18.980 | Every auditing session has to end on a positive note,

00:33:23.540 | and if it doesn't, there's corrections to be made.

00:33:26.780 | So the E-meter--

00:33:28.700 | - What does it look like visually?

00:33:30.060 | - Oh, you can pull it up.

00:33:31.300 | Pull up mark eight, E-meter mark eight.

00:33:35.100 | So there's a few dials.

00:33:36.980 | - Yeah.

00:33:38.060 | - There's basic information about time and duration,

00:33:41.740 | I'm presuming, and then a dial

00:33:43.060 | that just goes zero to something.

00:33:45.100 | - Okay, so let's say that the meter's in front of me

00:33:47.780 | and you're the one holding the cans.

00:33:49.700 | - I'm holding the cans, so you're doing the auditing of me.

00:33:52.540 | - Yeah. - Okay.

00:33:53.380 | I'm holding the cans.

00:33:54.700 | - No, literally, in the beginning of an auditing session,

00:33:56.420 | when you're calibrating the sensitivity of the E-meter,

00:33:59.100 | you do a can squeeze.

00:34:00.380 | So I go, squeeze the cans, please.

00:34:01.740 | - Okay, so I'm just like squeezing the cans.

00:34:03.300 | - And I'm just changing the sensitivity,

00:34:04.660 | 'cause when you squeeze the cans,

00:34:05.620 | I wanna get about a one third of a dial drop on the needle.

00:34:08.140 | The idea is, if the needle's too sensitive,

00:34:10.740 | then every time you shift around in your chair,

00:34:12.540 | the needle's gonna bounce all over the place.

00:34:13.900 | So you're trying to set the sensitivity of this thing.

00:34:16.180 | And that's all, the knob there on the bottom to the left,

00:34:19.980 | that's the sensitivity knob.

00:34:21.900 | And that determines just how sensitive

00:34:24.820 | the needle's gonna be.

00:34:26.020 | And the bigger dial is called the tone arm,

00:34:30.140 | and that is changing, I wanna say voltage or current,

00:34:34.300 | but I'm not intending, I'm gonna get

00:34:35.580 | one of those words is wrong, right?

00:34:36.740 | - But it is a real device.

00:34:38.140 | - It's a real device.

00:34:38.980 | - That you can actually calibrate to probably,

00:34:43.760 | you know, get an outcome that you want.

00:34:46.820 | - Yeah, so here's even how just how a Scientology auditor

00:34:49.180 | believes it works.

00:34:50.280 | You're holding the cans, there's a tiny little battery

00:34:53.100 | in that E-meter that's sending,

00:34:54.300 | you're completing the circuit

00:34:55.300 | when you pick up the cans, right?

00:34:56.420 | So you got a little thing going there,

00:34:58.460 | and that needle will respond to your physical movement,

00:35:02.060 | but that's not what we want.

00:35:03.100 | We want you to sit the hell still

00:35:04.380 | so that we can read this thing

00:35:05.620 | when I'm asking you questions, okay?

00:35:07.860 | - So you're sitting there still, very still.

00:35:10.360 | - As still as you can, comfortable, right?

00:35:12.860 | And I'm gonna go, is there something

00:35:13.980 | you're withholding from me?

00:35:15.300 | And what I'm looking for is right when I say

00:35:17.220 | at the end of me, I'm looking for the needle

00:35:18.860 | to dip to the right.

00:35:19.900 | - Having a needle, even if it's kind of random,

00:35:22.300 | can really be like a catalyst for conversation.

00:35:27.060 | - That's what it's used for,

00:35:28.900 | except it's an enforced conversation.

00:35:30.780 | So I'll give you a really good example of this.

00:35:33.060 | So you're holding the cans.

00:35:35.980 | Say, is there anything you're withholding from me?

00:35:38.780 | And I get an instant read.

00:35:40.900 | And I go, is there anything you're withholding from me?

00:35:43.060 | You're gonna go, I don't think so.

00:35:44.660 | - And I don't see the needle.

00:35:45.900 | - No, you don't see the needle.

00:35:47.740 | I go, well, what did you think of

00:35:49.680 | when I asked you the question?

00:35:50.820 | Now, if you've already had a lot of auditing,

00:35:52.140 | you know how this goes.

00:35:53.100 | It means I got an instant read,

00:35:54.300 | and we're not going to move on

00:35:56.760 | until this question gets resolved.

00:35:58.580 | Okay, so you're gonna go,

00:35:59.420 | I don't know what I was thinking of.

00:36:00.860 | And then I'm gonna be like, you know,

00:36:02.300 | take a look and I'll help you out here.

00:36:03.700 | I'll try to steer you.

00:36:05.180 | Okay, so I'm looking to get roughly the same read

00:36:07.060 | while you're thinking about whatever.

00:36:09.020 | I'm going, what was that?

00:36:10.340 | What was that right there?

00:36:11.420 | - And you can start digging to what?

00:36:13.580 | You can start-

00:36:14.420 | - I just want an answer to the question.

00:36:16.300 | Okay.

00:36:17.140 | - And I can go to memory.

00:36:18.220 | - Yeah, and you can give me any answer you want.

00:36:20.180 | There's no way for me to know

00:36:21.060 | if you're giving me the right answer,

00:36:22.340 | but I want you to give me something.

00:36:23.900 | - Yeah.

00:36:24.740 | - If you say you can't give me anything,

00:36:25.580 | I'm gonna keep using the emulator

00:36:26.580 | until you give me something.

00:36:27.620 | - Yeah.

00:36:28.460 | - Okay, so let's say you give me something.

00:36:30.720 | I'm gonna get all the details about that.

00:36:32.860 | And until like time, place, form, and event,

00:36:35.580 | I wanna know everything that happened.

00:36:36.420 | I wanna know all the details.

00:36:37.460 | And by the way, I'm writing all this down.

00:36:38.580 | So I'm taking notes of everything you're telling me

00:36:40.020 | that it's a bad thing that you did

00:36:41.300 | that you haven't told me about.

00:36:42.980 | Okay, so I'm keeping notes.

00:36:44.660 | When you represent to me

00:36:45.580 | that you've told me everything there is to tell,

00:36:47.420 | I'm looking for the needle

00:36:49.660 | to give like a smooth back and forth motion like this.

00:36:53.100 | And Scientology calls that a floating needle.

00:36:55.300 | That means in Scientology land, we're done with that.

00:36:59.580 | So now I might go back to check the question.

00:37:01.200 | Okay, good, I'll check the question again.

00:37:02.320 | Is there anything you're withholding from me?

00:37:04.200 | Ooh, if I get another read,

00:37:05.120 | we gotta go through the process again.

00:37:06.760 | Okay, if you tell me I've told you everything

00:37:09.520 | and I don't get a floating needle,

00:37:10.800 | I've gotta go, okay, is there an earlier similar thing?

00:37:15.800 | Have you basically done an earlier similar thing?

00:37:17.560 | Is there an earlier similar time

00:37:18.620 | you haven't told someone something?

00:37:19.640 | Or is there an earlier similar thing

00:37:21.040 | that you did to the thing that you just told me?

00:37:23.560 | We're gonna keep going earlier similar,

00:37:25.760 | earlier similar, earlier similar

00:37:27.200 | until I get a floating needle.

00:37:28.880 | And that's where, explaining it this way,

00:37:31.380 | you can see how no matter what

00:37:33.240 | the specific auditing session happens to be about,

00:37:36.360 | there's still the potential in any auditing session

00:37:38.100 | that you're going into past lives.

00:37:40.260 | Just because you have to go earlier similar

00:37:42.700 | until you get a floating needle.

00:37:44.060 | Okay, now here's how Scientologists think

00:37:47.740 | the e-meter actually works.

00:37:48.980 | Meaning, why does the e-meter work?

00:37:50.900 | So we talked before about these mental pictures, right?

00:37:55.180 | These recordings, okay?

00:37:56.940 | Well, we spoke about engrams,

00:37:58.440 | just recordings of pain and unconsciousness.

00:38:01.160 | Well, Scientology would hold the bad recordings

00:38:05.320 | aren't the only recordings that you have.

00:38:07.560 | Those are just the recordings in your reactive mind.

00:38:09.740 | You also have an analytical mind,

00:38:11.480 | which is just your conscious memory,

00:38:13.920 | conscious recording of everything from present time

00:38:15.740 | to the last 76 trillion years.

00:38:17.900 | And Hubbard would say that these memories

00:38:20.680 | are actually a perfectly detailed recording.

00:38:23.560 | And he says like 56 perceptions or something.

00:38:26.120 | And that it's perfect.

00:38:28.000 | And you can access that information,

00:38:31.540 | you just have trouble doing so.

00:38:33.120 | Okay, so he says that these recordings,

00:38:35.400 | these mental pictures have actual electrical charge and mass.

00:38:38.680 | Now you asked before,

00:38:40.400 | is there any actual physics in this?

00:38:42.040 | I don't know, where are you supposed to store

00:38:43.800 | the pictures of your last 76 trillion years

00:38:45.820 | that have charge and mass?

00:38:47.840 | I don't see it, but Hubbard says it's there, okay.

00:38:50.560 | So he says that these things have mass.

00:38:54.560 | And when you recall them or put attention on them,

00:38:58.200 | you create an electrical flow,

00:39:00.360 | which maybe through magnetic fields or whatever,

00:39:02.920 | impinges upon the electrical flow of the e-meter

00:39:07.920 | and it shows up as a read on the needle.

00:39:10.020 | That's how Scientologists believe

00:39:12.520 | that's why the needle reads.

00:39:15.480 | Now cynics would say the needle only reads

00:39:17.920 | on palm sweat and movement.

00:39:20.600 | Well I know that's not true.

00:39:23.080 | I can't tell you everything the needle does read on,

00:39:26.640 | but I can tell you it's not just

00:39:29.160 | moving your hands and sweaty hands.

00:39:31.120 | - It does correlate to thoughts probably.

00:39:33.580 | - Some way, somehow.

00:39:35.040 | - 'Cause if it didn't correlate to thoughts,

00:39:36.400 | then this process would be way too inefficient.

00:39:39.780 | 'Cause there's going to be a bunch of people

00:39:43.720 | who are just not, you're not gonna get the,

00:39:46.160 | what is it called, the floating needle.

00:39:48.320 | Like no matter what.

00:39:49.680 | - I can't explain to you how you get a floating needle,

00:39:52.320 | but it sure as hell isn't hand sweat

00:39:54.160 | and it sure as hell isn't squeezing the cans.

00:39:55.960 | - Right, so you eventually,

00:39:57.160 | most people will get to the floating needle.

00:39:59.320 | And somehow-- - You get floating needles.

00:40:00.760 | - There's like a feed,

00:40:01.600 | there probably is a feedback mechanism

00:40:03.240 | that you're, each person realizes

00:40:06.040 | how their mind and body,

00:40:08.480 | 'cause you want a resolution, right?

00:40:10.240 | It's probably-- - You want your needle to float.

00:40:11.760 | - For both people. - Yes.

00:40:13.400 | - And it's probably a great experience

00:40:14.920 | when you're like, yes, it's a gamified feeling, right?

00:40:17.600 | - Well when you're training on how to use the e-meter,

00:40:19.480 | there are drills where you practice

00:40:22.120 | generating with your mind various needle reactions.

00:40:25.200 | So there is a drill where you sit there

00:40:27.160 | and you consciously try to create a floating needle

00:40:29.120 | by recalling happy thoughts.

00:40:31.080 | You go to your happy place,

00:40:32.960 | and at the end of every auditing session,

00:40:34.380 | you actually have to go to a third party,

00:40:36.960 | sit down in front of an e-meter

00:40:38.080 | and verify that your needle's floating.

00:40:39.520 | - Nice. - Every single auditing session

00:40:41.620 | not only has to end on a floating needle,

00:40:42.960 | but then you have to go to someone else

00:40:44.160 | and have the floating needle verified.

00:40:45.920 | Any Scientologist who's a seasoned recipient of auditing

00:40:50.680 | knows how to make their needle float at the examiner.

00:40:52.720 | (laughing)

00:40:53.880 | - But I gotta be honest though,

00:40:55.360 | this process, again, sorry to be sort of going there,

00:40:58.520 | but it feels like this is a very

00:41:03.520 | rigorous talk therapy session.

00:41:06.480 | Is there good aspects to this?

00:41:08.260 | - Sure.

00:41:09.100 | A lot of people find auditing very helpful.

00:41:10.800 | I mean, I've heard some describe it

00:41:12.200 | as quite thoroughly addictive.

00:41:14.380 | Me personally, I never enjoyed getting auditing.

00:41:16.960 | That's probably more a function of having been raised in it,

00:41:19.720 | and it was never something I wanted to do.

00:41:21.280 | It was something that was forced on me as a child,

00:41:23.120 | and also I was never, I don't like talking

00:41:25.080 | about private secret stuff.

00:41:27.120 | You kind of have to want to be an open book

00:41:30.120 | to honestly and thoroughly participate

00:41:33.560 | in an auditing session.

00:41:34.520 | - 'Cause there's not necessarily a belief

00:41:36.520 | that this is gonna be private.

00:41:37.940 | - There's no expectation of privacy,

00:41:39.800 | but there's no expectation that your stuff's

00:41:42.120 | gonna be leaked for blackmail either.

00:41:44.080 | - You kind of--

00:41:45.360 | - You trust the people in the organization.

00:41:47.800 | - Even despite rumors and stuff like that,

00:41:49.640 | but the rumors are coming from people

00:41:51.480 | that are lying to you, essentially.

00:41:53.960 | - If you're a Scientologist, and you're participating

00:41:56.520 | in an auditing session, you know that anyone

00:42:00.880 | in the organization has the ability

00:42:03.620 | to know the stuff that you talk.

00:42:05.080 | It's not like, oh my God, I'm only telling my auditor

00:42:06.920 | 'cause I think no one's ever gonna know.

00:42:08.160 | You know that people know,

00:42:09.600 | but you also trust the organization.

00:42:11.680 | - How quickly does it go to past memories?

00:42:14.240 | - For people who are seasoned,

00:42:16.640 | they actually like going past life.

00:42:18.600 | I hated it.

00:42:20.560 | I would make sure, I was really good

00:42:22.160 | at making my needle float.

00:42:23.240 | I didn't want to have some auditor,

00:42:24.600 | 'cause I never believed in the past life memories.

00:42:27.040 | So I didn't want to be in that impassable,

00:42:29.520 | reach an impasse in an auditing session

00:42:30.960 | where I was being asked for something I couldn't provide,

00:42:32.800 | 'cause I knew this auditing session

00:42:34.440 | has to end on a good point.

00:42:36.040 | But Scientologists enjoy, for the most part,

00:42:39.360 | they call it whole track.

00:42:40.180 | Whole track is past life, going whole track.

00:42:42.820 | Your time track, they call it the time track,

00:42:44.580 | is your whole memory,

00:42:45.860 | but whole track refers to anything past life.

00:42:48.540 | So going whole track or deep whole track with high reality,

00:42:52.020 | meaning it's not like, oh, I have a fuzzy memory

00:42:53.840 | and I'm not sure if it's real.

00:42:55.260 | Like your real seasoned Scientologists are like,

00:42:57.900 | oh yeah, I was on this planet

00:42:59.660 | and this time circling this star

00:43:01.060 | and this is what I was eating for breakfast.

00:43:02.220 | - Fascinating.

00:43:03.060 | Before the origin of life on Earth,

00:43:05.300 | or before, so billions of years ago,

00:43:08.460 | on a distant planet where you were eating for breakfast.

00:43:11.180 | - Or other universes.

00:43:12.460 | - I wonder if there's a nice shortcut

00:43:15.180 | to sneak up to actual trauma that happened to you

00:43:18.780 | as a therapy device.

00:43:20.260 | I just, so putting Scientology aside,

00:43:22.500 | I just am thinking about as a technique for therapy,

00:43:26.020 | discussing, basically, you know, some people have trauma

00:43:29.500 | and one of the things you do with therapy

00:43:31.060 | is like bring the trauma to the surface.

00:43:32.620 | That's the stuff that happened to you in childhood.

00:43:34.680 | Maybe it's a more convenient thing to do

00:43:37.240 | to kind of map that indirectly onto a fictitious telling

00:43:42.240 | of what happened to you,

00:43:44.260 | something like that trauma on a distant planet elsewhere.

00:43:47.620 | Could be a nice way to sneak up to it.

00:43:49.500 | - Yeah, and it goes both flows there,

00:43:51.220 | not just things that have happened to you,

00:43:52.260 | but things that you've done.

00:43:53.980 | So, you know, you could be being asked for, you know,

00:43:57.140 | you'd be going back to, I wiped out a civilization.

00:43:59.940 | I committed genocide on this race on this planet.

00:44:03.220 | - Oh wow.

00:44:04.060 | - Oh yeah.

00:44:05.180 | - So you can actually take on a whole new guilt.

00:44:07.880 | - Oh yeah.

00:44:08.720 | - So, okay, all right.

00:44:10.360 | You might actually take on a lot more guilt than I go of.

00:44:13.920 | 'Cause if you feel like that self-critical aspect

00:44:17.500 | of the brain, boy, 'cause my brain is really self-critical.

00:44:22.460 | So I could see myself manufacturing,

00:44:24.480 | if I was forced to over time,

00:44:26.180 | some kind of story where I did genocide

00:44:28.320 | a whole population of like Pluto or something

00:44:30.280 | at a distant, somewhere in Alpha Centauri.

00:44:32.980 | - Yeah, so I mean.

00:44:33.820 | - And now I walk around with that guilt.

00:44:35.780 | Wait, I'm actually a horrible person.

00:44:37.700 | - So imagine though, if you had not only are you looking at,

00:44:40.340 | you know, if someone's being self-critical,

00:44:42.180 | trying to identify destructive patterns of behavior

00:44:44.540 | in your present life, but what if you really internalize

00:44:46.740 | the fact that I haven't only been this way for 40 years.

00:44:51.200 | I've been this way for 40 trillion years.

00:44:53.140 | - Yeah.

00:44:54.620 | - But Scientology would argue that as a Thetan,

00:44:59.620 | you're inherently good.

00:45:01.900 | All Thetans are basically good.

00:45:03.580 | So the goal of the auditing procedure there

00:45:06.060 | would be essentially to figure out, find the moment,

00:45:08.700 | find what it was that caused you to make that shift

00:45:12.780 | as a being to dramatize evil intentions and stuff like that.

00:45:17.780 | So even if you're going whole track,

00:45:20.940 | looking at all the horrible things you've done,

00:45:23.140 | the goal is to find like,

00:45:24.940 | well, what happened just prior to that?

00:45:26.380 | What was like the prior confusion?

00:45:28.020 | And what did you misunderstand just before that and whatnot?

00:45:31.140 | So the goal is basically,

00:45:32.780 | so Scientologists after a lot of auditing

00:45:34.660 | are also convinced that they have fixed the reason

00:45:39.500 | for any non-optimum conduct.

00:45:42.380 | - And underlying this is a belief

00:45:43.980 | that at the core, we're all good.

00:45:46.620 | - Yes.

00:45:47.460 | - There's a lot of really powerful ideas in Scientology,

00:45:49.860 | which is so interesting that it goes wrong.

00:45:53.020 | Okay, what about the training you mentioned,

00:45:55.500 | the training of the auditor?

00:45:56.780 | That's really interesting.

00:45:57.860 | So how lengthy is that process?

00:46:00.000 | - It can take years.

00:46:01.820 | I mean, one of that question I wanna ask is,

00:46:03.980 | are people in Sea Org, like as an auditor,

00:46:06.500 | do you believe everything?

00:46:08.060 | How much, is there a crisis of faith that creeps in?

00:46:12.980 | In religion, you have a crisis of faith

00:46:14.580 | when you start to wonder like, does God even exist?

00:46:17.860 | So in this case, how often do you start to doubt

00:46:21.580 | that some of the core beliefs of Scientology are false?

00:46:25.180 | - Scientology would say that Scientology

00:46:27.580 | is not about beliefs.

00:46:28.700 | It's about application of the techniques

00:46:31.780 | of Scientology auditing to improve someone's

00:46:34.220 | spiritual awareness and ability.

00:46:36.900 | So the belief level of Scientology

00:46:39.740 | is pretty much the stuff we've already discussed.

00:46:42.100 | - The effectiveness of the auditing process.

00:46:43.780 | - So the effectiveness of the auditing process,

00:46:45.920 | this is one of the things Hubbard says,

00:46:47.120 | is that standard tech, Scientology, they call it the tech,

00:46:51.540 | the technology of how to deliver auditing,

00:46:52.980 | standard tech, works 100% of the time

00:46:57.540 | when applied 100% correctly.

00:47:00.260 | Well, that's kind of unfalsifiable, right?

00:47:02.540 | 'Cause anytime it doesn't work--

00:47:03.660 | - It wasn't applied correctly.

00:47:04.700 | - Exactly.

00:47:06.040 | That's a nice little escape hatch

00:47:08.380 | to pull on having a crisis of faith.

00:47:10.660 | It didn't work, well, then obviously

00:47:13.300 | it wasn't applied correctly.

00:47:14.620 | That's where quality control comes in.

00:47:16.620 | Their job is to nitpick, and you can always find

00:47:19.380 | one thing that wasn't done correctly.

00:47:21.020 | - Communism didn't work because

00:47:23.900 | it wasn't implemented correctly.

00:47:25.540 | It's always an escape hatch with ideologies.

00:47:29.580 | - That's right, that's right.

00:47:31.080 | I would probably argue that auditors

00:47:32.980 | are not in a position of having many crisis of faith,

00:47:36.900 | 'cause actually they're usually seeing people,

00:47:39.300 | for the most part, improve in some ways

00:47:43.260 | through the process of auditing.

00:47:44.660 | Now, auditing can create like a state

00:47:46.700 | of somewhat of a euphoric state.

00:47:48.420 | You feel great, you're just blown out of your head.

00:47:51.980 | You feel on top of the world.

00:47:54.100 | I've had that in some of my auditing.

00:47:56.280 | - As an auditor, sorry?

00:47:57.340 | - No, as a person receiving auditing.

00:47:59.160 | And so my point is, as an auditor doing a lot of auditing,

00:48:02.020 | you're gonna have someone in front of you

00:48:03.500 | called the pre-clear, is the person in front of you

00:48:05.660 | who's getting the auditing, called the PC or the pre-clear.

00:48:08.640 | They see over and over and over again

00:48:10.540 | these PCs having these sort of euphoric states

00:48:12.740 | and floating needles, and I feel great and fantastic.

00:48:15.060 | No, thanks, you saved my life, and da-da-da-da-da.

00:48:17.060 | I've always said, if people didn't find

00:48:20.500 | Scientology helpful, nobody would ever stay in Scientology.

00:48:23.420 | And so auditors are pretty much the ones

00:48:26.420 | doing the heavy lifting of what it even means

00:48:28.100 | to be a Scientologist.

00:48:29.640 | Those guys aren't the ones that you end up

00:48:32.040 | having crisis of faith.

00:48:33.080 | I mean, doing Scientology auditing,

00:48:34.880 | it doesn't require that you just have faith

00:48:38.560 | that you believe something.

00:48:40.080 | You just have to go through these motions.

00:48:41.760 | And Scientologists, one of the reasons Scientologists

00:48:43.480 | think this is all scientific is 'cause it's like,

00:48:45.860 | I don't care if you believe why this works.

00:48:48.480 | I care how you feel at the end of an auditing session.

00:48:51.040 | - And empirically speaking, anecdotal data

00:48:54.760 | is it actually seems to improve people's lives

00:48:57.080 | within the context, so taking the outside world

00:49:00.460 | out of it, within this particular organization,

00:49:03.820 | you're actually measurably seeing improvement.

00:49:06.940 | - Yes.

00:49:07.780 | - Is that to some degree real?

00:49:10.220 | Because if you look at a book like Animal Farm,

00:49:13.380 | where the pigs start to rule the other animals,

00:49:16.860 | and over time, the life of the animals

00:49:18.820 | gets worse and worse and worse,

00:49:19.980 | while the pigs keep saying that it's actually

00:49:21.660 | getting better and better and better.

00:49:22.780 | Again, communism, same thing.

00:49:24.540 | The rationing is getting worse and worse and worse,

00:49:26.840 | less and less food, but there's constant reporting

00:49:29.760 | that there's more and more food.

00:49:31.860 | We're winning, hashtag.

00:49:34.260 | - I would argue that what you've just described

00:49:36.860 | could be an identical description of what it feels like

00:49:40.180 | and what it means to go up,

00:49:41.020 | "Scientology's Breakthrough to Total Freedom."

00:49:43.440 | You are reinforcing to yourself that everything

00:49:45.620 | is getting better and better and better,

00:49:46.860 | and you'd be like, you don't spend time

00:49:49.820 | with your family anymore, you're broke,

00:49:52.500 | even though you make a lot of money,

00:49:54.860 | you're always stressed, you're at the beck and call

00:49:58.080 | of these people who seem to run your lives.

00:50:01.640 | How a Scientologist feels about their own life is,

00:50:04.920 | it's very interesting to compare that

00:50:07.480 | to how that person's life looks

00:50:10.320 | to their non-Scientology family members.

00:50:12.520 | I get contacted by a lot of people

00:50:14.400 | who've never been in Scientology,

00:50:16.600 | but they're like, "I got a family member who's really deep,

00:50:18.760 | "and can you help me understand some things?

00:50:20.760 | "Why is this person's life like this?

00:50:22.320 | "Why is this person's life like this?"

00:50:24.940 | So, I don't wanna say that Scientologists

00:50:29.780 | do not actually, I don't wanna say,

00:50:31.900 | "Oh, it's all in their heads,

00:50:32.720 | "they think they're being helped, but they're really not."

00:50:34.520 | That doesn't feel honest, you know?

00:50:36.980 | But it's this thing where if Scientology

00:50:39.680 | was just getting auditing when you wanted,

00:50:44.680 | about the subjects you wanted,

00:50:48.420 | and you could take it or leave it, that would be fine.

00:50:51.460 | It's the fact that it's part and parcel

00:50:53.640 | to this entire organization and this entire experience

00:50:57.720 | that has, as a part of that experience,

00:51:01.760 | taking everything from you, demanding everything from you,

00:51:05.400 | controlling who you can speak with,

00:51:07.900 | controlling who you can have relationships with,

00:51:10.040 | who you have to erase from your life.

00:51:11.920 | This is where, and it's hard to place one pinpoint on,

00:51:16.200 | this is where Scientology goes wrong.

00:51:18.080 | It's really hard to do that,

00:51:19.440 | because the good parts of Scientology

00:51:20.800 | and the bad parts of Scientology are all just Scientology.

00:51:24.540 | - Yeah, so there's definition of what's bad for you,

00:51:26.740 | and it's probably in the beginning is bad for you.

00:51:29.240 | This almost just sounds like a template

00:51:32.440 | of a toxic relationship.

00:51:33.900 | There's a bunch of stuff in this world

00:51:36.020 | that is just not good for you,

00:51:37.420 | so the authoritarian says, "I'm just protecting you

00:51:42.420 | "by blocking you off from those negative things."

00:51:45.100 | And they are probably negative things,

00:51:47.680 | but then this freedom starts closing in

00:51:51.960 | to where you can't no longer speak freely,

00:51:54.580 | think freely, act freely.

00:51:56.500 | And there's some, I mean, that's why power corrupts,

00:52:00.000 | and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

00:52:01.940 | The person doing the controlling

00:52:04.500 | actually starts getting that dopamine rush

00:52:08.360 | of the controller that's exciting.

00:52:10.500 | It's a vicious negative cycle.

00:52:12.620 | So you start out, it starts out good,

00:52:16.460 | 'cause you're trying to do good for the person,

00:52:19.180 | but then it somehow goes to shit.

00:52:21.860 | So what are the aspects that are often controlled

00:52:25.980 | about a person who's in Scientology, especially Sea Org?

00:52:29.620 | - Well, information control, access to the internet,

00:52:32.980 | access to any information critical of Scientology.

00:52:35.700 | - Is some internet access allowed?

00:52:37.920 | - Public Scientologists has no restrictions

00:52:41.940 | to their access to the internet.

00:52:43.660 | They're just not allowed to read

00:52:46.160 | anything critical of Scientology.

00:52:48.860 | - Oh, okay, so they're supposed to self-control

00:52:52.580 | what they read or not.

00:52:53.980 | And what's the explanation?

00:52:56.200 | Is it always assumed that anything critical

00:52:58.460 | of Scientology is a lie?

00:52:59.740 | - They really push this thing that

00:53:02.700 | unless you've been in a Scientology organization yourself,

00:53:08.660 | or unless you've actually been a Scientologist,

00:53:11.660 | you couldn't possibly know the truth about Scientology.

00:53:14.020 | If you're only getting information

00:53:15.580 | from people who aren't members or former members,

00:53:17.580 | then you couldn't possibly be getting

00:53:19.380 | the correct information.

00:53:20.740 | Now, they don't realize the math there doesn't make sense.

00:53:23.900 | If you can find out the true information

00:53:26.140 | by becoming and being a Scientologist,

00:53:28.600 | then that means you can get the correct information

00:53:31.240 | from a former Scientologist,

00:53:32.340 | because they traveled that path

00:53:33.420 | and they got the correct information.

00:53:34.900 | So they still create this,

00:53:36.220 | or they try to create this unfalsifiable loop,

00:53:38.020 | where unless you are personally doing it,

00:53:41.820 | you don't have correct information.

00:53:44.100 | And you go, "Well, what about the people

00:53:44.940 | who did personally do it, got the correct information,

00:53:48.980 | left, and are now sharing that with others?"

00:53:51.760 | Well, no, those are lies.

00:53:52.740 | Well, okay, so just anything you don't like is a lie then.

00:53:56.060 | You go, "Yeah, pretty much, that's kind of how it works."

00:53:58.620 | - So what about the control of negative information

00:54:00.940 | on the internet?

00:54:01.780 | What, like, the actual operations?

00:54:03.820 | I've, you know, preparing, I should admit,

00:54:07.020 | I don't know too much about Scientology.

00:54:09.020 | I was doing a bunch of reading,

00:54:10.620 | and the Wikipedia page on Scientology,

00:54:13.780 | interestingly enough, is not that negative

00:54:16.180 | about Scientology.

00:54:17.340 | So, like, it made me ask,

00:54:19.700 | you have to be a little bit careful

00:54:22.000 | how you consume stuff from Wikipedia.

00:54:23.580 | You have to consider, because money can buy things there,

00:54:26.540 | there's certain special interests and so on.

00:54:28.940 | But, like, it made me wonder,

00:54:30.020 | like, with a lot of controversial topics,

00:54:33.080 | what is true, and where do I look,

00:54:35.180 | where do I go for truth?

00:54:36.300 | So, like, how much sort of deliberate action is there

00:54:39.740 | to control what is true on the internet by Scientology?

00:54:43.100 | - Well, these days, they've pretty much, I think,

00:54:44.660 | thrown in the towel, but--

00:54:45.940 | - They have.

00:54:46.780 | - The Scientology middle management

00:54:48.580 | was editing Wikipedia so often from IP addresses

00:54:52.580 | that were traced back to the Scientology buildings

00:54:54.380 | that Wikipedia locked them out from any IP addresses

00:54:58.300 | associated with Scientology from being able to edit it.

00:55:00.500 | It's like, the Scientology was so infatuated

00:55:03.420 | with trying to control the information,

00:55:05.540 | and in the early days of the internet,

00:55:06.700 | they had a certain degree of success with that.

00:55:08.780 | It's just hopeless these days.

00:55:10.140 | - The scale, the scale's not there,

00:55:11.380 | but actually, I'm very surprised how bot farms,

00:55:15.340 | how effective that can be at a very small scale.

00:55:17.560 | If you just pay 100 people to spread narratives.

00:55:22.560 | But the reason that's effective

00:55:26.300 | is you can kind of create conspiracy theories

00:55:30.520 | that create chaos, and nobody knows what is true.

00:55:33.620 | That bot farms can do.

00:55:35.260 | But actually really nicely controlling a narrative is hard.

00:55:38.940 | So to create chaos, it's easier to do.

00:55:41.980 | To basically say, do PR control is very hard.

00:55:46.980 | Yeah, so especially on the internet,

00:55:49.340 | especially when the critical eye is there.

00:55:53.180 | The internet can smell bullshit,

00:55:54.940 | which is one of the really, really powerful things

00:55:56.580 | about the internet.

00:55:57.420 | And I gotta tell you, it's one of the reasons

00:55:59.060 | I do my YouTube channel.

00:56:00.660 | It's one of the reasons I decided to upload every day.

00:56:02.520 | I've uploaded every day for the last six months.

00:56:04.740 | I just wanted there to be a nonstop flow of information

00:56:09.740 | of any kind and any variety,

00:56:12.620 | as long as it's fair and balanced,

00:56:14.980 | intelligent, interesting, that Scientologists

00:56:18.380 | who stumble upon the internet will go,

00:56:20.340 | oh look, someone's talking about my thing.

00:56:23.100 | Let's see what they got going on.

00:56:25.180 | And I know this guy.

00:56:27.380 | The fact that Scientology crushes so much information,

00:56:30.380 | before YouTube, before,

00:56:32.580 | I have the only big Scientology channel.

00:56:35.120 | And that only got big in the last six months.

00:56:37.060 | Okay, so before that, there were channels, there was things.

00:56:39.500 | But it's almost like, it took a lot of,

00:56:41.740 | people felt like it took a lot of bravery and courage

00:56:45.080 | to say something on the internet about Scientology.

00:56:49.020 | And so people would pop up,

00:56:50.060 | and there weren't very many voices.

00:56:51.380 | And I was like, I want this to be prolific.

00:56:53.300 | I want to be prolific.

00:56:55.460 | I want to have 30 or 40 other channels being prolific

00:56:58.180 | so that Scientology couldn't possibly

00:57:01.340 | successfully control the narrative about it.

00:57:03.980 | - Have you been personally attacked?

00:57:05.340 | - AaronSmith11.com is a website

00:57:07.660 | created by the Church of Scientology.

00:57:09.540 | Have you seen it?

00:57:10.380 | - No, what kind of content is on there?

00:57:12.420 | - Oh, Aaron's abusive father and a horrible husband

00:57:16.100 | and the worst staff member we've ever had.

00:57:18.180 | Oh, I openly talk about it,

00:57:20.380 | because I think the fact that Scientology

00:57:21.980 | even does things like that is fucking hilarious.

00:57:25.780 | And anything they try to do to me,

00:57:28.940 | the way I think about it is,

00:57:30.420 | you know you're just giving me an opportunity

00:57:32.300 | to turn the mirror back on you

00:57:33.660 | and show everyone how horrible you are.

00:57:35.300 | - Does it stick?

00:57:36.660 | - No.

00:57:37.500 | - So you find that there is ineffective.

00:57:39.700 | - It's completely ineffective.

00:57:41.180 | They're so over the top.

00:57:43.020 | And I'll tell you how the website even came into being.

00:57:45.740 | So I was on the first season

00:57:47.000 | of Leah Remini's Scientology in the Aftermath.

00:57:49.740 | Every single person who participated in that show

00:57:52.700 | got a website.

00:57:53.540 | (laughing)

00:57:54.900 | It's just that everyone else's website is like,

00:57:57.340 | whoismarkhedley.com.

00:57:59.460 | Whoismikerender.com.

00:58:01.860 | Well I bought whoisarinsmithlevin.com,

00:58:03.900 | but I was too stupid to buy,

00:58:05.460 | I didn't buy arinsmithlevin.com.

00:58:07.340 | So I'm actually the only one

00:58:09.140 | who has a website in their name.

00:58:11.300 | - Oh, nice.

00:58:12.140 | - Yeah.

00:58:12.980 | And I'm like, I could probably get a lawyer

00:58:14.460 | to get it back for me, but I'm like, why?

00:58:16.340 | I want everyone to see what a nasty, petty,

00:58:20.380 | disgusting organization that this is.

00:58:22.460 | And nobody believes anything Scientology says anyway.

00:58:24.820 | - Does the general public know

00:58:26.020 | that it comes from Scientology?

00:58:27.100 | - Pull it up.

00:58:30.980 | Church of Scientology International.

00:58:32.420 | Like they didn't even try to hide it.

00:58:34.540 | - Arinsmithlevin.com.

00:58:36.140 | - Yeah.

00:58:36.980 | - A man with no moral compass.

00:58:39.060 | - Arinsmith, who is he really?

00:58:41.700 | Arinsmith Levin, a man with no moral compass.

00:58:44.780 | Read about Arinsmith Levin,

00:58:46.380 | an angry man spreading hate from the internet's shadows.

00:58:51.380 | Open mouth shot.

00:58:53.620 | And you're saying like, but wow, there's testimonies.

00:58:56.620 | Oh, there's videos from former coworkers.

00:58:59.180 | - The slightest thing just sets him off

00:59:01.740 | and he just goes totally nuts.

00:59:03.620 | Well, that one is true.

00:59:04.460 | I didn't understand why you slapped me before the interview.

00:59:07.220 | I felt that.

00:59:08.060 | - They've got links to everyone else's website

00:59:09.820 | on the bottom, it's so funny.

00:59:11.540 | - Okay, the irony.

00:59:13.060 | - 2021 Church of Scientology International,

00:59:16.840 | Here's an example of just Scientology's

00:59:18.500 | complete lack of self-awareness.

00:59:20.340 | So me and Mike Rinder, we went half season

00:59:21.940 | on like a house flip project, right?

00:59:23.580 | - Wait, Mike Rinder?

00:59:25.100 | - You know Mike Rinder.

00:59:26.120 | - Do I?

00:59:26.960 | (laughing)

00:59:27.780 | You gave me a bobblehead of the guy.

00:59:29.380 | I don't know him, I just,

00:59:32.180 | I would like to talk to him about him,

00:59:33.540 | but there's a very fine gentleman here with a bobblehead.

00:59:38.540 | - The reason we created the bobblehead

00:59:40.460 | is because on Mike Rinder's hate site,

00:59:43.300 | Scientology created a gif or a gif.

00:59:45.360 | How do you say it, what's the right way to say it?

00:59:46.680 | - The correct way is gif.

00:59:48.060 | - Gif, good.

00:59:48.900 | Scientology created a gif of Mike Rinder as a bobblehead.

00:59:51.860 | It was an insult, like, oh, all he does

00:59:53.380 | is sit next to Leah Remedy and go,

00:59:54.740 | yes, Leah, yes, Leah.

00:59:56.140 | And so they made a gif of him with a bobblehead.

00:59:58.540 | So we were like, we're gonna make Mike Rinder bobbleheads

01:00:01.740 | and we're gonna sell them on the spshop.com

01:00:04.340 | to raise money for the Aftermath Foundation.

01:00:05.900 | - I love it.

01:00:06.740 | - Yeah, and now that I--

01:00:07.560 | - So go out and buy.

01:00:09.260 | - Yeah, go to the spshop.com

01:00:10.820 | and get yourself a Mike Rinder bobblehead.

01:00:12.340 | Now look, now that my profile's getting a little higher,

01:00:14.380 | this head was made to bobble.

01:00:16.020 | Like this smooth, shiny head needs its own bobblehead now.

01:00:20.620 | - It does, 100% does.

01:00:22.620 | - I can't believe it doesn't exist.

01:00:23.860 | So, but let me show you.

01:00:24.700 | So here's what's happening here.

01:00:26.020 | We just hired some day laborers off of what,

01:00:28.620 | like Craigslist or something.

01:00:30.920 | So what Scientology did was they had a private investigator

01:00:35.260 | stake out the House Flip Project.

01:00:38.920 | They were clearly running license plates

01:00:40.820 | of anyone who visited the property

01:00:42.900 | because otherwise how would they find out

01:00:45.340 | the laborers' names, do background checks on them

01:00:48.500 | to find out they had criminal records?

01:00:50.060 | And they published this as if it's gonna

01:00:52.540 | reflect negatively on me.

01:00:54.420 | Oh, we hired someone to do work who had a criminal record?

01:00:57.180 | Who gives a shit?

01:00:58.980 | Do you know one of the biggest problems

01:01:00.100 | people with records have is finding employment.

01:01:02.580 | There's nothing bad about hiring someone

01:01:04.260 | who's got a criminal record.

01:01:05.800 | It doesn't reflect negatively on me,

01:01:07.700 | but it shows you what they think about those people.

01:01:09.980 | It shows you what they think about people

01:01:11.460 | who are trying to put their lives back together

01:01:13.020 | and maybe actually work for a living.

01:01:15.500 | And it also shows that they're surveilling us.

01:01:18.660 | They don't realize that putting this up,

01:01:21.700 | they're publishing information that they could only have

01:01:23.700 | if they're surveilling me and Mike,

01:01:25.900 | and it doesn't occur to them,

01:01:27.260 | maybe we shouldn't put that up.

01:01:28.780 | - Just the general process, sad to say, of journalism

01:01:33.660 | where they're looking for any kind of dirt

01:01:36.900 | and they're trying to conjure up a story,

01:01:40.200 | and there's something about drama and negative stories

01:01:42.460 | that get clicks and so on.

01:01:43.740 | So this is a general process.

01:01:45.700 | The more, especially the more celebrity you become,

01:01:48.020 | the more of these kinds of attacks come,

01:01:49.540 | and they look for any kind of thing that could be,

01:01:53.260 | it doesn't even have to be facts,

01:01:54.740 | it could be just asking who is he really.

01:01:58.300 | Seems to have traction on the internet.

01:02:00.340 | What is the actual truth of the man you keep claiming you are

01:02:05.340 | of the good man you keep claiming you are?

01:02:09.060 | It's fascinating, but sometimes that can be effective.

01:02:12.500 | But I think if you're being transparent and authentic

01:02:15.180 | and just putting yourself out there completely

01:02:16.900 | and your story completely,

01:02:17.980 | then that's the best way to fight it.

01:02:20.320 | That's the other reason to be prolific

01:02:22.240 | on the internet, right?

01:02:23.320 | The reason Joe Rogan can't get canceled

01:02:25.640 | is because anyone can watch thousands of hours

01:02:30.240 | of the authentic Joe Rogan.

01:02:31.500 | You can't misrepresent him 'cause he spent thousands

01:02:33.580 | of hours representing himself genuinely.

01:02:35.580 | - Yeah, the nice thing when you're representing yourself

01:02:38.460 | genuinely, you should be a good person.

01:02:41.780 | So if you're a good person, then the internet will know.

01:02:44.020 | They can smell out the bullshit.

01:02:45.900 | Who is David Miscavige?

01:02:47.380 | That's even like, 'cause you said L. Ron Hubbard

01:02:49.900 | founded Scientology.

01:02:51.700 | Let's go to the story of how we transitioned

01:02:56.700 | from that to David Miscavige.

01:02:57.980 | - The current leader of Scientology.

01:03:00.460 | He was actually not selected by L. Ron Hubbard

01:03:02.140 | to take over, but ended up usurping power and taking over.

01:03:05.300 | - This sounds like Stalin and Trotsky and communism.

01:03:08.180 | Similar story.

01:03:09.100 | It's the person, oftentimes in these situation,

01:03:14.220 | it's not the natural successor to power.

01:03:18.220 | It's the one that takes power.

01:03:20.700 | - Right.

01:03:21.540 | I think the quote sometimes gets attributed

01:03:23.060 | to David Miscavige is, "Power is not given,

01:03:27.020 | "it is assumed."

01:03:27.940 | - Yeah. - Something like that.

01:03:29.700 | The last six years of L. Ron Hubbard's life,

01:03:31.380 | he was often a seclusion, essentially hiding from lawsuits.

01:03:34.820 | Now, by the time Hubbard went off into seclusion,

01:03:38.380 | Miscavige had sort of already risen up

01:03:40.060 | through the ranks of the C organization.

01:03:41.980 | Now, Miscavige was like a teenager,

01:03:43.500 | either like 11, 12, 13, something like that.

01:03:45.820 | Miscavige was not born into Scientology,

01:03:47.740 | but he was a young boy when his father

01:03:51.300 | got into Scientology.

01:03:52.540 | Miscavige did start working as a C org member.

01:03:57.500 | There's one organization that existed

01:03:59.600 | to essentially serve Hubbard directly

01:04:02.140 | and to represent his interests,

01:04:03.260 | and that was called the Commodore.

01:04:04.340 | He was the Commodore of the C organization.

01:04:06.180 | The Commodore's Messenger's organization,

01:04:07.660 | we're gonna call it the CMO.

01:04:09.240 | Miscavige started working for the CMO

01:04:11.780 | pretty early on in his C org career,

01:04:13.900 | by the way, as did Mike Rinder, Mini Mike.

01:04:17.060 | And so he just became known as a doer,

01:04:22.020 | like a guy who'll get it done.

01:04:23.880 | No excuses, no stops, get it done.

01:04:28.300 | So he had made a name for himself in the CMO

01:04:31.900 | around the time, by the time Hubbard

01:04:35.020 | went off into seclusion.

01:04:36.620 | Now, when he went off into seclusion,

01:04:37.700 | he took two other CMO, or I'm gonna call them messengers,

01:04:40.540 | Commodore's Messengers.

01:04:41.460 | He took two other messengers with him, Pat and Annie Broker.

01:04:44.620 | Now, it has been said by people,

01:04:46.820 | Mike, Mike Rinder has told me, he goes,

01:04:49.420 | "The reason Pat and Annie went off with LRH

01:04:52.540 | "isn't necessarily because he desperately wanted them to,

01:04:55.940 | "but partly because we could afford to let them go.

01:04:58.620 | "We didn't necessarily need them."

01:05:00.460 | - Sure. - Okay.

01:05:01.660 | And between the two of them,

01:05:02.660 | Annie was the one who was like a really compassionate person,

01:05:06.220 | intelligent person, caring person.

01:05:08.700 | - Was there a possible trajectory of this world

01:05:10.980 | where she was the one that took over?

01:05:12.580 | - Yes.

01:05:13.420 | In fact, Pat and Annie Broker were the two people

01:05:17.060 | that were supposed to take over.

01:05:18.820 | Okay, but because Pat and Annie

01:05:21.260 | were with Hubbard in seclusion,

01:05:23.500 | Miscavige basically had the complete run of the operation

01:05:28.500 | without any oversight from Hubbard.

01:05:31.340 | The only way any information would get

01:05:33.440 | from Scientology World to Hubbard

01:05:36.340 | is Miscavige and Pat Broker

01:05:37.860 | would meet at a confidential location

01:05:40.380 | and Miscavige would give Broker

01:05:42.660 | any information he wanted to go to LRH.

01:05:44.780 | So if Miscavige wanted to get rid of somebody,

01:05:47.060 | all he had to do was feed LRH false information

01:05:49.220 | that this person had been caught doing something treasonous.

01:05:52.660 | And then he would get in response

01:05:53.900 | some order from L. Ron Hubbard to get rid of this person.

01:05:57.140 | So are there so many similarities

01:06:00.700 | between various communist regimes and fascist regimes?

01:06:04.740 | - Well, Hitler did the same thing

01:06:06.020 | when he became the Supreme Leader.

01:06:08.020 | He had to take power.

01:06:09.560 | Yeah, he had to wait for the president to die,

01:06:11.060 | but the whole time there's a control of information

01:06:13.740 | and a slow aggregation of power.

01:06:16.060 | Of course, with nations it's different

01:06:17.700 | 'cause if you control the military, you control a lot.

01:06:20.240 | So you have to also get the generals on your side and so on.

01:06:23.100 | But I'm sure in this situation

01:06:24.500 | there is similar kind of dynamics.

01:06:27.260 | You have to get certain people on your side,

01:06:29.940 | control the flow of information,

01:06:32.380 | let the original founder, the original leader die off,

01:06:37.100 | and make sure that you are the one

01:06:38.660 | that's left with the power.

01:06:39.740 | - Right.

01:06:40.860 | So whereas Pat and Annie are off with LRH,

01:06:43.820 | all of Scientology's attorneys and accountants

01:06:47.460 | and lobbyists and whatever, they all know Dave.

01:06:50.560 | Dave's the one they deal with.

01:06:52.380 | So LRH passes away, Pat and Annie make this appearance.

01:06:56.420 | Nobody knows Pat and Annie.

01:06:57.920 | Everybody knows Dave.

01:06:59.080 | And so he ended up getting rid of Pat and Annie.

01:07:03.260 | This is a very short,

01:07:04.380 | perhaps slightly bastardized version of it,

01:07:06.840 | of Miscavige basically.

01:07:08.500 | They had been ushering just suitcases of cash

01:07:13.500 | to L. Ron Hubbard during this time.

01:07:15.740 | And so you have Miscavige handing boatloads of cash

01:07:20.100 | to Pat Broker.

01:07:21.760 | Pat would do crazy things like hide the money

01:07:24.820 | in the walls of houses and dig pits and everything.

01:07:27.540 | So Miscavige basically threatened to turn Pat Broker

01:07:31.380 | over to the IRS for tax evasion.

01:07:33.700 | Pat Broker's still alive.

01:07:36.740 | - Is he a Scientologist or not?

01:07:38.100 | - No, he basically went away and kept his mouth shut.

01:07:41.340 | She died a handful of years ago.

01:07:42.900 | She stayed a loyal Sea Org member until the very end.

01:07:46.860 | But literally, Miscavige put her on menial tasks.

01:07:50.140 | Like she had no authority whatsoever.

01:07:52.920 | She was just put on menial tasks,

01:07:56.340 | washing dishes, but not really, groundskeeper.

01:07:58.300 | Just stupid low-level assistant, paper pusher stuff.

01:08:01.580 | She never operated with any actual authority,

01:08:04.620 | even though she was supposed to be the one

01:08:06.600 | to take over her and Pat.

01:08:08.560 | - So on David Miscavige, difficult question,

01:08:12.140 | but can you make both the case that he is a good man

01:08:16.780 | who's misunderstood and the case that he's not a good man?

01:08:19.680 | - First of all, I believe that Miscavige

01:08:22.220 | is a true believer in Scientology.

01:08:24.580 | I do believe that.

01:08:25.420 | - That's a really important question.

01:08:26.900 | Do you think he believes in all the thetans and all of that?

01:08:30.260 | - He definitely believes in that.

01:08:32.220 | I think he believes in Scientology,

01:08:34.300 | but in a different way than all other Scientologists

01:08:37.720 | because he's aware of a lot more information,

01:08:41.160 | damaging information about L. Ron Hubbard

01:08:43.560 | and the true story of Scientology than most people.

01:08:45.440 | So his version of belief is different.

01:08:47.660 | I'll give you one example here.

01:08:49.040 | So Scientology's bridge to total freedom

01:08:50.760 | goes up to what they call OT8, Operating Thetan Level Eight.

01:08:54.680 | Scientologists have all been told

01:08:57.020 | that L. Ron Hubbard, before he passed,

01:08:59.280 | finished, completed, putting together OT9, 10, 11, 12,

01:09:02.640 | 13, 14, and 15.

01:09:03.840 | It's just sitting in the vault, waiting to be released.

01:09:07.580 | This is part of the Scientology belief system

01:09:10.260 | because remember I said going up Scientology's bridge

01:09:12.340 | to total freedom is how you're supposed to get back

01:09:13.740 | to your native godlike state.

01:09:15.820 | Well, all the Scientologists in the world

01:09:17.220 | who've already done OT8 know that they haven't gotten there,

01:09:19.980 | but they still believe in Scientology

01:09:21.300 | because they're told there's more.

01:09:23.340 | But wait, there's more.

01:09:25.060 | Miscavige knows there is no more.

01:09:27.660 | So Miscavige knows the fundamental promise

01:09:31.100 | of being able to achieve full Operating Thetan is a lie.

01:09:35.100 | He knows L. Ron Hubbard didn't accomplish that,

01:09:37.920 | so therefore no one else is going to accomplish it as well.

01:09:41.060 | If L. Ron Hubbard had accomplished it,

01:09:43.740 | Miscavige knows, well, he didn't write it up,

01:09:45.580 | he didn't leave instructions

01:09:47.380 | for how anyone else would accomplish it.

01:09:49.380 | So no matter what, Miscavige knows

01:09:52.740 | that the fundamental promise,

01:09:55.820 | that what Scientology is saying,

01:09:57.380 | they will be able to deliver to mankind is a lie.

01:10:02.380 | Now it's gonna sound like I'm contradicting myself

01:10:04.580 | 'cause it sounds like I'm saying,

01:10:05.400 | well, he knows it's bullshit.

01:10:06.820 | I think he believes that L. Ron Hubbard just failed

01:10:11.900 | to finish his work, and he's kind of hoping

01:10:16.860 | L. Ron Hubbard's gonna come back to finish the job.

01:10:19.100 | 'Cause L. Ron Hubbard did tell the people

01:10:21.740 | at the International Management Base,

01:10:23.820 | at least a core of them, that he was coming back.

01:10:27.180 | Now we know that David Miscavige believed this

01:10:29.980 | because right around the 21 year mark,

01:10:31.780 | he was supposed to come back like 21 years after he died.

01:10:34.140 | Right around the 21 year mark,

01:10:35.900 | David Miscavige was getting busy putting some things

01:10:38.420 | in place that had to get done

01:10:40.180 | in case L. Ron Hubbard came back.

01:10:41.380 | So we know he at least believed to that level.

01:10:43.980 | - Do you believe that L. Ron Hubbard

01:10:46.180 | can sort of enter his own body?

01:10:49.060 | - No, that's not how it works in Scientology.

01:10:51.460 | - Okay, so you can't have a transfer of thetans.

01:10:55.780 | If you were full OT, you could.

01:10:57.980 | - Can you describe the OT again?

01:10:59.700 | So OT levels, OT one, two, three, four, five to the eight.

01:11:03.220 | What are they?

01:11:05.100 | How do you get to level one?

01:11:06.500 | - I'm gonna answer this question

01:11:07.340 | by first connecting some dots.

01:11:08.420 | - Yes. - Okay.

01:11:09.300 | We spoke earlier in the interview

01:11:11.700 | about achieving your native god-like state.

01:11:15.740 | That in Scientology is called native state.

01:11:18.380 | Okay, native state and full operating thetan

01:11:22.380 | mean the exact same thing.

01:11:24.180 | Okay, because at native state,

01:11:25.820 | you are a fully operating thetan.

01:11:29.380 | You know, operating meaning operating in your full capacity.

01:11:32.140 | So OT means operating thetan.

01:11:35.180 | So the upper confidential half of Scientology's bridge

01:11:37.540 | are called the OT levels, the operating thetan levels.

01:11:40.100 | And these, and remember, they're confidential.

01:11:42.460 | So most Scientologists have not done these levels.

01:11:45.380 | They don't know what's on them.

01:11:47.060 | It is on these levels that you learn

01:11:50.780 | about the Zinu in the body thetan story.

01:11:52.900 | - Can you describe Zinu please?

01:11:54.460 | - We spoke earlier about how at the lower

01:11:57.020 | non-confidential levels of Scientology's bridge,

01:11:59.020 | Hubbard is saying that what's wrong with you

01:12:00.060 | is your reactive mind.

01:12:01.220 | - Yes. - Okay.

01:12:02.140 | Well, in Scientology,

01:12:04.420 | once you've gotten rid of your reactive mind,

01:12:06.320 | that is what's called the state of clear.

01:12:08.260 | Okay, so after you finish state of clear,

01:12:10.100 | the next thing on the bridge is the OT levels.

01:12:12.540 | Well, if you've already gotten rid of your active mind,

01:12:14.260 | what the heck are you supposed to do now?

01:12:15.700 | Well, now L. Ron Hubbard says,

01:12:17.540 | okay, first, what was wrong with you

01:12:19.060 | was just your reactive mind.

01:12:21.020 | But now the next thing you have to resolve,

01:12:23.120 | the next thing that's wrong with you

01:12:24.600 | is you actually have tens of thousands of thetans

01:12:29.120 | stuck to your body,

01:12:30.620 | and they all have their own reactive minds.

01:12:33.380 | - Oh, wow.

01:12:34.220 | - You have to audit the thetans.

01:12:36.260 | - How do you audit the thetans?

01:12:40.940 | Are these like different shades of your inner mind,

01:12:45.280 | and you just have to try to access them somehow?

01:12:47.900 | - You use the E-meter, just like we spoke about,

01:12:50.180 | except now you've got a divider that separates the cans

01:12:53.120 | so they don't short circuit,

01:12:54.060 | and you hold both cans in one hand,

01:12:56.540 | and you have the E-meter in front of you,

01:12:57.940 | so now you're auditing yourself.

01:13:00.380 | You're telepathically talking to the thetans

01:13:03.700 | that are stuck to you.

01:13:05.260 | You are thinking the commands

01:13:07.340 | instead of saying them out loud,

01:13:09.300 | and you sort of do drills where you practice

01:13:11.100 | looking for E-meter reads at the instant you have a thought.

01:13:14.060 | You're telepathically auditing spirits

01:13:19.380 | that L. Ron Hubbard says are stuck to your body.

01:13:22.140 | Does this sound like a recipe for a mental breakdown?

01:13:24.780 | - Or a heck of a mental journey.

01:13:26.420 | Wherever that leads, it could lead anywhere.

01:13:29.980 | It'd probably lead to a very bad place, right?

01:13:32.700 | - Very often does.

01:13:33.920 | And you combine that with the fact that Scientology

01:13:37.480 | is against any forms of mental health

01:13:40.820 | outside of Scientology, and you have a recipe for disaster.

01:13:43.580 | Now, you might go, where did all these spirits come from

01:13:46.500 | that are stuck to your body?

01:13:47.860 | This is where Xenu comes into play.

01:13:49.780 | So Hubbard says that 75 million years ago,

01:13:52.580 | Xenu was basically a dictator.

01:13:57.580 | The Galactic Confederation is like 70-something

01:13:59.980 | or 80-something planets somewhere in the Milky Way,

01:14:02.460 | and Xenu was like a dictator, an overlord

01:14:05.860 | for either one of these planets or the whole system,

01:14:08.300 | and they had a population problem.

01:14:10.780 | And Xenu was like, we need to get rid of half the people.

01:14:14.820 | So we called them all in for tax audits.

01:14:17.740 | L. Ron Hubbard didn't like the IRS,

01:14:19.020 | so of course the story has to do with tax audits.

01:14:21.380 | Called them all in for tax audits, said, "Psych, bitches!"

01:14:24.700 | Froze them in glycol, loaded them up on space planes,

01:14:27.900 | flew them to Earth.

01:14:29.500 | Remember, the story has to be Earth

01:14:30.820 | because the story is "What's Wrong With Us?"

01:14:33.220 | Flew them to Earth, dropped them in volcanoes,

01:14:36.060 | blew them up with hydrogen bombs,

01:14:38.500 | and then captured them with spirit magnets.

01:14:41.380 | I'm making up words 'cause, okay.

01:14:44.420 | And these disembodied spirits of these people

01:14:48.820 | that got blown up have just been blown in the wind

01:14:51.580 | here on Earth, and they attach themselves to things,

01:14:54.060 | and they can be in the environment,

01:14:55.420 | and they stick to bodies and everything.

01:14:57.260 | And they all have reactive minds.

01:14:59.820 | So at Scientology's upper levels,

01:15:01.640 | if you get sick or you have cancer

01:15:03.780 | or there's something wrong with you,

01:15:05.420 | Scientology will say, "That's one of your body things.

01:15:08.540 | "You need to get some auditing to fix the body things."

01:15:10.420 | - So this story, you do it with a kind of

01:15:13.980 | a bit of a chuckle, but when done seriously,

01:15:17.420 | so it's just told in a serious way,

01:15:20.020 | or written down, and you read it.

01:15:23.460 | - By most accounts, Scientologists struggle

01:15:25.460 | when they read this for the first time

01:15:26.700 | because this is not consistent with what

01:15:29.860 | Scientologists are hoping for is on the OT levels.

01:15:32.540 | They're hoping for some real life-changing magic.

01:15:35.160 | The way these things are described and sold,

01:15:37.900 | remember, they're hoping that these OT levels

01:15:40.020 | are gonna give them the ability to go

01:15:42.380 | completely independent of their body at will.

01:15:45.300 | Exteriorize from your body, go back into your body.

01:15:48.380 | Have some real spirit powers.

01:15:50.220 | - So first it's kind of a shock.

01:15:52.660 | But then you still probably believe, you hope.

01:15:55.780 | And you might turn on yourself, self-critical,

01:15:58.740 | that this is, I'm just not strong enough yet.

01:16:02.560 | - Yeah, 'cause also part of Scientology,

01:16:04.180 | remember, it works 100% of the time

01:16:06.020 | when used 100% correctly.

01:16:08.100 | And if it doesn't, it could be because

01:16:11.220 | something's not being done right.

01:16:12.340 | But it also could be because you're doing bad things

01:16:16.260 | that you're not telling people about.

01:16:18.060 | Like if you're committing present time

01:16:20.580 | overts, crimes, sins, Scientologists would be like,

01:16:24.460 | that's part of the reason auditing isn't working on you

01:16:26.180 | is because you're committing criminal behavior

01:16:28.180 | that you're not being honest about.

01:16:29.700 | So every Scientologist is sort of incentivized

01:16:32.740 | to make auditing work on them, okay?

01:16:36.740 | Now Lex, this work is a little crazy.

01:16:38.740 | On OT-3, you learn about the OT,

01:16:40.580 | the body things for the first time.

01:16:42.900 | When you finish OT-3, you attest to having achieved

01:16:45.940 | the state of having no more body things.

01:16:48.180 | And then you start OT-4, and he's like,

01:16:51.060 | psych, you got more, you got more BTs,

01:16:54.680 | except those other BTs, they had drug problems

01:16:57.340 | and that's why you couldn't find them the first time.

01:16:59.060 | So we're gonna do something a little different here,

01:17:00.780 | do something a little different there.

01:17:02.020 | Gotta get rid of these BTs that were addicted to drugs, okay?

01:17:04.920 | Then you finish OT-4 and you're thinking,

01:17:06.940 | man, I hope we get to the good stuff soon.

01:17:08.940 | And then you get to OT-5 and he's like,

01:17:10.420 | psych, you got more BTs.

01:17:12.820 | You couldn't find these BTs

01:17:14.020 | 'cause they were all bunched up together in clusters

01:17:16.620 | and first you have to break up the clusters

01:17:18.060 | and then you can get rid of the BTs.

01:17:19.460 | And you're like, okay, gotta do that.

01:17:21.740 | - And this was all L. Ron Hubbard approved.

01:17:25.420 | - Yeah, this is from L. Ron Hubbard.

01:17:27.060 | And then after you finish OT-5,

01:17:29.340 | you get rid of all the BT clusters.

01:17:31.100 | OT-6 is just a training course to teach you how to audit OT-7.

01:17:34.500 | Well, OT-7 is now more BTs,

01:17:37.220 | except it's in the environment and stuff.

01:17:39.380 | You're trying to locate BTs, you can find them on your body,

01:17:41.580 | but it's just more BTs.

01:17:43.500 | Okay, and then OT-8 is, remember we talked about

01:17:46.660 | in all these auditing sessions

01:17:47.940 | throughout the entire Scientology bridge.

01:17:50.340 | You have people who've run hundreds or thousands

01:17:53.060 | of past life whole track incidents.

01:17:55.580 | These memories have become part of their self-identity

01:17:58.180 | of who they even think they are.

01:18:00.420 | OT-8, you go through all these past life recalls

01:18:03.380 | and essentially, I'm oversimplifying this a little bit.

01:18:05.780 | He goes, "Psych, all those past life memories weren't yours.

01:18:10.340 | "They were your BTs."

01:18:11.940 | And he goes, "Now that you've discovered this,

01:18:16.820 | "now you know who you are not

01:18:20.120 | "and you are ready to find out who you really are."

01:18:23.380 | Well, now you're supposed to find out

01:18:24.420 | who you really are on OT-9 and 10.

01:18:26.780 | Those don't exist.

01:18:28.140 | - Do we know they don't exist?

01:18:30.420 | - Yes.

01:18:31.260 | In fact, the whole story of how that became known

01:18:34.140 | is part of how David Miscavige was able

01:18:37.180 | to get rid of Pat Broker and take over power

01:18:39.740 | because it was believed that Pat Broker

01:18:42.820 | was in possession of the upper unreleased OT levels.

01:18:45.620 | And when Miscavige determined that he was not

01:18:48.580 | and there weren't in fact any levels,

01:18:51.380 | that was a bad day to be David Miscavige

01:18:53.420 | 'cause he now knew he had something on his hands

01:18:55.300 | he could not get himself out of.

01:18:56.620 | He's like, "Oh."

01:18:57.460 | - So there's no gap for faith to seep in

01:19:00.820 | that there is a level nine and 10, 11, and 12?

01:19:05.020 | - Oh, the faith is there.

01:19:06.740 | Scientologists believe that these things do exist.

01:19:09.100 | - Yeah.

01:19:10.420 | - L. Ron Hubbard didn't leave anything behind.

01:19:12.020 | - Does David Miscavige believe they exist?

01:19:14.380 | - Oh no, he knows they don't exist.

01:19:16.740 | - No, but-- - When I say exist,

01:19:18.100 | oh, I don't mean do advanced levels

01:19:21.340 | of spiritual awareness exist.

01:19:23.440 | When I said it, it means did L. Ron Hubbard

01:19:25.980 | write down what anyone is supposed to do

01:19:29.620 | that's called OT nine?

01:19:31.100 | That doesn't exist.

01:19:31.940 | - So you're saying David Miscavige believes

01:19:34.580 | that they can be written down so they exist

01:19:37.660 | sort of in a platonic sense and L. Ron Hubbard

01:19:41.420 | is the only one that can write it down?

01:19:43.300 | - Yes. - So his faith

01:19:44.220 | is really deep.

01:19:45.340 | - Oh, you mean his faith that only L. Ron Hubbard

01:19:47.700 | could have ever been the one to do it?

01:19:48.740 | - Yes. - The full principles,

01:19:50.380 | beliefs of Scientology, he is,

01:19:52.820 | are you sure he believes?

01:19:56.620 | - That what exactly?

01:19:58.180 | - Everything about Scientology that is true.

01:20:01.220 | - To the best of my ability to know that,

01:20:03.100 | I believe it to be true.

01:20:04.440 | Like I'll give you some all even stupid examples.

01:20:08.180 | Like Mike Renders told a story

01:20:09.740 | where at the International Base,

01:20:11.060 | Miscavige actually had like a copper contraption

01:20:15.100 | built into the ground, like grounded into the ground

01:20:17.960 | to come out where you could hold it

01:20:20.180 | and he had something he sort of came up with to,

01:20:23.060 | your BT, it could ground your BTs.

01:20:25.620 | Could get your BTs that if you were feeling

01:20:27.140 | overstimulated or something.

01:20:28.740 | I'm probably slightly bastardizing this story.

01:20:31.140 | But he came up with this as a great idea,

01:20:33.380 | something to help someone de-stimulate

01:20:35.380 | if their BTs were getting a little too overactive.

01:20:37.340 | Now, so that's a stupid story that's sort of like,

01:20:40.140 | well, it shows you he believes in the concept of BTs

01:20:43.020 | if he's creating little rods to get rid of them,

01:20:44.700 | to ground them into the earth.

01:20:45.940 | - Well, he could be conjuring up the stories

01:20:47.620 | because he understands the power of myth and narrative

01:20:50.540 | and so on to inspire.

01:20:53.140 | - Sure.

01:20:53.980 | - But like, but also if we look at history,

01:20:56.700 | both with, this is an interesting thing

01:20:58.820 | because I've been reading a lot about Hitler and Stalin

01:21:01.700 | and it seems like both of them in different ways

01:21:06.020 | believed in the stories they were telling.

01:21:10.180 | Even when the stories, this is the fascinating,

01:21:12.220 | especially with Hitler and propaganda,

01:21:14.260 | where they were literally conjured up at first.

01:21:17.040 | But then you start to believe you're in propaganda.

01:21:19.820 | With Stalin, I think what he always believed

01:21:22.940 | is the bigger ideal of pure communism

01:21:25.900 | and anything justifies the journey to communism

01:21:29.380 | because it will ultimately be good for humanity

01:21:32.780 | to achieve the state of pure communism.

01:21:35.060 | And then he's a godlike figure that can bring humanity there.

01:21:40.060 | But like, with Hitler, it's interesting

01:21:42.900 | because there's constant propaganda

01:21:45.940 | that he knows is not true.

01:21:48.580 | A little bit, there's gotta be doubt,

01:21:50.900 | but then he like, all doubt is removed very quickly.

01:21:53.460 | - Yeah.

01:21:54.580 | I guess humans are just, this is how they operate.

01:21:56.900 | - Yeah.

01:21:57.740 | The conversation about David Miscavige

01:21:59.020 | gets really interesting because I could give you a,

01:22:01.500 | if I wanted to make the argument that he didn't believe,

01:22:04.100 | I could give you a dozen examples to make that argument.

01:22:07.060 | I just happen to think that he believes in a different way,

01:22:12.060 | whereas your average Scientologist

01:22:16.340 | believes that Alvaron Hubbard was practically infallible,

01:22:19.260 | that he thought of everything in advance,

01:22:21.020 | he took care of everything before he left,

01:22:22.580 | and Miscavige still believes in like,

01:22:25.100 | the main structure of this thing,

01:22:27.060 | but he's like, "Oh shit, it's falling to me

01:22:29.820 | "to figure out how to actually make this thing happen."

01:22:33.340 | I think Miscavige sees himself as someone

01:22:35.460 | who has to a certain degree had to go back

01:22:37.140 | and fix Alvaron Hubbard's mistakes.

01:22:39.100 | - Do you think he sees himself as doing good for the world?

01:22:42.460 | - I do.

01:22:43.540 | - What about for the people of Scientology?

01:22:45.700 | - I think in his own way, he does.

01:22:48.740 | I don't think he wakes up thinking

01:22:50.100 | he's screwing Scientologists.

01:22:54.300 | I think he sees everyone else as screwing him.

01:22:57.460 | I think he sees that it is his job to expand Scientology

01:23:02.460 | throughout the world and accomplish the aims of Scientology,

01:23:05.340 | and he sees that it's not happening,

01:23:07.500 | and he thinks if everyone else would just stop,

01:23:10.340 | if everyone else would get out of his way

01:23:11.740 | and stop creating problems for him, it would happen.

01:23:14.180 | I do think he sees himself as someone who is doing good.

01:23:20.280 | I think that's fair to say.

01:23:22.160 | I think the evidence shows that.

01:23:23.800 | - What about the effects of clearly power and influence

01:23:27.560 | that he's had and money?

01:23:29.080 | - Yeah, without question,

01:23:30.320 | that has served as a corrupting force.

01:23:32.280 | - It has. - Without question.

01:23:34.040 | - Have you seen sort of evidence of that,

01:23:35.480 | that he's changed over time?

01:23:36.920 | - After the 1993 IRS exemption that Scientology won back,

01:23:41.920 | and this information comes from Mike Rinder,

01:23:46.520 | that's when David Miscavige,

01:23:49.240 | as soon as the checks on his power were removed,

01:23:51.760 | Miscavige's behavior changed markedly.

01:23:54.120 | - Can you tell the story of Shelley Miscavige

01:23:56.120 | and the mystery surrounding her?

01:23:57.520 | I saw that there is quite a bit of mystery.

01:23:59.440 | - Yeah, so Shelley Miscavige, for many years,

01:24:04.320 | held the job of her post in the C organization

01:24:07.480 | was David Miscavige's assistant.

01:24:10.440 | That was her post.

01:24:11.840 | It's important to truly understand that and what that means

01:24:15.720 | because the fact that she was Miscavige's wife

01:24:20.720 | is meaningless, and this is something that's hard

01:24:24.040 | for regular people in the regular world

01:24:26.080 | to truly grasp how meaningless it is in Scientology.

01:24:28.760 | For C-org members who are spouses, it means nothing.

01:24:32.440 | - Your role matters more within C-org.

01:24:34.920 | - Your role's the only thing that matters.

01:24:36.800 | So let's say if Shelley was married to Dave,

01:24:40.480 | but she worked in a different organization.

01:24:43.680 | She would never be seen with him ever, publicly ever.

01:24:47.440 | Wouldn't travel with him,

01:24:48.520 | wouldn't go to events with him, nothing.

01:24:51.240 | Sometime around 2006, 2007,

01:24:54.280 | and I'm very oversimplifying this, okay?

01:24:57.160 | Shelley basically pissed off Dave to the point

01:24:58.880 | where he's like, "Okay, I'm done with you.

01:25:01.760 | "I'm gonna take you off of your post."

01:25:04.240 | Okay?

01:25:05.520 | At that point, she was reassigned

01:25:07.180 | to another confidential Scientology base

01:25:09.980 | up in Twin Peaks, California.

01:25:13.420 | Why am I, the reason I'm providing this type of detail

01:25:16.920 | is because we hear that Shelley's missing.

01:25:19.720 | - Yeah.

01:25:20.560 | - Okay, well, you realize the same people

01:25:22.640 | who report that Shelley's missing

01:25:23.720 | are also the same people

01:25:24.600 | who will tell you exactly where she is.

01:25:26.800 | Okay, she works at this secretive CST,

01:25:29.160 | Church of Spiritual Technology base

01:25:30.680 | out in Twin Peaks, California.

01:25:32.720 | I have personal confirmation that she was seen

01:25:37.000 | and spoken with by someone who knew her well in,

01:25:41.160 | I'll say 2019.

01:25:42.940 | Shelley Miscavige is missing in the sense that

01:25:47.080 | she hasn't been seen with David Miscavige since about 2006.

01:25:52.200 | But because she's no longer his assistant,

01:25:54.460 | you would never see her with him.

01:25:57.680 | - As opposed to like the mystery of a person

01:26:00.080 | that might be murdered,

01:26:01.340 | this is more of a reallocation within the organization.

01:26:05.760 | - Certain people who cover Scientology,

01:26:10.020 | who have published stories

01:26:12.220 | where Shelley's Miscavige's family member

01:26:15.460 | told a story to another family member,

01:26:18.260 | who told the story to a friend,

01:26:19.460 | who told the story to a former Scientologist,

01:26:21.300 | who told the story to a journalist,

01:26:22.580 | who published the story,

01:26:23.780 | has created the impression

01:26:25.900 | that some of Shelley Miscavige's family members

01:26:27.700 | are actually talking to the press,

01:26:29.540 | when in fact that has never occurred.

01:26:31.940 | And so the very people who are publishing

01:26:34.060 | about Shelley Miscavige missing

01:26:35.620 | have contributed to the fact that Shelley Miscavige

01:26:37.420 | does no longer speak to those family members

01:26:40.200 | because she thinks they're talking to the press

01:26:42.280 | when they never have.

01:26:43.760 | It's pretty messed up.

01:26:44.880 | - It's sad that she,

01:26:46.040 | 'cause those family members would be a way for her

01:26:49.080 | to recover, to flourish as a human being, to escape.

01:26:54.080 | - Yeah.

01:26:55.320 | So I believe the information that I have,

01:26:59.200 | that I verified,

01:27:00.120 | I'm the one representing it's true

01:27:02.680 | without revealing my sources.

01:27:04.720 | That Shelley was still actively in touch regularly

01:27:08.140 | with family members outside of the C organization

01:27:10.380 | since about, until about 2014.

01:27:12.160 | So I mean regularly.

01:27:14.980 | Okay, so there's no question about her safety

01:27:17.860 | during that period.

01:27:18.780 | And then someone else who knew Shelley very well

01:27:22.180 | did see her and actually have a conversation with her

01:27:25.240 | in a public place in 2019 or 2020.

01:27:29.740 | Now somebody could still come along and be like,

01:27:30.940 | "How do we know she's okay?

01:27:31.860 | "It's been three years."

01:27:32.740 | Yeah, okay, you can say that about anybody.

01:27:34.380 | You know, the nature of working

01:27:37.040 | in the highest levels of Scientology management

01:27:39.520 | at these super secretive bases,

01:27:41.880 | it's a very weird and unique situation.

01:27:45.040 | It has isolation baked in.

01:27:46.800 | - How is secrecy enforced?

01:27:48.800 | Why is everybody holding on to their stories so intensely?

01:27:53.800 | People that are within the organization.

01:27:56.880 | Like it's hard to leak information.

01:27:59.720 | - Oh, they wouldn't wanna leak.

01:28:00.680 | They're true believers.

01:28:01.760 | They see, like there's sort of a conspiracy theory

01:28:05.620 | that runs right through all of Scientology,

01:28:08.660 | which is that Scientology represents

01:28:12.100 | like an existential threat to the powers

01:28:14.940 | that really control this planet.

01:28:17.180 | - Do they have a face to the powers that really control?

01:28:20.820 | Do they have names to it?

01:28:22.620 | Like who's controlling?

01:28:23.620 | - It's Zeno's homies.

01:28:24.980 | - Well, I'm sure that's not what they say.

01:28:26.580 | Zeno embodied in--

01:28:28.740 | - It's actually sort of a multifaceted conspiracy

01:28:32.640 | in that on the one hand, L. Ron Hubbard points his fingers

01:28:35.400 | at like the international bankers,

01:28:37.200 | which has shades of antisemitism to it.

01:28:40.800 | - And then the IRS is going to be quickly baked in or no?

01:28:44.520 | - The IRS, no, the IRS is so low on the totem pole

01:28:47.960 | as far as the, I mean, the international bankers,

01:28:49.800 | he would say runs everything.

01:28:51.040 | - Got it.

01:28:51.860 | - But use that these bankers also use big pharma

01:28:56.120 | and big psych to control the population.

01:28:59.460 | And Scientology is famously against pharma and psych.

01:29:04.400 | And so this is sort of how L. Ron Hubbard characterizes

01:29:06.820 | like this big war between Scientology

01:29:09.260 | that's trying to set everyone free

01:29:11.180 | and big pharma and big psych

01:29:12.560 | that's trying to enslave everyone on the planet.

01:29:14.660 | - Yeah, controlling their mind,

01:29:16.820 | controlling their body through chemicals and--

01:29:18.940 | - And who controls the press, big pharma and big psych.

01:29:22.380 | - So there's a lot of correlation

01:29:24.460 | to other kinds of conspiracy theories.

01:29:25.980 | - Yeah.

01:29:26.820 | - Oh, that's fascinating.

01:29:29.300 | - But you asked the question

01:29:31.060 | where why would all these people hold onto their stories?

01:29:34.740 | They don't, they would never wanna leak.

01:29:37.060 | Like by even anyone who would wanna leak

01:29:40.620 | would not even wanna be a Scientologist anymore.

01:29:42.900 | Like if you truly believe,

01:29:43.780 | if you truly believe in Scientology

01:29:45.500 | and you got your shoulder to the wheel

01:29:46.580 | and you're a C-ORG member,

01:29:47.980 | you think Scientology is literally the only thing

01:29:51.200 | that can save every being on this planet

01:29:54.660 | from a fate of eternal amnesia and slavery.

01:29:58.700 | - Yeah.

01:29:59.580 | - Right?

01:30:00.420 | And so it's like, I mean, you've seen the Matrix, right?

01:30:02.740 | So you've got everyone,

01:30:04.020 | once you're unplugged from the Matrix

01:30:05.860 | and you realize, yeah, you can get plugged back in

01:30:08.420 | and live your nice life, but you're a slave.

01:30:11.420 | That's how Scientologists see this planet.

01:30:13.420 | They actually, they refer to Earth as a prison planet.

01:30:16.940 | - Just at an individual level,

01:30:18.660 | how is it possible to reach a person like that?

01:30:21.020 | Is there something you could say to that?

01:30:24.500 | Like what's the journey of reaching a person like that?

01:30:27.980 | - I personally, because when I was in those shoes,

01:30:32.980 | I say there's nothing anybody could have said to me

01:30:36.020 | to get me to change how I felt and thought about Scientology.

01:30:39.940 | It's almost foolproof that the more evidence

01:30:43.140 | you try to present that there's something wrong

01:30:47.060 | with what Scientology is doing,

01:30:48.940 | the more you're just working for the psychs.

01:30:51.180 | It's very, very difficult.

01:30:53.500 | I mean, most people who leave Scientology

01:30:56.620 | leave because they have had some personal experience

01:31:00.340 | that was just such a grave injustice

01:31:03.260 | that it just pushed them beyond the point

01:31:07.380 | of what they were willing to experience.

01:31:09.180 | Very rare, I'm not sure I've really ever heard a story

01:31:11.340 | of someone going, yeah, I just woke up,

01:31:13.380 | I just gradually realized it was all BS and drifted away.

01:31:16.260 | It's usually like, no, I really believed

01:31:21.220 | and they treated me so horribly,

01:31:24.700 | I almost had no choice but to leave.

01:31:28.180 | And then the stories get pretty crazy.

01:31:30.420 | - Meaning you don't care what's true anymore,

01:31:32.140 | you just have to leave with the unpleasant feeling,

01:31:35.020 | the suffering.

01:31:35.860 | - Yeah, and this sort of goes back to the conversation

01:31:39.580 | we're having about like, well, does Miscavige really believe?

01:31:42.780 | And I said I could make an argument

01:31:44.140 | for the fact that he doesn't, right?

01:31:45.980 | Because I go, it wouldn't be that hard

01:31:49.220 | to change the way Scientology treats people

01:31:51.660 | just a little bit and you'd probably stop losing anyone

01:31:56.220 | because Scientologists already believe

01:31:58.100 | to such a strong degree, you have to be pretty

01:32:00.900 | fricking horrible to people to make them leave.

01:32:03.020 | And that's where you go, well, does Miscavige

01:32:05.180 | even want Scientology to expand?

01:32:07.260 | 'Cause if he was really being clever about it,

01:32:08.820 | it seems like he could at least stop the bleeding

01:32:10.980 | and yet he doesn't.

01:32:12.380 | So that's where you make the argument,

01:32:13.540 | well, if he doesn't, then he must not want to.

01:32:15.740 | - So his mind is corrupted to the point

01:32:17.660 | where he's not able to actually be

01:32:20.100 | a good businessman essentially.

01:32:21.740 | - It seems that way.

01:32:22.740 | The numbers of Scientologists have been going down

01:32:28.220 | and down and down since the early '90s.

01:32:29.940 | - Is there a good, I mean, it's very difficult

01:32:32.100 | to get to this number, but is there a good estimate

01:32:34.940 | of what the current number of Scientologists,

01:32:37.340 | of practicing Scientologists is?

01:32:39.060 | - Oh yeah, I did a video about this.

01:32:40.540 | It's actually quite easy to get to the number.

01:32:42.260 | It's not more than 35,000 in the entire world.

01:32:44.860 | And that's being very generous and charitable.

01:32:46.980 | I was intentionally generous.

01:32:48.660 | I broke it all down in a spreadsheet and everything.

01:32:51.180 | - Can you give some insights of how you get that info?

01:32:53.620 | - Sure, there's about 175 to 200 Scientology organizations

01:32:56.860 | in the world.

01:32:58.140 | Anybody who's ever worked at these organizations know

01:33:01.260 | there's not more than 35 to 50 staff members per org.

01:33:04.720 | There's not more than one to 200

01:33:06.620 | public Scientologists per org.

01:33:08.900 | I broke down the number of SEERG members

01:33:10.700 | who'd be working at every continental management unit,

01:33:12.940 | middle management, international management.

01:33:15.300 | I broke it on the mission network.

01:33:16.640 | And I was generous.

01:33:18.300 | I mean, my numbers were like, if L. Ron Hubbard came back

01:33:22.020 | and they were doing an event,

01:33:24.180 | L. Ron Hubbard was coming back and announcing OT nine and 10

01:33:27.740 | how many Scientologists could we scrape together

01:33:29.700 | in every city to come to this event?

01:33:31.620 | It wasn't more than 35,000.

01:33:33.300 | Now contrast that to what Scientology says.

01:33:35.460 | Millions, 10 million people.

01:33:40.460 | - Is this less people than there used to be?

01:33:42.620 | - Yeah, at its peak it was about 100,000 active members.

01:33:46.060 | - But never the millions.

01:33:47.600 | - Never, no.

01:33:48.660 | - Has David Miscavige used violence?

01:33:54.440 | Has there, in your understanding of it,

01:33:56.820 | in your estimation, sort of harassment, assault,

01:34:00.720 | and actual, I don't know how to define assault, but violence?

01:34:05.180 | - Oh yeah, dozens of former SEERG members

01:34:08.280 | from the international base have told stories

01:34:10.400 | of being assaulted by Miscavige.

01:34:11.700 | In fact, Mike Rinder is probably the one person

01:34:15.000 | who's been assaulted by Miscavige more than anyone else.

01:34:18.220 | He's personally probably been assaulted dozens of times.

01:34:21.020 | - Who is Mike Rinder?

01:34:23.820 | - So Mike Rinder, one of the highest ranking executives

01:34:26.460 | in Scientology.

01:34:27.620 | - The author.

01:34:28.860 | - There you go, a billion years.

01:34:30.660 | - Of a billion years.

01:34:32.300 | - It really is a fantastic book.

01:34:34.180 | 'Cause Lex, the guy was born and raised in Scientology

01:34:37.200 | and worked personally with L. Ron Hubbard

01:34:38.780 | and worked personally with David Miscavige for decades.

01:34:41.340 | Doesn't get much more insider than that.

01:34:43.340 | A candid and deeply felt memoir of a life lost

01:34:46.100 | to false belief and courageously regained.

01:34:49.180 | Lawrence Wright.

01:34:50.160 | A billion years, my escape from a life

01:34:53.100 | in the highest ranks of Scientology, Mike Rinder.

01:34:56.100 | - It's a fantastic book.

01:34:57.500 | He also narrates his own audio book too.

01:35:00.100 | I know you like the audio books, that's how I listen to it.

01:35:02.620 | So Mike famously, I just said a moment ago,

01:35:05.380 | like someone who's treated so horribly,

01:35:07.680 | even though he still believed in Scientology,

01:35:09.380 | he had no choice but to leave.

01:35:11.380 | And he tells the story in that book

01:35:13.540 | and he still believed in Scientology for years

01:35:15.540 | after he escaped, for years.

01:35:18.180 | 'Cause there's this thing called

01:35:19.220 | the Independent Scientology Movement

01:35:20.740 | or the Free Zone or whatever.

01:35:21.580 | There are people who do Scientology

01:35:22.780 | outside of the Church of Scientology.

01:35:25.160 | There's just not many of them.

01:35:26.420 | But Mike was one of those people

01:35:28.140 | who was actually doing Scientology even after he left.

01:35:30.620 | Now he no longer believes in that anymore

01:35:31.940 | and he doesn't do it.

01:35:33.140 | But even though he still believed,

01:35:35.020 | even though everything he knew

01:35:37.980 | was what he was leaving behind,

01:35:39.860 | he still had to leave it behind.

01:35:41.620 | - And by the way, I just opened a random page

01:35:43.460 | and he says, "When I signed on for Sea Org

01:35:45.820 | "in Adelaide in 1973, the recruiter promised

01:35:48.960 | "I would train as a Scientology executive

01:35:51.400 | "under the direct tutelage of Hubbard on the Apollo."

01:35:55.800 | So this is another thing I should probably ask you about.

01:35:58.700 | - Oh, we could go for days.

01:36:00.860 | - I was also told that after I learned

01:36:02.780 | all I needed to learn at the foot of the Master,

01:36:05.420 | I would return to Australia

01:36:06.900 | to help expand Scientology in my home country.

01:36:10.260 | So what was the thing that really broke him?

01:36:14.420 | - The final thing is when he got to a point

01:36:19.060 | where he was no longer being forced

01:36:21.300 | to lie to protect L. Ron Hubbard.

01:36:23.780 | He was now being forced to lie to protect David Miscavige.

01:36:28.620 | And specifically, it was about the allegations

01:36:30.740 | of having been assaulted by Miscavige.

01:36:33.200 | Mike Rinder was at some event,

01:36:36.720 | it might have been a grand opening for a building,

01:36:38.300 | a Scientology building in London.

01:36:40.300 | And I believe it was John Sweeney,

01:36:42.980 | at that time a BBC journalist,

01:36:44.580 | who stuck a camera and a microphone in Mike's face.

01:36:46.860 | "Is it true David Miscavige assaulted, is it true?"

01:36:49.380 | And Mike denied it on camera.

01:36:51.500 | And then turned around and to himself is like,

01:36:53.980 | "This is what my life has been reduced to?

01:36:58.040 | "Lying to protect David Miscavige?

01:37:01.000 | "This used to be about L. Ron Hubbard.

01:37:03.140 | "This used to be about Scientology.

01:37:06.020 | "Now it's about protecting this douchebag?"

01:37:08.780 | And Miscavige had just issued orders

01:37:11.900 | that was gonna send Mike off to Australia.

01:37:15.660 | Like Miscavige is sadistic.

01:37:17.500 | That is without question.

01:37:19.680 | - Sadistic meaning?

01:37:20.940 | - He enjoys inflicting pain upon others.

01:37:23.620 | So he very specifically was gonna tell Mike,

01:37:26.660 | tell Rinder or tell that cocksucker,

01:37:29.140 | "We're shipping him off to Australia.

01:37:30.560 | "He's never gonna see his wife and his kids again."

01:37:32.260 | Essentially.

01:37:33.420 | And that's when Mike was like,

01:37:35.120 | "They were the only reason I hadn't already left.

01:37:37.620 | "So if I follow the orders, I'm gonna lose 'em.

01:37:42.000 | "If I leave Scientology, I'm gonna lose 'em.

01:37:46.740 | "At least if I leave Scientology,

01:37:48.460 | "I'll be free of something."

01:37:51.220 | It's fucking sad.

01:37:54.220 | - And he still believed Scientology

01:37:56.500 | to some degree after he left, is what you're saying?

01:37:59.100 | - Yeah.

01:37:59.940 | - Has he spoken about what it took to let go

01:38:02.740 | of believing in Scientology?

01:38:04.640 | - He does a very good job talking about

01:38:06.400 | all of this in the book.

01:38:07.560 | And it took him like four or five years

01:38:11.560 | to get that book done.

01:38:12.400 | It's a polished version.

01:38:14.640 | It's a polished version of his story.

01:38:16.200 | And I think Mike's about getting ready

01:38:18.320 | to start his own YouTube channel.

01:38:19.400 | So that'll be a lot of fun.

01:38:20.280 | Actually, Mike comes on my channel all the time.

01:38:22.060 | - Yeah, you guys do a thing together, right?

01:38:23.920 | - Yeah, we do Three Amigos

01:38:25.520 | with me and Mike Rinder and Mark Hedley.

01:38:27.960 | That's why I gave you Mark's book.

01:38:29.680 | I thought maybe you would know him

01:38:31.280 | from our little Three Amigos,

01:38:32.480 | our Mondays with Mike and Mark videos.

01:38:34.540 | - Mark Hedley, blown for good

01:38:38.200 | behind the iron curtain of Scientology.

01:38:40.360 | - So he escaped from the International Base on a motorcycle.

01:38:42.880 | It's a wild story.

01:38:44.660 | - Nice.

01:38:45.500 | - I won't even try to do it justice.

01:38:46.560 | - Who's a better writer of the two of them?

01:38:48.280 | (laughing)

01:38:49.760 | - You're not gonna get me there.

01:38:51.560 | - I'm trying to be investigative journalist for once.

01:38:53.520 | - Mike and Mark are both on the board

01:38:55.420 | of the Aftermath Foundation with me.

01:38:57.920 | - Who's better looking?

01:38:58.840 | No, I'm just kidding.

01:39:00.280 | - It's one of my justifications

01:39:01.960 | for just putting up content every day

01:39:03.320 | is every video is just an excuse to,

01:39:05.600 | in some little way, promote the Aftermath Foundation.

01:39:07.600 | And I do that again, one, to genuinely help people escape,

01:39:11.280 | and two, 'cause I know it drives David Miscavige crazy.

01:39:13.840 | - If you look in your own heart, is there anger there?

01:39:16.540 | - I don't think it's anger.

01:39:19.300 | I don't hate Scientology.

01:39:21.480 | I don't hate David Miscavige.

01:39:23.760 | I don't even hate my experience in Scientology.

01:39:25.880 | - Do you able to accept the good from your experience?

01:39:30.480 | - Yeah, absolutely.

01:39:32.080 | But it's also the only path that I traveled.

01:39:34.360 | So I tend, okay, a little less so these days,

01:39:37.760 | but earlier in life, I tended to attribute

01:39:41.520 | all positive characteristics in me to Scientology,

01:39:44.400 | 'cause in my simplistic way of thinking, I was like,

01:39:46.680 | what else could it possibly be attributed to?

01:39:48.800 | That's a very black and white way of seeing it.

01:39:50.240 | - Well, it's a beautiful way to see life.

01:39:52.680 | No matter what happens to you, you attribute,

01:39:55.280 | like you focus on the positive,

01:39:57.680 | and you feel like sometimes people have traumatic experiences

01:40:00.280 | with parents and so on.

01:40:01.640 | And if you focus on the positive,

01:40:03.480 | it's a good way to let go of the trauma associated with it.

01:40:06.920 | - True.

01:40:07.800 | But like another example would be like,

01:40:09.040 | I didn't go to school, like I stopped going to school

01:40:11.240 | in the seventh grade, but people go,

01:40:12.640 | but you sound so smart.

01:40:14.440 | And what am I supposed to do?

01:40:15.360 | Am I supposed to say, well, it's 'cause of Scientology?

01:40:17.240 | Like, how do I answer that question?

01:40:19.240 | Like, if it's the only path I traveled,

01:40:21.480 | how do I answer that question?

01:40:22.680 | I don't necessarily wanna give Scientology credit,

01:40:24.480 | but what the hell am I supposed to point to?

01:40:25.920 | - Sure. - You know?

01:40:26.920 | I mean, you said you kind of enjoy,

01:40:30.760 | I mean, part of it is you joking and trolling,

01:40:32.480 | that you enjoy knowing that your YouTube channel

01:40:35.380 | drives Dave Miscavige crazy.

01:40:38.160 | I mean, what, that means you still,

01:40:41.600 | I mean, there is a joy you have.

01:40:43.880 | - There is a joy.

01:40:44.720 | I'm not gonna deny that.

01:40:45.720 | - I don't know what to make of that.

01:40:46.960 | 'Cause there's a, I suppose there's an intimacy

01:40:49.780 | when you're part of a tribe of that kind.

01:40:52.960 | - It's almost like, let me try to frame it.

01:40:56.560 | I wasn't trying to get kicked out of Scientology.

01:40:59.320 | I was trying to not get kicked out of Scientology.

01:41:02.180 | So what happened, first my mom got kicked out

01:41:06.000 | for basically talking some smack about David Miscavige.

01:41:09.520 | And then they go to me and they go,

01:41:10.680 | okay, you've gotta disconnect from your mom

01:41:12.680 | or you're gonna get kicked out.

01:41:14.360 | And I lied about that.

01:41:15.200 | I was like, okay, I'll disconnect.

01:41:16.760 | But I never did.

01:41:17.600 | For a couple years, I lied my ass off about it.

01:41:19.440 | Eventually, they were like,

01:41:20.560 | this guy's gonna keep lying to us, right?

01:41:22.320 | And they're like, yeah.

01:41:23.160 | Like, all right, you're out.

01:41:24.180 | So then they go to my wife,

01:41:25.100 | say, you gotta divorce your husband

01:41:26.160 | or you're gonna get kicked out.

01:41:27.200 | And she goes, no.

01:41:28.080 | - That's a hell of a statement from her.

01:41:36.480 | It's gonna get harder from here.

01:41:38.600 | So I'm not quite sure how to.

01:41:41.120 | - Okay, I'll try to get, I'll try to do my best.

01:41:43.760 | - You don't seem like a man who's afraid of hard things.

01:41:46.520 | - Okay, so she's like, no.

01:41:50.000 | So then they go to her parents.

01:41:55.200 | And they say, you've got to disconnect from your daughter

01:41:58.600 | and your three granddaughters

01:42:00.280 | or you're gonna get kicked out.

01:42:03.120 | But they have three other kids who are Scientologists,

01:42:08.560 | who have spouses who are Scientologists,

01:42:10.360 | who have grandkids.

01:42:11.520 | So I feel like up until that point,

01:42:16.040 | everybody was sort of making a decision for themselves

01:42:18.840 | and what would be best for themselves

01:42:21.280 | until they get to her parents.

01:42:23.360 | And then they're like, which grandkids are we gonna lose?

01:42:26.880 | Okay?

01:42:28.320 | At the part where they were trying to get me

01:42:29.640 | to disconnect from my mom,

01:42:31.320 | there were hours that I spent talking to them going,

01:42:35.160 | you know, guys, there's another way.

01:42:38.480 | It doesn't have to go this way.

01:42:42.680 | There's another way that ends well for all of us.

01:42:46.400 | And that wasn't even considered.

01:42:49.240 | And I go, like, they created this monster.

01:42:54.100 | And that's a fact.

01:42:55.980 | And that's why I take joy in it.

01:42:59.380 | When people ask me, is Scientology a destructive cult?

01:43:02.100 | I don't even have to get into all the academic discussions

01:43:04.860 | of what's a religion and what's a cult

01:43:06.100 | and what's the difference.

01:43:06.940 | I go, as long as they destroy families like that,

01:43:09.900 | they're a cult.

01:43:10.740 | - So they cut people off deliberately, one by one.

01:43:17.340 | And it doesn't have to be that way.

01:43:22.620 | - Right.

01:43:23.620 | - And why is it that way?

01:43:25.660 | - I mean, it started with L. Ron Hubbard

01:43:27.820 | laying out a policy framework, a policy structure,

01:43:31.100 | that if interpreted and applied in the worst possible way,

01:43:36.100 | with the worst possible judgment,

01:43:39.460 | can be abused in that way.

01:43:41.140 | I would make the argument

01:43:43.260 | that if an anti-broker had taken over,

01:43:46.460 | that Scientology policy does have enough

01:43:50.060 | little caveats baked into it

01:43:52.380 | that even the policies about disconnection

01:43:54.780 | could be interpreted and implemented

01:43:57.380 | in a non-destructive way.

01:44:00.500 | There is room for judgment and discretion.

01:44:03.800 | And Miscavige has just created

01:44:06.620 | the worst possible version of Scientology.

01:44:09.340 | And that's where you sort of get that argument of,

01:44:11.820 | does he even want Scientology to succeed?

01:44:14.360 | 'Cause he seems to be hell-bent

01:44:16.780 | on making sure that he doesn't.

01:44:18.340 | - Yeah.

01:44:19.180 | - And I don't want to see him make it succeed,

01:44:23.300 | but it does bring that question up of like,

01:44:25.820 | what are his motivations?

01:44:27.860 | Can he not see that he's destroying the thing

01:44:29.980 | he's supposed to be expanding?

01:44:32.100 | - That's also, you know, there's ways to measure cost.

01:44:35.800 | And that would probably be the most costly aspect

01:44:41.380 | of Scientology, is the suffering associated

01:44:44.500 | with the separating of families.

01:44:46.180 | - Yeah.

01:44:47.020 | - And that actually just puts, makes it very concrete

01:44:49.940 | what we value in human life,

01:44:52.380 | is the connection to our loved ones.

01:44:54.580 | Like everything else doesn't matter.

01:44:55.700 | Like getting 50 bucks a week.

01:44:58.020 | Getting money stolen from you,

01:45:05.060 | getting the truth stolen from you,

01:45:07.260 | none of that compares.

01:45:08.980 | You can even frame that as the good.

01:45:11.700 | There could be a lot of positives, whatever, in the tribe.

01:45:15.180 | But separating families, separating loved ones,

01:45:17.380 | that's the destructive thing.

01:45:18.820 | - So no hate though?

01:45:21.740 | - No, I genuinely don't hate them.

01:45:24.180 | - Do you forgive them?

01:45:25.540 | - 100%.

01:45:26.840 | There's no one I look at in Scientology that I go,

01:45:29.900 | how dare you?

01:45:30.740 | If I was in their shoes, having to, you know,

01:45:34.140 | operate under David Miscavige's orders,

01:45:35.580 | I would have done the same thing,

01:45:37.340 | and I would have loved it.

01:45:38.980 | Truthfully, I don't blame any of them.

01:45:41.560 | I mean, I take the opposite approach.

01:45:43.420 | If they knew what I knew, they'd be doing what I'm doing.

01:45:47.080 | If they knew what I knew and believed it,

01:45:49.700 | they'd be doing what I'm doing.

01:45:50.940 | They're not dumb.

01:45:52.340 | It's not dumb people in Scientology.

01:45:54.140 | - They're ambitious, they're dreamers,

01:45:58.340 | they got hope, they're driven, all that kind of stuff.

01:46:01.420 | - Yeah.

01:46:02.500 | And it's one of the reasons I like putting up content

01:46:05.620 | on my channel so they can see, hey,

01:46:07.380 | like if you're a Scientologist,

01:46:09.140 | you look at that and you go, hey,

01:46:10.620 | he seems like he's doing well, he's happy,

01:46:13.100 | he's a positive guy, he's a good communicator,

01:46:15.220 | he knows what he's talking about,

01:46:16.500 | he's not lying, he's not exaggerating.

01:46:18.540 | I don't exaggerate anything on my channel.

01:46:21.540 | I don't make up anything.

01:46:23.560 | And this actually comes from an experience I had

01:46:27.620 | from 1998 to 2000.

01:46:29.140 | I was living in LA, I sort of had a two-year period

01:46:30.900 | in my life where I actually had

01:46:31.940 | almost no contact with Scientology.

01:46:33.700 | And during that time, I found my way onto the internet.

01:46:38.500 | And there was a website, it might have been

01:46:40.100 | ESMB, X Scientology message, but whatever it was,

01:46:42.900 | it was at that time the main source of critical information

01:46:46.140 | about Scientology on the internet.

01:46:47.820 | And I looked at it, and remember,

01:46:48.860 | I was still a true believer.

01:46:50.980 | And I looked at this and it was so offensive,

01:46:55.260 | insulting, hyperbolic, exaggerated,

01:46:57.860 | I was like, oh, just a bunch of bullshit.

01:47:00.680 | I was in Scientology for 16 more years.

01:47:06.140 | If what I had seen on the internet

01:47:10.280 | about critical of Scientology,

01:47:11.900 | if what I had seen when I had seen it

01:47:13.860 | was something that actually resonated with me,

01:47:16.700 | that I was like, oh, that I believed was true,

01:47:20.020 | that seemed credible, I would have gotten out

01:47:22.020 | of Scientology 16 years earlier.

01:47:24.340 | So I was like, how can I help create an experience

01:47:29.140 | on the internet that if a Scientologist stumbles upon it,

01:47:32.760 | it will resonate with them instead of repelling them?

01:47:36.140 | And that is exactly what I have set out to do

01:47:38.820 | and what I believe I've accomplished.

01:47:40.540 | - There's the content, the message,

01:47:42.340 | but also just showing that you can be happy

01:47:44.780 | outside of Scientology.

01:47:45.900 | - Exactly.

01:47:46.740 | - You can have a fulfilling life, you can be a good man.

01:47:48.740 | - Yeah. - All that.

01:47:49.980 | What benefit do you think Tom Cruise gets from Scientology?

01:47:54.140 | So why is he still in Scientology?

01:47:55.780 | - He genuinely loves it.

01:47:57.500 | And also, Miscavige does, there's one celebrity

01:48:00.540 | who does have the most unique experience in Scientology,

01:48:03.900 | and that is Tom.

01:48:05.240 | Scientology hires all of Tom's staff.

01:48:09.620 | All of Tom's staff are subject to interrogations

01:48:13.020 | by Scientology, not only in the hiring process,

01:48:16.080 | but during the employment.

01:48:17.940 | David Miscavige on Scientology runs Tom Cruise's life

01:48:21.580 | and his production company and his household staff.

01:48:23.860 | - Do you imagine there's some personal connection there

01:48:25.700 | where they like each other a lot?

01:48:28.780 | - Best friends.

01:48:30.500 | I mean, it's them against the world is how they see it.

01:48:33.900 | I think it's pretty easy to see how that works

01:48:36.420 | between the two of them.

01:48:37.540 | I think this idea of them against the world,

01:48:40.100 | us against the world, is a really powerful, intimate,

01:48:43.900 | I kind of see like friendships and relationships that way.

01:48:47.500 | I mean, not in a dark sense, but it's like,

01:48:50.380 | the world is full of cruelty and absurdity

01:48:53.260 | and unfairness and so on.

01:48:54.740 | It's nice to huddle together like the penguins

01:48:57.020 | in March of the People against the cold.

01:48:59.300 | - 100%. - And they're just like,

01:49:00.740 | and so, especially with the ideology of Scientology,

01:49:06.740 | this idea that you can be anything,

01:49:11.740 | you can essentially, I mean, you can manifest it,

01:49:15.500 | essentially, through like believing it.

01:49:18.380 | I mean, you don't really put it into those words,

01:49:20.860 | but believing that you're a god

01:49:23.820 | is a really like inspiring, positive thing to think.

01:49:28.580 | - If they could figure out how to do all that

01:49:30.420 | without destroying families and bankrupting its members,

01:49:33.320 | they might actually have a future.

01:49:35.240 | That's why, like it's funny,

01:49:36.300 | 'cause sometimes I feel like it's like,

01:49:37.860 | like I'm rooting for them to like succeed and do it right,

01:49:40.180 | and I'm not, but it's an interesting academic discussion

01:49:43.500 | to have of like, we can all see how much people

01:49:47.420 | will sacrifice in the names of belief and religion.

01:49:49.700 | We can see how much Scientologists sacrifice

01:49:52.340 | based on what they already believe.

01:49:54.100 | If you would just start treating people less horribly,

01:49:59.260 | you know what I'm saying?

01:50:01.060 | It might actually have a future.

01:50:02.980 | Not that I want it to.

01:50:04.380 | It seems like this dark lesson of human nature

01:50:06.800 | that there's something about, to use the word cults,

01:50:11.800 | that you just stop seeing reality for what it is.

01:50:16.280 | There's a lot of things that could make this

01:50:17.880 | a better organization that's actually helping people flourish

01:50:20.880 | and be a little bit more like loose about membership,

01:50:28.040 | not dividing families, not causing suffering,

01:50:31.240 | not causing financial harm,

01:50:32.540 | but actually inspiring people and helping people.

01:50:35.200 | But then maybe it fundamentally changes

01:50:38.120 | what the organization is.

01:50:39.640 | And maybe that means somebody like David Miscavige

01:50:41.800 | loses power too, which might be very difficult,

01:50:44.320 | or people that are close to him lose power,

01:50:46.280 | and people hold onto power.

01:50:47.760 | Whatever the human forces here,

01:50:51.280 | it seems to become worse and worse over time.

01:50:55.360 | What about, oh, let me ask a conspiracy question.

01:50:59.240 | Is there a chance that Tom Cruise is being blackmailed?

01:51:02.440 | That there's information from auditing?

01:51:04.760 | No? - No.

01:51:05.600 | - So that kind of stuff is not, that's very conspiratorial.

01:51:07.280 | - I've actually come out and said definitively,

01:51:09.480 | I do not know of a single person who stays in Scientology

01:51:13.160 | because they're afraid of being blackmailed.

01:51:14.640 | It's just not a thing.

01:51:15.800 | It's just not a thing.

01:51:17.500 | Does Scientology have enough information

01:51:20.380 | to blackmail someone if they wanted to?

01:51:22.560 | Well, sure.

01:51:23.840 | I mean, and it doesn't even have to be true.

01:51:25.320 | It could just be lies.

01:51:26.160 | Who cares?

01:51:26.980 | Who knows?

01:51:27.820 | Scientology can say whatever the hell they want.

01:51:28.720 | So that's the thing, it doesn't even have to be true.

01:51:30.960 | And actually, that would be the argument against blackmailing.

01:51:33.260 | Like in order for Scientology to blackmail you

01:51:34.960 | with that information, they'd actually have to represent

01:51:36.920 | that yes, he really did tell us this.

01:51:38.860 | And it's like, well, then why are you spilling secrets

01:51:41.400 | of members, right?

01:51:42.240 | Like it sets a bad precedent.

01:51:43.560 | - What are some of the sins according to Scientology?

01:51:46.760 | - Most of the sins from a Scientology perspective

01:51:49.360 | are just doing or saying anything that brings disrepute

01:51:52.480 | to Scientology itself, right?

01:51:54.580 | Remember, it's not like Christianity where there's rules.

01:51:59.600 | If you break this rule, you're not getting into heaven.

01:52:01.640 | 'Cause Scientology doesn't think about things that way.

01:52:02.920 | - Oh, there's the drug.

01:52:03.960 | You can't do drugs, right?

01:52:04.960 | - You can't do drugs.

01:52:07.400 | And you can't take any psychotropic medications.

01:52:11.560 | - And no medications almost at all?

01:52:13.280 | - You're allowed to take medications.

01:52:14.520 | It's just, there's no rules expressly prohibiting it.

01:52:17.740 | It's just most Scientologists tend not to.

01:52:20.000 | You can take Advil, but many Scientologists won't.

01:52:23.360 | - Okay.

01:52:25.040 | - You just can't take anything prescribed

01:52:26.900 | by a psychiatrist, a psychologist,

01:52:28.400 | or any drugs that are psychotropic drugs.

01:52:31.280 | I mean, SSRIs are considered probably the closest thing

01:52:34.100 | to pure evil in the world of Scientology.

01:52:37.520 | - What about, weird question, what about sex?

01:52:40.040 | Is there boundaries on what's?

01:52:41.880 | - There used to not be.

01:52:43.200 | It's become very puritanical in the last many decades.

01:52:46.920 | For a reason I can't actually explain.

01:52:48.920 | Like, miscavige does seem to be infatuated

01:52:52.760 | with controlling sex.

01:52:54.020 | Like, that is one thing about miscavige version

01:52:57.780 | of Scientology that's gotten very strange.

01:53:00.360 | I mean, L. Ron Hubbard even specifically wrote a policy

01:53:02.640 | that says we are no longer going to regulate

01:53:06.640 | in any way the bedroom activities of people.

01:53:10.520 | He literally said, from this point on,

01:53:12.200 | no one is allowed to be subject to any justice actions

01:53:14.800 | of any kind whatsoever for anything they do

01:53:17.400 | in their sexual lives.

01:53:19.140 | But that still did not give permission

01:53:21.400 | for gay relationships.

01:53:22.360 | That was still referring to straight stuff.

01:53:23.860 | - And monogamous only.

01:53:26.880 | Can you do open marriages and open relationships?

01:53:30.320 | - According to L. Ron Hubbard policy, you can.

01:53:32.680 | - Yeah, but you know.

01:53:33.640 | - I think he wrote that policy before he created

01:53:35.560 | the C organization.

01:53:37.000 | And then what happened is, this is actually

01:53:38.920 | how this came into effect.

01:53:40.800 | He created the C organization.

01:53:42.340 | You had a lot of people on a ship,

01:53:43.760 | and everybody was just banging each other,

01:53:45.120 | and it created just a nightmare of personal relationship.

01:53:49.040 | It was making production impossible.

01:53:50.580 | Not 'cause everybody was spending so much time banging,

01:53:52.520 | but because everybody was so upset

01:53:54.480 | about who was banging who.

01:53:56.040 | - Yeah, yeah.

01:53:56.880 | (laughing)

01:53:58.040 | I mean, sex and that kind of dynamic is really,

01:54:01.960 | I mean, humans do what humans do,

01:54:04.800 | and then there's drama and all that.

01:54:06.440 | It's understandable, 'cause everybody's so intimate.

01:54:08.880 | It's a closed tribe.

01:54:12.080 | It makes sense to limit sex.

01:54:13.760 | Otherwise, it becomes a sex cult,

01:54:16.800 | which a lot of them end up becoming.

01:54:19.160 | On that topic, would you classify Scientology as a cult?

01:54:22.680 | - 100%.

01:54:24.040 | But not because I'm fully conversant

01:54:26.320 | with the academic differentiations

01:54:28.840 | between what's a religion and what's a cult.

01:54:30.380 | I mean, Scientology would say,

01:54:31.220 | "Well, all small new religions are cults."

01:54:32.920 | And I don't know, that's probably true.

01:54:34.400 | Some people would say, "All religions are cults."

01:54:36.080 | And I'd be like, "Depends on how you define religion,

01:54:37.960 | "and it depends on how you define cult."

01:54:39.680 | But I just fall back on my thing of,

01:54:41.720 | if you're destroying families and bankrupting your members,

01:54:45.360 | you're a cult.

01:54:46.300 | That's how I look at it.

01:54:49.240 | - It's us versus them, and the them could be your family,

01:54:53.280 | it could be your loved ones.

01:54:54.640 | That's deeply destructive,

01:54:58.160 | and one of the things you would probably throw

01:54:59.920 | into the definition of a cult

01:55:01.080 | is something that's actually destructive.

01:55:02.800 | 'Cause I do a lot of stuff that's cult-like, like Jiu-Jitsu.

01:55:06.680 | There's a lot of really close-knit tribes,

01:55:09.880 | but there's no negative toxicity to it.

01:55:12.440 | There's no divide, there's no divisions.

01:55:15.960 | Or if there is, it's more, boy.

01:55:21.000 | Try being a fan of a certain soccer team

01:55:23.360 | and then becoming a fan of another soccer team.

01:55:25.080 | - That's hardcore.

01:55:26.040 | - And they (exhales)

01:55:27.360 | (Zubin laughs)

01:55:29.120 | - But I'll tell you, I train Jiu-Jitsu as well,

01:55:30.840 | and I have found that community of people

01:55:34.160 | to be one of the most loving

01:55:37.240 | and helpful group of people ever.

01:55:41.680 | Shout out to John Keller, Gracie Baja Clearwater.

01:55:44.600 | No, but seriously, it's one of the reasons

01:55:47.920 | I continue to do it, despite my back, my hip, my shoulder.

01:55:52.880 | It's like, it's just such a cool group of guys.

01:55:54.480 | - Goes on.

01:55:55.320 | I think it was much more divisive in the beginning

01:55:59.720 | from the Brazilian roots.

01:56:01.600 | One of the things that's really hard

01:56:03.000 | is the team-oriented.

01:56:04.600 | If you're this team, you're ride or die with this team,

01:56:08.680 | and there's no, there's the Crianchas,

01:56:10.160 | they go to another team.

01:56:12.160 | And I think that aspect, that was actually a turnoff

01:56:14.240 | for me in the beginning, that the toxicity of that.

01:56:16.520 | Because I understand that a little bit for the elites,

01:56:21.480 | for the highest of the highest.

01:56:23.400 | That there is, I like the brotherhood

01:56:24.880 | and the loyalty of the people,

01:56:26.320 | like the Olympic gold medalists,

01:56:27.520 | the best in the world, yes.

01:56:29.520 | But for recreational fun, it's like,

01:56:32.200 | this is ultimately about the camaraderie

01:56:34.160 | of all human beings together,

01:56:35.400 | not some, whatever label you put on yourself.

01:56:39.760 | I don't think we actually talked

01:56:40.680 | about the organization itself.

01:56:42.080 | We talked about tax-exempt status,

01:56:44.600 | which is really important.

01:56:46.340 | We talked about some of the control,

01:56:48.120 | like through the propaganda control of what's out there.

01:56:51.840 | It's actually interesting that you said that

01:56:54.000 | Scientology has pretty much lost the battle

01:56:57.520 | with the internet at this point.

01:56:58.880 | - Oh yeah.

01:56:59.720 | - Which is kind of inspiring

01:57:02.000 | that it's hard to defeat the internet.

01:57:03.900 | But then there's bots that are,

01:57:08.040 | I think if you're sophisticated,

01:57:09.320 | I'm not sure that's true.

01:57:10.560 | But if you're not--

01:57:11.400 | - It's kind of remarkable they haven't been able

01:57:12.600 | to capitalize on these bot armies.

01:57:13.920 | 'Cause there's one thing that they have,

01:57:15.060 | it's a lot of tax-free money

01:57:16.120 | that they got nothing else better to do.

01:57:17.400 | - Yeah, right, they can invest.

01:57:19.120 | - They just, they should give you a call.

01:57:20.640 | Like they just don't have the right people apparently.

01:57:23.140 | - But that said, how do they wield influence

01:57:27.560 | with government agencies?

01:57:29.320 | You've talked about the local police enforcement,

01:57:33.960 | also federal agencies, anything.

01:57:35.600 | - That is the one way they effectively

01:57:37.240 | put their money to use, is lobbyists and attorneys,

01:57:40.480 | judges, very rarely have they ever been able

01:57:43.760 | just to get a politician on their side.

01:57:45.620 | It's the behind the scenes people.

01:57:47.700 | Greta Van Susteren's a very high level

01:57:49.180 | long-term Scientologist.

01:57:50.620 | And her husband, I always get it wrong,

01:57:52.220 | it's either Jim Cole or John Cole, I always get it wrong.

01:57:55.220 | He's a very powerful attorney

01:57:56.740 | who has a lot, wields a lot of influence behind the scenes.

01:58:01.340 | And that's just one example.

01:58:02.940 | Like the reason why that's an interesting example

01:58:05.060 | is 'cause he's actually a Scientologist

01:58:07.460 | and he travels in those circles.

01:58:09.180 | Scientology though, its money goes to good use

01:58:12.780 | by hiring non-Scientologists, retired judges,

01:58:15.420 | attorneys, lobbyists.

01:58:16.580 | It really is how they get almost anything done.

01:58:19.660 | Like Miscavige himself is not hobnobbing

01:58:21.900 | and glad hanging and shaking hands and meeting these folks.

01:58:23.900 | It's the non-Scientologist professionals

01:58:27.260 | who work behind the scenes on Scientology's behalf.

01:58:31.740 | - Can you describe the dynamics of that,

01:58:33.300 | how that actually happens?

01:58:35.020 | Like why would the police department work

01:58:37.980 | on behalf of Scientology?

01:58:39.260 | - I meant more the courts and regulators,

01:58:41.680 | not the police department.

01:58:42.640 | But well, for example,

01:58:43.940 | it can come down to something as simple as this.

01:58:46.060 | In Clearwater, Scientology hires Clearwater police

01:58:49.220 | to do off-duty work for them.

01:58:50.900 | They pay like three times the normal off-duty rate.

01:58:53.660 | So they will, even though I'm not aware of anyone

01:58:56.800 | on the Clearwater PD who's actually a Scientologist,

01:58:59.540 | they basically end up with,

01:59:00.780 | they would call them allies or safe points.

01:59:02.700 | - Got it. - Right?

01:59:03.540 | People who like will literally operate as Scientology spies.

01:59:07.980 | Someone comes in and follows a report

01:59:10.460 | about some child sex case.

01:59:12.520 | Someone in the Clearwater PD is calling Sarah Heller

01:59:15.200 | at the Office of Special Affairs at the Flying Aladdin Base

01:59:17.280 | to let her know, "Hey, heads up, we got a thing coming in."

01:59:20.000 | And then Scientology can run around

01:59:21.760 | and go talk to all the Scientologists

01:59:23.440 | who have knowledge about this

01:59:24.380 | and either get them out of Clearwater, you know.

01:59:27.080 | - So it's not like a direct explicit corruption,

01:59:30.300 | but more just friends and coworkers

01:59:34.960 | integrated deeply in the community.

01:59:37.240 | - Yeah, I call it soft corruption.

01:59:39.320 | So another example, you have the mayor of Clearwater,

01:59:43.920 | Frank Hibbard, well, he used to,

01:59:47.320 | when he won his recent election,

01:59:49.980 | he stepped down from some of these nonprofits

01:59:51.460 | that he served on.

01:59:52.440 | But the nonprofits that he served on

01:59:53.720 | also gets millions of dollars of donations

01:59:56.360 | from some of Scientology's richest Clearwater members, right?

01:59:59.840 | You have one of the mayor's best friends, Joe Burdette,

02:00:04.220 | literally a paid lobbyist for Scientology.

02:00:06.800 | So that creates a chilling effect

02:00:10.720 | on anyone who's gonna be talking smack about Scientology

02:00:14.720 | because his friends are on their damn payroll.

02:00:19.600 | So I call it soft corruption.

02:00:21.960 | It's not illegal, it's not illegal,

02:00:24.260 | but it's how Scientology wields influence.

02:00:27.960 | And what's ironic is that a lot of these people

02:00:29.800 | who work on Scientology's behalf

02:00:31.080 | actually secretly hate Scientology.

02:00:33.480 | They kind of see through it, but it's part of the community.

02:00:37.200 | I mean, it's deeply integrated in the community,

02:00:38.600 | and there's financial leverage.

02:00:40.160 | Are you ever afraid?

02:00:43.840 | I mean, afraid for your well-being,

02:00:46.400 | afraid for your ability to function in society

02:00:49.680 | because of the pressures from Scientology?

02:00:51.800 | - No.

02:00:52.640 | - Is that because you're genetically malfunctioning

02:00:55.120 | or mentally, or is there,

02:00:57.880 | speaking out is a kind of protection?

02:01:00.360 | - I think it's one of those things

02:01:01.320 | that once you've seen behind the curtain

02:01:03.040 | and you see the Wizard of Oz is just a silly man,

02:01:05.800 | you just don't have any fear.

02:01:07.960 | Now, it's one of these things,

02:01:08.800 | like people will say, "Oh, you're so brave."

02:01:10.040 | And I go, "Eh, what's that quote?"

02:01:11.560 | Bravery is being a soldier

02:01:13.920 | and being afraid and going in any way.

02:01:16.400 | It's not brave to run in if you don't think

02:01:17.920 | nothing's gonna happen to you.

02:01:19.360 | I do not hold myself up as an example of bravery

02:01:23.520 | 'cause it's not like, "Oh, they could destroy me,

02:01:26.340 | "but I don't care."

02:01:27.180 | No, there's not a damn thing they can do to me.

02:01:29.320 | And that's one of the reasons

02:01:31.760 | I continue to put out content every day.

02:01:33.680 | To just basically go, "Hey, still here.

02:01:37.460 | "I dare you to try to do something about it, but you can't."

02:01:40.520 | And hope that that also serves as kind of an example

02:01:43.320 | for other people to go, "If this schmo can do it

02:01:46.200 | "and they can't do anything else to him,

02:01:47.420 | "then maybe I can do it too."

02:01:49.360 | 'Cause I would love it.

02:01:50.200 | I would love there to be 20 channels

02:01:52.800 | where former Scientologists talk about their experience.

02:01:55.700 | - I mean, that is bravery

02:01:56.900 | because what happens is fear seeps in

02:01:59.180 | even if it's not grounded in reality.

02:02:01.600 | But at the same time, my grandfather

02:02:05.520 | who fought in World War II,

02:02:09.640 | I mean, the story is, I mean, he was very convinced

02:02:13.040 | and sure most of the people he fought alongside with died.

02:02:16.600 | He was a machine gunner,

02:02:18.080 | but he believed that bullets can't hit him.

02:02:20.600 | Right? - That's what he said?

02:02:21.440 | - Mm-hmm.

02:02:22.280 | Well, you know, he was right.

02:02:25.240 | Right?

02:02:27.500 | 'Cause he survived.

02:02:28.340 | So there's some sense like you're--

02:02:30.160 | - Survivor bias.

02:02:31.500 | - That he's like, just like you are.

02:02:32.960 | He was like, "I'm not brave.

02:02:34.000 | "I just, bullets can't hit me."

02:02:35.680 | (laughing)

02:02:37.640 | I mean, there's a dark kind of truth to that.

02:02:39.840 | There's some, you know, it's like a,

02:02:42.720 | it's a feedback loop where if you have the confidence

02:02:45.480 | and you push on forward and you're brave in that way

02:02:48.400 | to not let fear seep in and affect you,

02:02:50.760 | it actually gives you less things to be scared about.

02:02:54.520 | I mean, but that initial few steps might be,

02:02:57.040 | for people, it might be a very difficult step to take

02:03:01.280 | to talk about it publicly.

02:03:02.420 | - The fear was knowing how the family

02:03:06.380 | was gonna be destroyed and trying to prevent that.

02:03:09.000 | I was terrified of that happening.

02:03:11.340 | But it happened.

02:03:13.300 | There's nothing left to be afraid of.

02:03:16.380 | And that's kind of the thing.

02:03:17.220 | Like, they created this beast.

02:03:18.780 | And the same is true for Mark Hedley.

02:03:20.060 | The same is true for Mike Rinder.

02:03:21.220 | I said, they've essentially created

02:03:23.380 | a Scientology-proof virus,

02:03:24.980 | Scientology-resistant strain,

02:03:27.380 | by throwing everything they have at us

02:03:30.940 | for so many years.

02:03:32.700 | They have just, through natural selection,

02:03:36.460 | created people who just do not give a damn

02:03:38.940 | about anything they could or would do.

02:03:40.660 | And maybe there is something a little wrong with me.

02:03:42.180 | 'Cause when I get a phone call from someone like,

02:03:44.140 | I just got this phone call about you,

02:03:45.580 | and it's clear that it's Scientology PIs

02:03:47.500 | doing work behind the scenes, I get really excited.

02:03:50.820 | I get really excited.

02:03:51.800 | I don't get nervous.

02:03:52.740 | I don't go, oh no, it's happening.

02:03:53.980 | I'm like, oh yeah, this is gonna be exciting.

02:03:56.600 | I'm like, okay.

02:03:57.580 | Because everything they try to do to me,

02:04:00.860 | I'm gonna figure out how to reflect it back on them

02:04:03.820 | and make them look ridiculous.

02:04:05.020 | - And that pales in comparison

02:04:06.340 | to the separating from family.

02:04:07.700 | - Exactly.

02:04:08.540 | - Is there parts of your family

02:04:11.140 | that you've lost because of Scientology?

02:04:13.800 | - Just, yeah.

02:04:18.940 | If you...

02:04:21.020 | Most of my episode

02:04:30.060 | on the Lee Remedy in the Aftermath show

02:04:32.060 | was talking about me and my twin brother.

02:04:35.220 | It's just a pretty horrible story.

02:04:40.020 | It's just a pretty horrible story.

02:04:41.180 | So I do have a younger brother

02:04:42.600 | who's still in Scientology and disconnected from me,

02:04:44.700 | but I never had much of a relationship with that brother,

02:04:47.880 | really, to begin with.

02:04:51.300 | But my twin brother died when I was like 23 or 24.

02:04:59.020 | And that was, without any question,

02:05:01.060 | a direct result of our Scientology experience.

02:05:06.060 | He died in a car accident

02:05:08.780 | that wasn't technically his fault or anything.

02:05:10.420 | He wasn't even the one driving.

02:05:11.940 | But the specific fact of his death was not,

02:05:16.820 | meaning the fact and the manner of his death

02:05:19.980 | wasn't specifically because of Scientology.

02:05:22.780 | But our story and where our relationship got to,

02:05:28.580 | and how he was even in a position

02:05:30.540 | of having something like that happen to him

02:05:32.940 | is directly attributable to Scientology.

02:05:35.620 | - Do you think about him?

02:05:38.500 | Miss him?

02:05:39.340 | Is part of what you're doing in memory of him?

02:05:44.260 | - Yeah, for sure.

02:05:45.460 | - Man, this is such a--

02:05:48.500 | - I mean, we were identical twins.

02:05:50.140 | Can you imagine two of me?

02:05:51.380 | - I can barely handle one.

02:05:54.260 | - I love it.

02:05:58.180 | - Losing him, would that be the darkest moment

02:06:00.540 | in this whole journey of Scientology for you?

02:06:03.540 | - Two moments would equal the darkest moment.

02:06:07.260 | It would be that and also just the period of,

02:06:12.260 | six, nine, 12 months of impending doom.

02:06:16.580 | Knowing that my wife's whole family

02:06:21.760 | was gonna be obliterated

02:06:23.100 | and that there's nothing we could do about it.

02:06:27.940 | And kind of telling ourselves every step of the way

02:06:32.940 | it wasn't really gonna happen.

02:06:34.800 | And I really felt like, you ever watch the Ozarks?

02:06:41.660 | I felt like Marty Bird.

02:06:44.180 | Now, this was happening before the Ozarks,

02:06:45.740 | but when I watched the Ozarks and I see that character,

02:06:49.280 | the entire world is crumbling down around him

02:06:52.660 | and all he can, all he did was like,

02:06:55.740 | all right, what's the next step?

02:06:57.780 | I watch Marty Bird and I go,

02:07:00.100 | that's my fucking spirit animal.

02:07:01.700 | Because you can only control what you can control.

02:07:06.180 | And you can't keep Scientology from destroying your family.

02:07:10.460 | And literally, it's funny, I mention this show a lot

02:07:14.060 | because I watch that and I go,

02:07:15.660 | that's exactly how I felt.

02:07:16.960 | I talk about this six months or nine, 12 months,

02:07:20.660 | whatever it was, of impending doom.

02:07:22.380 | It's not like I was an emotional wreck during that time.

02:07:25.180 | In private, I was, but it's not like I was just freaking out.

02:07:29.220 | It was like, the sun's gonna come up tomorrow,

02:07:32.220 | the world's gonna keep spinning, I can't control it,

02:07:34.740 | this is hard, I can't believe this is happening.

02:07:37.280 | But tomorrow's a new day.

02:07:40.500 | I've never personally, even at the darkest times,

02:07:45.940 | I've never experienced anything

02:07:48.060 | that I would characterize as depression.

02:07:49.700 | Certainly not ever any suicidal thoughts or anything.

02:07:52.940 | Even in the darkest of times, and again,

02:07:55.500 | this one thing I go, is it because of Scientology

02:07:57.300 | or is it just me?

02:07:58.340 | There really is an emotional detachment.

02:08:00.340 | There almost has to be.

02:08:04.100 | - And it's a cold calculation.

02:08:05.500 | What are my options?

02:08:07.900 | What do I do here?

02:08:09.240 | - And then once I figure out the answer to that question,

02:08:11.980 | I'm actually quite chipper and happy.

02:08:13.780 | That's sort of my default.

02:08:16.600 | You could give me six horrible options.

02:08:18.540 | Once I figure out the best of those six,

02:08:20.460 | I'm gonna feel like I just had a pretty good day.

02:08:22.980 | - That's brilliant.

02:08:24.220 | 'Cause just watching Ozarks is so stressful.

02:08:27.500 | - It is, right?

02:08:28.340 | - So stressful watching it.

02:08:29.640 | And he usually finds a way,

02:08:34.160 | and usually it is a set of really bad options,

02:08:37.540 | and it's one of the bad options,

02:08:39.380 | but it's the best of the bad options.

02:08:41.220 | - And he almost gets pissed off at everyone around him

02:08:43.540 | for being so pouty about it.

02:08:45.100 | (laughing)

02:08:47.340 | - But you know-- - I'll never watch

02:08:49.340 | that show again, same way again.

02:08:51.460 | Oh, that's beautiful.

02:08:52.300 | - But you know, it's like, you know,

02:08:53.340 | it's still simmering there right under the surface,

02:08:55.460 | like pretty damn close to the surface.

02:08:57.540 | Do you know what I mean?

02:08:58.380 | - Yeah, yeah.

02:08:59.460 | - And people sometimes ask about recovery and whatnot,

02:09:03.460 | and like, what does that look like, and what does that mean?

02:09:05.340 | And it sort of goes back to kind of

02:09:06.660 | the emotional detachment, is I go,

02:09:08.460 | what the fuck does recovery even mean?

02:09:10.940 | If you're an alcoholic and you're recovering,

02:09:12.940 | you know what that means.

02:09:13.780 | I used to drink, I don't drink now.

02:09:15.540 | Well, I used to be in a cult, and I'm not in a cult now.

02:09:17.900 | How else am I supposed to feel about this

02:09:19.700 | for someone to be like, it seems like you've recovered.

02:09:22.260 | What the fuck does that even mean?

02:09:24.060 | Like, I'm sure some academic has an answer to that question.

02:09:27.300 | I'm not someone who particularly,

02:09:28.340 | I don't spend any time thinking about that.

02:09:30.180 | My recovery is success,

02:09:32.380 | and a little bit of trolling and revenge.

02:09:34.340 | But mostly success, you know?

02:09:36.980 | What does it mean to be a recovered former cult member?

02:09:38.940 | What, you don't cry when people ask you about your brother?

02:09:41.100 | I don't know what it means.

02:09:43.180 | I've never had therapy, but not because I'm still, like,

02:09:46.540 | against it from Scientology.

02:09:48.260 | I just, like, I'm not gonna pay to talk to someone.

02:09:52.180 | Do you know where else I could do that? Scientology.

02:09:54.220 | Now, I know there's a lot of people going like, oh boy.

02:09:56.620 | I know there's a lot, I'm not shitting on therapy.

02:09:59.080 | I would rather have a beer with my friend

02:10:02.220 | and talk about this shit

02:10:03.660 | than talk to a professional for $200 an hour.

02:10:05.740 | - That's the kind of therapy, yeah.

02:10:07.060 | - Yeah.

02:10:07.900 | - Yeah, listen, that's the part of the reason

02:10:09.740 | I do this podcast, is talking to people

02:10:12.780 | that you care about, that you're close with,

02:10:15.900 | this is a really powerful, powerful thing.

02:10:17.780 | But yeah, I don't know what recovery looks like.

02:10:19.420 | And success to you is defined, just be, find happiness.

02:10:23.580 | Find happiness outside the closed bubble

02:10:27.160 | that defines what happiness looks like on Scientology.

02:10:30.380 | - If I can make my kids happy, that's success to me.

02:10:33.580 | - What advice would you give to your kids

02:10:35.300 | on how to live--

02:10:36.460 | - Travel the world.

02:10:37.300 | - A life they can be proud of.

02:10:39.100 | Travel the world?

02:10:39.940 | - Travel the world.

02:10:40.820 | Get rid of friends who don't push you up

02:10:44.100 | and don't celebrate your success.

02:10:47.420 | It's hard to give that advice to young children,

02:10:49.140 | 'cause kids are always so catty.

02:10:50.740 | But honestly, it's like, when I see,

02:10:55.420 | that really is, I just think, not just advice to my kids,

02:10:57.780 | but some of the best advice to anybody.

02:10:59.420 | If you've got anyone around you

02:11:02.380 | who doesn't celebrate your success,

02:11:04.340 | just spend less time with those people.

02:11:07.560 | Surround yourself with people who actually

02:11:10.620 | wanna celebrate your success and push you to succeed.

02:11:12.620 | I think that's true.

02:11:13.620 | I think it's even more important at a young age,

02:11:15.060 | 'cause if at a young age you get used to being around people

02:11:18.620 | who kinda take joy in tearing you down,

02:11:20.620 | then that's what you become accustomed to.

02:11:22.620 | And I just think, having friends who love you

02:11:26.740 | and support you is just about the closest thing

02:11:30.340 | to the true meaning of life.

02:11:33.500 | - And who believe in you, who believe in your potential.

02:11:36.580 | And some of those ideas underlie

02:11:39.020 | the good parts of Scientology.

02:11:40.960 | - Yeah.

02:11:42.640 | - Except there's a lot of dark parts of Scientology

02:11:45.960 | that separate you from the people that believe in you

02:11:48.200 | and that love you.

02:11:49.140 | Well, this was a beautiful conversation.

02:11:53.760 | You're a beautiful human being who came full of gifts.

02:11:57.740 | And I genuinely, first of all,

02:12:01.760 | you're an inspiring human being.

02:12:03.360 | But most importantly, I can't wait

02:12:05.760 | until I can purchase a bobblehead on the store.

02:12:09.760 | So I can keep that inspiration on my desktop.

02:12:13.720 | Aaron, thank you so much for talking to me.

02:12:15.000 | Thank you for being you, for being brave.

02:12:17.200 | I know you said you're not,

02:12:18.440 | but thank you for being brave, for talking about this.

02:12:21.420 | You're an inspiration and you help a lot of people.

02:12:24.280 | Thank you, brother.

02:12:25.120 | - Thanks for having me.

02:12:26.740 | - Thanks for listening to this conversation

02:12:28.200 | with Aaron Smith Levin.

02:12:29.460 | To support this podcast,

02:12:30.600 | please check out our sponsors in the description.

02:12:33.120 | And now, let me leave you with some words

02:12:35.000 | from Ralph Waldo Emerson.

02:12:37.520 | Be not the slave of your own past.

02:12:40.600 | Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far.

02:12:45.140 | So you will come back with new self-respect,

02:12:47.880 | with new power and with an advanced experience

02:12:51.160 | that will explain and overlook the old.

02:12:54.280 | Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

02:12:58.160 | (upbeat music)

02:13:00.740 | (upbeat music)

02:13:03.320 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Aaron Smith-Levin: Scientology | Lex Fridman Podcast #361

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