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Unknown A
When I was in Scientology, I didn't talk to people ever who weren't Scientologists. So, like, I didn't know how to drive. I didn't know how to cook. I didn't. Like, the world was scary to me. So that would have felt like it wasn't like a. Like a funny thing for entertainment. For me, it was. It was actually scary. I feel like we're worse than psychiatrists at this point. Like, it doesn't matter if you were born there, you grew up there your whole life. If you leave and talk badly about it, there's nobody worse than you.
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Unknown B
It's not the human trafficking. It's not the beating people up. It's the bank fraud and the loan fraud and the credit card fraud.
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Unknown A
It was just like mayhem. Like, people were screaming at each other. I remember this one senior executive gal, Jenny devoc, was like, ripped my dad's military bars off his shirt and it was just like, everything was just crazy.
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Unknown C
Give us a brief overview of what is Scientology.
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Unknown B
You want me to take it?
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Unknown A
Yeah.
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Unknown B
Okay. So I like to answer this question the way a former Scientologist would answer it and then give the absolute most fair attempt at how a Scientologist would answer it.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown B
So as a former Scientologist, Scientology is a multi billion dollar, international, family destroying, human trafficking cult.
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Unknown C
Okay?
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Unknown B
But a Scientologist would say, and I'm going to throw out some things here and please, like, challenge me on what a Scientologist would think this means.
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Unknown C
Okay? Because as a staunch defender of Scientology, I'll be sure to provide as much as I can.
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Unknown B
All right, well, they would go, it's an applied religious philosophy. Okay, what the hell does that mean? So because Scientologists do not believe in heaven or hell or a God or any of the traditional. The traditional concepts of the world's mainstream religions, but they do believe in the immortal spirit. But a spirit, the way they would describe it is like, you're looking at me, but it's not your eyes looking at me. It's you as a spirit. And you just happen to be located directly behind your eyes right now. And they say the spirit is immortal. It's about civil, about 60 something trillion years old. They don't even try to explain where did all these spirits come from. He just kind of casually explains it in a way that's kind of like the spiritual big bang one. One day we all decided to be. And. And that was it.
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Unknown B
It doesn't have to get any deeper than that. So they believe in the immortal spiritual being and that that being is. Is natively godlike in its power, like truly godlike. Creating and destroying universes by thinking about it like seeing exists completely independently of the physical universe. Right. Okay. So I guess I'm going on and on about the thetan. Oh, they call the spirit the thetan because that's where they would go. Applied religious philosophy. But what's religious about it? The only thing really religious about it is they do genuinely believe in the immortal spirit and that the spirit is natively godlike in its powers. And that only through Scientology auditing or counseling, sort of their version of kind of a talk therapy situation. Only through Scientology's auditing can you, as a spiritual being, get back to your native godlike potential, where you're no longer subject to the traps, the trap and the trappings of the physical universe, and you're no longer subject to the cycle of birth to death.
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Unknown B
They believe that we just. When you die, you're basically just dropping your body and going over to the hospital and picking up a new body and living lifetime after lifetime with full amnesia of your previous lives. And that the Scientology auditing can get you in a state where you no longer have that amnesia so you can retain full memory of your previous lives. And that's sort of a stepping stone onto your way of escaping from the physical universe entirely.
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Unknown C
Okay, trivia question. Do they. I know you said they didn't account for where the souls originally came from. Do they have a way of accounting for why there are more today than there were, like, a hundred thousand years ago? Or. I'm just curious, like, as the population.
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Unknown B
Explodes, like, when you say more, you must mean on Earth.
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Unknown C
Yeah.
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Unknown B
But they believe these spirits are everywhere in the universe. Oh, yeah. And how they came to Earth is a very special story that gets made fun of. Many places like south park, the Xenu and the volcanoes and the hydrogen bombs and getting, you know, people getting blown up in the volcanoes from other planets, other people from other planets being transported here by space planes and blown up in the volcanoes. That's where a lot of the spirits on this planet come from. But to be perfectly honest, my recollection is L. Ron Hubbard didn't even explain where. How normal, relatively normal thetans got to the planet more recently. He will sometimes refer to beings that are smarter or more capable than others as beings who are more recently arrived to this planet. But he never says, how'd they get here? How come they didn't get blown up in the volcanoes? Who's flying?
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Unknown C
Like, these are immigrant. They have their Own version of Ashkenazi settler. Yeah. Okay. What an absolutely stupid idea.
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Unknown B
It doesn't even actually get down to, like, some of these things that you might be like, that would be an interesting thing for Scientologists to discuss and know or have a belief in. But it's like, nah, if L. Ron Hubbard never mentioned it, you're not really supposed to speculate.
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Unknown C
Okay. Obviously women come from male ribs and everything, so we know this is crazy. But. Okay, what were you gonna say?
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Unknown A
Well, also, you don't find out about the thing with the volcanoes and that sort of thing until you've done a lot of Scientology. And so I feel like I was always, like, waiting for the answers to where do the spiritual beings come from? But it made sense that I didn't know it because I didn't expect it. I didn't expect to know it until I was much farther along in Scientology.
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Unknown C
Okay, do. When you're thinking about, I guess, like, problematic aspects of Scientology, are there, like, real life implications to ways that it shows up negatively? So, for instance, one of my biggest criticisms of, I'll say, like, religion as a whole is that sometimes the real world application of it gets very messy. So I don't know if it's Jehovah's Witnesses, somebody. Like there's. There are certain sex that, for instance, like, won't believe in blood transfusion.
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Unknown B
Right.
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Unknown C
Like, oh, well, your kids are dying because you don't get surgeries.
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Unknown B
Christian Science, maybe.
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Unknown C
Yeah, maybe that's like, that's kind of problematic. Do you think that there are ways that Scientology manifests in, like, dog. Not. And obviously there's the trafficking and all of that and everything, but, like, just religiously, like, do you think there are just inherently bad aspects of how it manifests in reality? Or.
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Unknown B
I mean, I have an answer. Do you want to go?
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Unknown A
Yeah. I mean, I think that because they believe that we're all spiritual beings, that they kind of believe that when you're a kid, you're not really a kid, and so you are. They kind of have you as a kid, do adult mature things. They don't treat you as a kid. Like, growing up, I didn't live in a house with my parents and it wasn't like, important that I got a good education and, you know, we did like basically a full time job's worth of manual labor and that that's all seen to be okay because they believe that you are a spiritual being who's. However old they think we are, and there's not really a big difference.
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Unknown C
Can I Ask. And I'm not trying to like, interrogate the hardcore, the religious beliefs, but I'm curious, how do they reconcile that with the idea that if you're a spiritual being, the way that you go from life to life is by having an amnesia when you're reborn? Wouldn't that amnesia require some kind of like, re education or how do they get around that? I guess, yeah.
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Unknown A
Right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess the way that I grew up, I was always intended to work for Scientology. And so education about things in the outside world was just completely deprioritized. It was mostly just like, about reading and a little bit of math and writing, and I would just learn everything I needed to know about Scientology when I was there. And then they also kind of believe that even though you have that amnesia through Scientology, you will be able to like, not have that again. So technically, if you did, if you progress through Scientology to its highest levels, you would re. Remember those things.
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Unknown C
Do you. Would you guys say, is it common for people who are in Scientology to have been kind of like born into it or raised from children? Or if you had to guess, is it like 50, 50, you know, our converts from the outside versus are raised in Scientology families or.
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Unknown A
I would say right now that it's mostly people who grew up there because it's hard. Like, who would join Scientology right now with the Internet and everything that's out there? So I mean, I would. I would assume that it's mostly people who grew up there who are second and third generation Scientologists.
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Unknown B
I would guess it's probably about 70, 75% people who are, you know, second, third, fourth generation at this point.
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Unknown A
Yeah, Maybe their kids too. Like people my age. Their kids are involved.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown B
And you do have people joining, but there's an extra. There's like, even in the best of times, there was about a 90% churn rate on brand new people who would come into a Scientology. Org and do an introductory service. You know, back in the late 80s, approximately, there was maybe a hundred thousand Scientologists in the world. It's down to about 20,000 right now.
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Unknown C
Oh, geez. Okay.
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Unknown B
For real? Like, it's. It's much smaller than most people assume. Oh, and it's much smaller than Scientology says. They claim about 15 million members worldwide, but it's just not the case. You want to give another answer to the. The dogmatic or the money as you want? Yeah, go for it. They are vehemently against the field of mental health.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown B
They believe anything that's wrong with you can only be fixed through Dianetics auditing or later upper level Scientology auditing with the body thetans and stuff like that. They're actually prevent. You're not allowed to get mental health care, God forbid, medication. And this has led to like really disturbing situations of. In the most egregious one, I can think of a second generation Scientologist murdering his mother because she would not let him get professional mental health care or be institutionalized or put on medication when it was known by his family members that he was a danger to himself and others.
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Unknown A
And the death of Lisa McPherson as.
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Unknown B
Well, that's another example where there was a famous case of a woman who had a mental breakdown on. In Clearwater, on the streets of Clearwater, Florida, like had a car accident, got out, stripped naked, walking down the street and she was checked into a mental facility. And Scientologists actually all sign agreements that are kept on file that in a case like that, they do not want to be in the facility and the Scientologist can come and check them out. So she was checked out and she was put under isolation. Isolation and watch in the Fort Harrison Hotel until she died of dehydration and malnourishment and everything, like literally. And because they didn't want the local hospital to know that they had sort of made an oopsie, instead of taking her to the local hospital that was two minutes away, they drove her to a hospital where Scientologist was working about 45 minutes to an hour away and she was dead by the time she got there.
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Unknown B
So that's, that's an example of, you know, sort of a perfect storm of things going really, really wrong. Now you mentioned the children aren't really children. That's like a, that's, that's a real thing. That's not like a heavy extrapolation. That's like children are not children. A one day old baby, as someone, a Scientologist would say, well, yeah, yesterday they were an 85 year old man. And you know, one of the reasons babies act the way they do is they're like, they're so upset at everything they just lost and they're so confused at not being able to control this body that they're very, you know, especially if a baby is a little problematic. I don't want to say babies are problematic. Yes, exactly. They're like, they're just so upset at this whole loss. And, and you asked. Well, but if you get the amnesia, you have to be re educated.
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Unknown B
This is a weird, unfalsifiable thing. In Scientology, where. Remember when I said through Scientology auditing, you're supposed to get back to your native godlike state? They call that full operating thetan, or ot. But there's a phrase in Scientology, you have to be OT to go ot. And so for some reason, even though Scientologists will acknowledge that, yeah, they think you have full amnesia on some level. They're like, yeah, but you're a Scientologist now. You're already the upper tenth of the upper tenth of intelligent beings on this planet. If you really try hard enough, you can just sort of, like, glean it from your past life. So, like Scientologists, most dedicated workers are expected to be able to do any job without being trained on it, because you've done it in thousands of lifetimes before now. Logically, it makes no sense. Like, what's. Then what's the point of Scientology?
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Unknown B
What's the point of having a path to get rid of the amnesia if you're, on the other hand, expected to just snap out of it? Because we're just that awesome. Like, it. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but that's kind of what happens when you're dealing with, like, cult. Cult thinking. But, you know, the funny thing about the amnesia is how it's instilled. It's hard for me to talk about this stuff these days without laughing, but this really is what Scientologists believe. It really is what I believed. It really is. We all believed it.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown B
And it's the in between lives implant stations. And these implant stations, my understanding was always their actual physical locations. Far side of the moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury, whatever. Different Scientologists will say different things that are run by alien psychiatrists.
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Unknown C
Okay, so they do mental health, just not with humans. Okay, no.
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Unknown B
Psychiatrists are always bad guys.
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Unknown C
Oh, they're bad guys. Okay, my bad. Okay.
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Unknown B
And they are basically almost the jail, the prison wardens for Earth, which Scientologists call a prison planet. This is a prison planet. And that's one of the reasons Scientologists tend to be huge Alex Jones fans. They're like, how does he know? His website's prisonplanet.com okay? Like, oh, my God, how does Alex know? And so the psychiatrists are the ones that basically, they take us to the between lives implant station, they wipe our memories, and they sort of electronically program us using some spiritual version of pain drug hypnosis. That's never been entirely clear to me. Program us to report back to the implant station as soon as you die next time. And that. That is the light at the end of the tunnel. And that's why you shouldn't go to the light. Don't go towards the light, because the light is the implant station. And they basically wipe your memory and zap you back down to a body.
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Unknown B
And this is called the between lives area. And all Scientologists know about it, no matter where you're at or on the bridge, like you can learn this stuff. Bottom level, Scientology. And. And so, you know, throwing back to the applied religious philosophy, it's basically Scientologists would say Scientology isn't something you believe, it's something you do. And I think that I truly convinced myself of that when I was a Scientologist, that it's not a belief system. But you don't quite realize that all of the things that you're required to do, you're doing because of the belief system that underpins it. And so, yeah, the Scientology auditing process is really the applied part. And it's all about how to get up to a spiritual level where you can skip the between lives implant station and then hopefully later on get to the point where you can also go in and out of your body at will with full perception causatively.
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Unknown B
Just kind of like being teleport around everywhere and, and you can come back in a body if you want, but not because you have to. It's just because you want to help get everyone else into Scientology. So. So everyone else can have the, the similar gains that you have had.
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Unknown C
Okay, yeah. Why do you think it seems to be the case that there's a disproportionate amount of celebrities that like get drafted into this? Or at least that's a perception. Maybe it's not. Maybe there's just a few, I think. Was it like Will Smith and Tom Cruise? Um, why, why do you think what's going on with them? Do you think they genuinely believe it, or is it a way for them to make money where they paid a lot of money or.
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Unknown B
I think it speaks to what it is that's attractive about Scientology at the lower levels. It's almost infinitely self empowering in the beginning. This goes back to what you said about, well, us being spiritual beings and also being all powerful. The idea. One of the most, I think, attractive things about Scientology is it tells you there's literally nothing you cannot handle, fix, or succeed at. Like you. Any barriers that you're running into, you're just not even aware of how you're the one that's actually putting those barriers there. You're not really at the effect of other people. And through Scientology, we can help you see how you're actually putting those barriers there. But the good news is that means you can get rid of them. So limit, you know, limitless. Limitless potential. Yeah, no limit.
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Unknown A
Scientology also starts out, like as a more self improvement type thing. Like in order to get people in to Scientology, they have courses on communication. And, you know, maybe if you're trying to be an actor, that's something that would help you. They have programs that specifically target celebrities as a way to get people into Scientology. Like, that's an actual strategy that they have.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown A
Because they know that them. That celebrities endorsing it is something that would spread the word about Scientology. So they have celebrity centers in different places around the world. And there's actually, like, policies that L. Ron Hubbard wrote about this strategy and using celebrities to get people in.
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Unknown B
Yeah, it is very much a strategy. And it's. It's kind of like having, you know, I don't know.
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Unknown A
Yeah, it's like.
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Unknown B
It's kind of like having Messi as, you know, commercials of your brand. Like, it's. It's. It's pretty much that exact same thing. Yeah, I think it's very much exaggerated. How many celebrities are in Scientology.
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Unknown C
Yeah. Because I was gonna say it feels like a disproportionate number are, but I can only think of like two.
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Unknown B
So maybe John Travolta and Tom Cruise. O. I mean, Elizabeth Moss. Most of the other ones that we could name off here were actually born and raised in Scientology.
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Unknown A
Yeah.
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Unknown B
Whether it's Giovanni Ribisi or Elizabeth Moss or Beck, but.
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Unknown A
Or Juliet Lewis.
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Unknown B
Juliet Lewis. One of the other attractive things, I think, other than just being self helping in general, is that, you know, to celebrities and in Hollywood, it's such a parasitic situation where when you have someone who is succeeding, first of all, you've got that dynamic of the envy and the jealousy and people trying to, you know, take down people they're jealous of. You also have people who try to ride on the coattails of people who are succeeding. And I'm sure that dynamic plays out in Hollywood just like it would in Nashville for the country music scene or wherever else. And Scientology sort of offers solutions or, you know, portends to offer solutions to those people in a way that might be unique to what those people have experienced or encountered in the past or have been offered to those people in the past.
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Unknown C
Why, with these, like, recruitment strategies and everything, why have they been so unsuccessful, you think, over the past several years, their numbers seem to be dwindling If.
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Unknown B
I'm to believe the Internet.
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Unknown C
Yeah.
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Unknown B
Yeah, I think it's the Internet. So the upper levels of Scientology are strictly confidential. It's hard to overstate quite how confidential. So, I mean, I was in Scientology for 34 years. I never even heard the word zenu or body thetans, until I got out of Scientology.
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Unknown A
Yeah, Scientology has a chart that. Where you start at the bottom and you ascend it, basically. He referred to it earlier as the bridge. And you, like, can't skip. You actually believe that if you, like, skip too far ahead and if you learn this stuff about Xenu, that you'll die or you'll go crazy or something. So you're actually terrified to learn it before your time. So you have to do each step in order, and you're incentivized to because you don't want to die or have your mind blown. So the Internet keeps you, though, on the hook. Like, maybe, like, you're like all these questions that you should be asking. You're like, okay, I just don't know that yet, because that's next. So, like, if you want to know where all spirits came from, you're like, okay, yeah, that's a very logical question, and that's pretty important.
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Unknown A
But you're like, but I'm not. I'm not to the level yet where I would learn that.
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Unknown B
So. Whereas in the past. So what? So my experience of never even having heard those words. Oh, because we never did the upper confidential levels when we were in Scientology.
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Unknown C
Well, clearly, if you'd gotten that far, you wouldn't be an ex Scientologist. You know the truth.
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Unknown B
No, you'd be surprised. A lot of people go up to the highest levels and still leave.
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Unknown C
Oh, okay.
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Unknown B
But. But it's actually pretty common for people who work full time for Scientology to prioritize the working and helping other people get up the bridge and make almost no progress up the bridge themselves. I mean, that was your experience, right?
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Unknown A
Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
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Unknown B
And what about. Did you ever. And. And she worked at some of the higher levels in the sea org than I ever did. We didn't even talk about the sea Org. But did you ever hear the words zenu or body thetan?
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Unknown A
No. Never. Ever. I mean, I learned. I learned about that, like, maybe a year after I left on South Park.
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Unknown B
And when you saw it on south park, did you assume that they must have it wrong?
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Unknown A
Well, even though I had left the Scientology and I did not believe in it anymore, I was still afraid to watch it. So I. I tested it on my ex husband.
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Unknown B
I didn't watch it first.
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Unknown C
Oh, this reminds me. This is like. Have you ever heard of fan death in Korea?
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Unknown B
No, it.
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Unknown C
It's a really. I think it persists to this day, but in South Korea, there is this common fear that if you fell asleep in a room with a fan on, it would, like, suck all the oxygen up or move it up. And. And even though people are like, nah, there are still people. Like, if you try to go to sleep with a fan on, like, somebody will get up and like, let's just shut this off. So you were like, yeah, okay. You're like, why don't you go? Yeah, yeah, okay. Okay.
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Unknown A
Yeah, totally. Yeah. So when I watched it, I was kind of like, wow, that's not what I was expecting. It just sounded like a comic book to me that dudes would find interesting, and it sounded, like, really boring and weird.
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Unknown B
Yeah.
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Unknown C
If you don't mind me asking, how old were both of you when you guys kind of got out of.
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Unknown A
I was 21.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown B
And so that's when you left the Sea Org, and in your mind, as far as you were concerned, you were done with Scientology?
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Unknown A
Yeah. So sometimes. So the Sea Org is Scientology's most dedicated group, where people sign 1 billion year contracts, basically, like pledging yourself lifetime after lifetime to servitude. And it's like, you work seven days a week. You don't have days off. You only get paid 50 a week. So that's what I was a part of. And often people will leave the Sea Org and they will still be in Scientology. Like, they'll still believe. But when I left, I kind of left both at the same time.
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Unknown C
Real quick, what does Sea Org stand for? Like, corporate organization or what is.
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Unknown A
It's like the sea. Like, the ocean. Sea Organization. Yeah. So it was like, it started on, like, a boat, like a cruise ship initially. So it was actually on the sea, and then it moved to land.
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Unknown B
And it was really L. Ron Hubbard's effort to escape the governments that were after him. But he explained that in order to work on his upper level research, he had to be off of the communication lines of the world, and he had to be Fabian. And on the ocean, it's like you're running from the tax authorities. But so when he went out on these ships, he, of course, had to have, like, some people who are just wholly dedicated to doing nothing but working for him and doing whatever he wanted. And that was the birth of the sea organization in 1967.
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Unknown A
And so it's like militaristic like, you wear, like, military uniforms. You, like, salute. You have ranks, and you, like, call each other sir.
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Unknown B
Even women are called sir in the Sea Org. There's no definition. Yeah. So, like, if we were in the Sea Org, I would have to call her sir.
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Unknown A
Yeah.
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Unknown B
There's no ma'am or Mr. Miscavige. Yeah. So, like, when I was in the Sea Org, my wife Heather was at a higher organization level than me, and she was also an officer, and I was not. So, you know, I would have to call her sir and Mr. Smith Levin. But is.
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Unknown C
Are your family still involved in Scientology or.
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Unknown B
I have a younger brother who still is, so I'm disconnected from him.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown B
And is any of your family still. Oh, yeah.
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Unknown A
I mean, my uncle is the leader of Scientology.
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Unknown B
I forgot.
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Unknown A
So he still is. Yeah. And then my aunts and all of their kids are.
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Unknown C
You're, like, what for like, immediate family? Like, parents or.
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Unknown A
My parents are not in Scientology. Or my brothers.
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Unknown C
Okay. Okay.
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Unknown A
Yeah.
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Unknown B
But, like, so. But her parents were also some of the highest rankings.
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Unknown A
Yeah. They were executives, so they actually left a little bit before me, but they're not involved anymore.
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Unknown C
Okay. Do these journeys all happen in parallel to leave where you guys are all kind of realizing at the same time, Are there different paths to getting out, like, individually, developmentally, or.
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Unknown A
So when I was 12 years old, I was actually moved to a different location than my parents. They were in California, and I was in Florida.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown A
Like, so they had their own thing. They left when I was 16, and I stayed. We weren't. We weren't together, so they left on their own.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown A
Yeah. And then they did, like, help to get me out, and help. Like, I was. Had very limited contact with them. I wasn't allowed to call them or receive letters from them. There were, like, a few times when they demanded to speak to me because I was a minor or they would cause problems, and Scientology took it seriously because my uncle's the leader, so, like, look, it'd be bad pr, and so we did have some contact just to keep them happy. And, like, in that time, they were able to tell me certain things in a very careful way that sort of planted seeds in my mind. But I left. Like, they left when I was 16, and I left when I was 21.
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Unknown C
Do you ever have, like, safety concerns? I don't know how serious, or there's, like, the Scientology hitman or.
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Unknown A
I think early on, like, when I first started talking about Scientology in, like, 2007, that was, like, much more of a concern. Like, they Would like. I mean, they followed me for sure, like, whether it was PIs or whatever. And, like, you know, you hear about them, like, ruining people's jobs or, like, framing them for crimes. And yeah, I was really concerned about that early on. But I do think that I, like, when I started speaking out about Scientology, I did have a certain level of protection just because of my name, where maybe it would be really obvious. Like, that's the first thing you think of. And so maybe it would be too obvious what happened to me, if anything happened to me.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown B
I mean, I'll tell you. Like, as far as actual concern for physical safety, I would say. I would say no. But, you know, private investigators following me around or sitting outside my house don't bother me. And since I do mostly YouTube these days, I'm like, please, bring it on. I'll just turn it into content. It does not bother me in the least.
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Unknown C
Oh, man. I have a really. Just toxic. I think about that a lot. Where the. It must be like a streamer brain or YouTube brain. But sometimes, like, I'll be in situations and things will be kind of weird. I'm like, oh, like, how's this going to look? Is this going to be on stream or is this going to be on YouTube or what's. I remember not to get too far into politics, whatever, but I had a lot of scuffles with conservatives this year, and I obviously irritated a large amount of the audience. And I ended up getting, I think, swatted a few months ago. And all I could think about when the cops are calling me out of my apartment is like, if I get shot and killed here, there are going to be so many people online that are like, I'm so happy to watch this video.
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Unknown C
And I'm like, these mother better not shoot me. I swear to God. But yeah, that's like, they're going through my mind. And then I also have, like, I'm sorry, now I'm getting a psychotic behavior. There are times when I'm making decisions, and in order to evaluate if I'm making a good or bad decision, I'm trying to think, like, if all of this blows up, what is it going to be like? Explain those to my chat because I'm going to feel like a idiot saying, like, okay, guys, well, I didn't think that this investment or whatever, like, if I feel real dumb, I should just not do this thing, right? And I think that sometimes. But it's funny you mentioned the YouTube stuff.
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Unknown B
Well, it is. I mean, one time when I finally found out that, you know, my neighbors finally contacted me, and they're like, this guy's been watching you, and he's harassing the other neighbors. And I'm like, well, how long has this been going on for? And they're like, months. I was like, how come you didn't tell me? And they're like, oh, we just figured you already knew. I was like, I should think of all the missed opportunities of ambushing this guy live on stream. And so when I finally. They're like, okay, he's out there. He's out there right now. I did. I got. I got my phone out and I ambushed his ass and jumped right. Ran right up to his car, knocked on his windows, he rolled. He had an earpiece in and everything, and I busted him. The whole thing lasted like 40 seconds.
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Unknown B
But I was like, oh, yes, please keep sending the PIs. Please keep sending the PIs. But, you know, I told you the other week when we were down here, we got rear ended on the freeway. I don't mind telling you, it turns out the guy was a private investigator. He was driving a rental car.
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Unknown A
Clear water.
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Unknown C
Oh, that's really weird.
-
Unknown B
Clearwater. But, I mean, they don't know why me and Jenna Miscavige are coming to Miami. Usually their infatuation is trying to find out who's secretly in touch with us, what Scientologists are secretly in touch with. The sps, the bad guys, the suppressive persons. And there's no way for us to prove that that PI was working for Scientology. But PIs, when they're on jobs, drive rental cars. What's the PI doing following us? And I guess he was looking at his phone because he rear ended us at full speed. So, you know, some will be like, oh, it was a hit. It wasn't. It. It was just. He was probably just inattentive driving. But, like, it's just an example of. Does it bother me that we were being followed? Likely being followed by a PI? It doesn't bother me. Do I think it was an attempt to endanger our safety?
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Unknown B
I don't really think it was an attempt to endanger our safety.
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Unknown A
Yeah, but I think how you feel about PIs right now is very different than how I felt about it, like, 15 years ago when I was 21. And, like, there wasn't a ton of people talking about Scientology, so there wasn't a ton of safety. And I was also like. Like, when I was in Scientology, I didn't talk to people ever who weren't Scientologists. So, like, I didn't know how to drive. I didn't know how to cook. I didn't. Like, the world was scary to me, so that would have felt like. It wasn't like a. Like a funny thing for entertainment for me. It was. It was actually scary also probably helps.
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Unknown C
You're like six four. You're a big guy.
-
Unknown B
Six one. But thank you.
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Unknown C
Yeah. And I was like, did I need security today? I'm going to look. Yeah. Do you think they try to get away from the Scientology branding? Because I. I don't even know how, but somehow I had heard or I knew that Dianetics was related to Scientology. When I was walking through the mall in Glendale, I think they had. They had the hand things and the machine and it was. They had. Do you know what is the book called? I think it's just called Dianetics. And they. They never said the word Scientology. And I didn't know if that was like intentional to not scare people up. Yeah, yeah, it is.
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Unknown B
It's actually. There's a lot of policies written on that. In fact, churches of Scientology are supposed to have two separate entrances to the building. One is supposed to be the Dianetics entrance. The other is supposed to be Scientology. And that's because Dianetics is called Dianetics. The modern science of mental health.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown B
It's easier to market a science than it is to market a religion. And now that Scientology, you know, has full blown religious tax exemption, they can't soft pedal the religion angle. They have to lean into we're a religion. We're a religion. They have to lean into that.
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Unknown C
I remember you. I think you mentioned on Lex that this came up as a result of kind of like tax. Tax classification that they were saying. I think you mentioned that they said that, oh, you can be another religion if you want and be a Scientologist. And then the government was like, okay, well, you're not going to get your religious tax exemption status if that's the case. And they're like, that's right.
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Unknown B
Because that's one of Scientology's marketing gimmicks, is they send their celebrities out there to be like, oh, no, I'm also a Christian or I'm a Buddhist. And everyone. All the Scientologists are like, you'd actually get in big trouble for that. But most people in the public don't understand what the rules are in Scientology. And they. They try to make it a. That. But that. That goes back to the. It's not a belief system. It's something you do. You don't have to. If you're a true. If you. You know, if you're an orthodox Christian or Jew, you don't have. Or even Muslim, like, these days, the Nation of Islam has a partnership with Scientology. I know that's not real Islam. It's Louis Farrakhan brand Islam. But still, they're like, you don't have to give up any of your religious beliefs because Scientology doesn't require you to believe anything.
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Unknown B
It's just something you do. And so they tried to pull that with the. Because that is their marketing gimmick. I mean, I know I said they have to. They have to lean into the religion angle these days, but that's one of the ways they do it is they're like, yeah, but it's not a belief system. So I'm sorry, but. So in the irs, yeah, they did try to say that same thing of like, well, you can be a Scientologist in any other faith. Because they assumed the IRS would be, like, how tolerant of you. But instead, the IRS was like, that's not how religions work, sweetie.
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Unknown A
Scientology has, like, many front groups as well, ways that they, like, sneak into the world where people don't actually know it's Scientology. Like, they have Narconon, which is like a drug addiction program. It never says that it's Scientology, but it's based completely on Scientology or Criminon, where they go into prisons and help to reform people using Scientology technology. Or even businesses, like, they have what's called Wise Enterprises, where people use Scientology organizational technology, but they never say that it's Scientology. They know that they would get in trouble for enforcing religion in the workplace. So they have, you know, or they even have, like, human rights organizations that are just sort of fronts for Scientology and are really actually against psychiatry.
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Unknown C
This is a lot of work for an organization that has 20,000 members. Seems like something's not working here.
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Unknown B
Check it out.
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Unknown A
I mean, even have literacy programs that.
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Unknown B
Like, they pay lip service to these programs, by the way, they're not heavily manned or heavily funded.
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Unknown C
Sure.
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Unknown B
But you also have she mentioned, well, the C. Organization, that's about 4 to 6,000 people who are working 120 hours a week for no money. So.
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Unknown C
Well, $50.
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Unknown B
That's optional. You don't always get that. 50 bucks.
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Unknown A
Yeah, there's always half pay. There's revenue and then half of half pay. Yeah. I almost never got the full dol.
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Unknown B
You're not. Because it's not pay. It's just an allowance. They can cut it. And I mean, I would say over half the time, I was in this New York, we didn't get paid. But my point is, when. When they have tax exemption, and also because of the tax exemption, they don't pay property taxes on their buildings. Even these massive buildings. So the operational expenses of the Church of Scientology is water and electric and insurance. Water, electric, and insurance.
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Unknown C
And your mortgage, right?
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Unknown B
No, they don't have mortgages. All these buildings are owned outright.
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Unknown C
Oh, okay, that's nice.
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Unknown B
And so when you have a workforce that dedicated and that big who can potentially work for free, you have a lot of resources to throw around. Especially when a lot of these resources for what they call the social betterment activities or the front groups. Total lip service. Total lip service. Most of it is done so that they can do press releases. Most of it is done so that when they're, you know, facing a hostile reporter, they can just talk about all their human rights initiatives and their anti drug initiatives and their criminal reform initiatives. When the truth is, Scientologists know. The only thing Scientologists care about is mainline Scientology. Everything else is just for pr.
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Unknown C
Do you ever watch horror movies?
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Unknown B
I don't love them, but I've seen them.
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Unknown C
Do you know who Freddy Krueger is?
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Unknown B
Yeah.
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Unknown A
Yes.
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Unknown C
There was a. I think it was Nightmare on Elm Street 4. I think it was the Dream warriors, where they. Kids, like, practice being like superheroes in their mind so they could fight in their dreams. To fight against Freddy Krueger.
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Unknown B
Sounds amazing.
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Unknown C
They should have trained you guys to fight against the alien psychiatrists because then for some people, they could run towards the light because they would kill the dudes on Mars. I just thought of my head for the dream warrior stuff. Forget I said that. Okay, we'll cut that one, you guys. That tonight, when you guys are ex members, I imagine Scientologists, I guess they can either see you as like, we have to bring them back, or these are the biggest threats and these are Persona non gratas. What is it? The latter.
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Unknown B
Definitely it's the latter.
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Unknown C
It's the ladder.
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Unknown A
Extremely. Yes. We're like. I feel like we're worse than psychiatrists at this point. Like, you're not. Like, it doesn't matter if you're born there. You grew up there your whole life. If you leave and talk badly about it, like there's nobody worse than you.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown B
I love using the Matrix analogy. I'm sure you're familiar with the movie.
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Unknown C
Yeah.
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Unknown B
Okay, so is it Cipher is the guy who was unplugged from the Matrix, but then did a deal to turn, you know, roll over on all his buddies and get plugged back in. So just imagine, like, in that scenario, these guys getting unplugged from the Matrix, so they're seeing the real world for the first time. And that's what Scientologists think Scientology is giving you. You're the only one that really sees the real reality. And so someone like us, we'd be like cipher, where we already know. A Scientologist would say we already know the true spiritual freedom that only Scientology can bring. Not only have we rebuke that, but we are making it harder. We're preventing other people from getting it.
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Unknown C
Are you. Are SPS part of the immortal spirits? Are you guys, like, something different?
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Unknown B
Everyone's.
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Unknown A
Everyone is.
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Unknown C
Everyone's in world spirit. Okay.
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Unknown B
Yeah.
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Unknown C
So why are some of you got. You said SP earlier. Suppressive persons. What's their idea for where that comes from?
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Unknown A
It's two and a half percent of people on the planet are truly dangerous sps. Yeah. And other people who do bad things are just like. Because they're. Because the suppressive people are suppressing them.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown B
You want me to give the technical explanation in Scientology for what makes a suppressive person a suppressive person as opposed to a thing that's not a suppressive person?
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Unknown C
Sure.
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Unknown B
Here's. Howard explained it that some. Some time, way back on the time track, or the whole track, as they would. The whole track is your past lives. You experienced some type of overwhelm that was as close a thing cannot die, but it was as close to convincing a thing that he was as close to death as possible, and he's still stuck in that incident we mentioned, Dianetics. Dianetics has something called N gram, the body of knowledge that L100 calls Dianetics, describes engrams as recordings of pain and unconsciousness that basically sit there forever and reenact on you in negative ways later on. So this moment of almost complete overwhelm, it sits there as an engram. And the way that manifests in present time is that the person, the sp. Let's just say me, Me, the sp. I'm here in present time, but not really. I'm stuck back in that incident on the whole track.
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Unknown B
And everyone in my environment, I'm equating with the beings or personalities in that incident that basically almost completely destroyed me. And so I see everyone in my environment as a threat to my very survival. So I am motivated by a desire to prevent anyone in my environment from getting any better or stronger for fear that if they did, they would try to Destroy me.
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Unknown C
Can SPs be saved yes, but L.
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Unknown B
Ron Hybrid said we have the technology to save sps, but since they're making our job so much so, so hard, fuck them. We'll get to them after we finish everyone else. Okay, now don't ask me what that procedure is supposed to be to fix sps, because he doesn't get to get into that.
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Unknown C
Sure. Okay, so sps, we'll get to you guys later.
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Unknown A
But there's a lot of, like, built in beliefs in Scientology that you know that if anytime you leave, like, they pre train you that the only people who would leave and talk bad about Scientology, they're doing it because they did something bad to Scientology. And in order to make less of that thing or to feel better about themselves, they have to make less of Scientology. And everybody knows that if you leave, it's because you've done terrible things because you're a criminal. And so it's just pre built in. So if you leave, you're just. They know you're a piece of.
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Unknown C
It reminds me of the. Was it early settlers? I don't know if it was. Calvinism believes in something called predestination. And the idea was you're not saved through good acts, and you're not like, nothing that you do on earth can ever lose you. The ability to go to heaven. It's all. It's all like predetermined at birth. And the idea like, if obviously you're in grade school, you're like, oh, well, wouldn't these people just go around doing horrible things then if they know they're going to heaven or they're not anyway. And I think the response I remember getting back from my teacher, and I'm specifying that I learned this in grade school because maybe it's all bullshit, like about 40% I learned in grade school. But the response back was like, sure. But they knew back then that if you were somebody that was going around doing bad things, it's because you were predestined for hell.
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Unknown C
So obviously everybody's trying to be as good as possible because they wanted to believe that they were part of the people that were predestined for heaven. So.
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Unknown B
Yeah, that's how they get you.
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Unknown C
Yeah. When you look at people who are stuck in it still and then you look at where you are now actually. Wait, back up real quick. What was the journey out like? What were the moments that were like.
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Unknown B
Okay, you go first.
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Unknown A
I mean, I think a big part of it was like sort of coming of age. Like, I think as a kid, I didn't Know anything else. And so I believed everything that my parents told me, and I would take everything on good faith, but I think that as I got older and the more things that happened to me, because in the end, I was in. I. I believed in Scientology because I believe that we were helping people. I believe that we were saving people. And basically just so many things happened that made it impossible for me to believe that the people in charge or that, like, that. That they. That they cared about people and that. And it was easier to think of it, think of Scientology as helping people. When I would think of, you know, the people, they would say in faraway parts of the world that they, like, cured them of this and that.
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Unknown A
But when my friends who were with me every day and my family members were just getting treated like garbage and, like, being denied, like, basic things like sleep and, like, connection to their family, I think there just became a point where I couldn't reconcile that we were saving people with being total assholes just for the power of it.
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Unknown C
Can I ask, because your uncle has such a prominent position, or maybe he didn't back then. Was there no special care given to make sure that you wouldn't stray? Because it seems like, not to discredit or devalue your journey, but if somebody was going to leave any type of religious cult or anything, like, yeah, like, late teens, early 20s is about the time that it would happen. Was there, like, special care given to prevent that from happening to you, or were you just treated like every other member or so?
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Unknown A
In many ways, because I was, like, always somebody who was seen as, like. Who would basically be bad PR or good PR for my family. I was treated, like, worse because I was constantly being interrogated, and I was constantly, like, seen as a threat. And so, like, I was just, like, constantly being watched. And I think that I got the worst of it in that way because they eat. When my parents left, I was also a threat in many ways. They saw my connection to them as something that could be dangerous for Scientology should they ever speak out. And so you would think that they would be nice and do things that would make me want to stay, but that's kind of not their style. Like, they kind of always just make things worse.
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Unknown B
It is weird, right? Because you think it's kind of like, I'm going to take a slight, slight, slight digression, but not totally. One of the things in the media is, where's Shelley Miscavige? She's been missing for, like, 16 years, and that's her aunt, one of the Things that you'd think of. Some people would be like, oh, my God, she's been shipped away and she's being mistreated and she's being held against her will, and she's probably being abused and punished. And I've always said the best way to make sure Shelly Miscavige never wants to leave Scientology is to treat her like a queen, right? Make sure she never has any reason to want to leave Scientology. I feel like that should have been true for you as well. Like, if they wanted to make sure Jenna never wanted to leave, they should have made sure her experience was amazing.
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Unknown B
And in science, like, it seems so obvious, but Scientology just can't bring itself to behave that way organizationally. So, like, I think there's small ways in which people perceive you were treated better, but in ways that matter. That was never the case.
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Unknown A
Right? So maybe, like, some executives were nicer to me because they knew me, but in the end, I had, like, the same jobs, the same schedule, the same uniform as everybody else. And. And I would also be, like, isolated and interrogated for hours on end and wasn't allowed to speak to my parents when most people were. So there's. There's both. I was moved away from my parents at a young age, and so a lot of that stuff was constant, and I was constantly under punishment because they always knew what I. If I was doing something bad, they always knew about it where nobody else got interrogated in that way.
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Unknown C
That just is so stupid to me, I guess, like, you. One of the things that I think I've heard you mentioned before is that because you're saving people's thetas. Thetas. Thetans. Because you're saving the thetan, because you're helping these people, that you can, in a way, justify almost any action for the benefit of the church.
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Unknown B
Oh, yeah.
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Unknown C
So when you have so many people working full time, you know, for $50 a week or half pay or half. Half pay, it seems like there would just be people that should regularly be showing up to, like, present, like, a false, like, reality to you. Like, I don't know why you wouldn't be in some area. And today your parents or whoever has you is like, oh, here's like, three people from our nar. Would you say Naranon? Yeah, Narcanon pronoun program. And they're just, like, talking about how great Scientology is, that it saved their lives. Like, they should never have to brainwash you. It should feel very organic just because of all the people that they would be cycling. And so that Just seems kind of.
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Unknown B
Well, you know, the brainwashing is very much real.
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Unknown A
Yeah.
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Unknown B
Briefings where someone gets up and is like, the world is dangerous and the world is scary. But here's something we did today. Like, literally bring in someone from working who works.
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Unknown C
Okay. Okay. So they do that. Okay.
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Unknown B
100%.
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Unknown A
But for me, personally, so you know how I talk about getting interrogated in Scientology? They believe that you leave because you do bad things. And so by them interrogating me, they believe that they are protecting me against leaving.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown A
Yeah. So in some ways, that's why they were doing it. They're making it so I would never have a reason to leave because my hands are always clean or I've always confessed everything, but without realizing that, that's the type of thing that would make me want to leave.
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Unknown C
Is it. Are the people to the highest levels or, like your uncle. Are they able to make any changes or to, like, how the religion functions, or is it pretty set in stone?
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Unknown B
I have different opinions on this than a lot of people. How do you feel about it?
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Unknown A
I mean, I feel like, in the end, he can make changes and that he just has to sort of fudge it in a way where he can say that L. Ron Hubbard's original policies meant this, because he does that all the time with Scientology. He's like, oh, we found an earlier text where L. Ron Hubbard actually said this opposite thing. So he's kind of doing that all the time. So he could do that with anything he wanted to. And to be honest, I would have completely believed it as a Scientologist.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown B
Yeah. Not only can he change anything, he has changed pretty much everything. And for. For all that I could say about what a con man and a liar and a charlatan L. Ron Hubbard was, David Miscavige has managed to make Scientology even more abusive, more draconian, more restrictive, more puritanical. In. In weird ways. I do personally blame the Internet and David Miscavige for the failure of Scientology. And. And thank God he's not able to actually admit he could ever do anything wrong, because I don't think. I think, theoretically, it might be possible to, like, reverse the downward spiral of Scientology if it had someone at the helm who wasn't this crazy, had become this crazed dictator. I. I believe whatever's wrong with him has gotten more wrong over time. I. I think. I don't think he was just always this way, but. So not only can he change Scientology, he actually has changed almost every part of Scientology in meaningful ways.
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Unknown B
And, yeah, he Usually has to do it by claiming, now I'm only. Now I'm only carrying out L. Ron Hubbard's true wishes.
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Unknown C
How old were you when you got out?
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Unknown B
Officially, I was 34.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown B
Now, she mentioned she left the Sea Org when she was 21, and for her, that was pretty much leaving Scientology. I left this Jorg when I was 26, was still in Scientology, though I stopped three years later in 2009, I pretty much stopped truly considering myself a Scientologist. But I wasn't officially declared a suppressive person and expelled from Scientology until 2014.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown B
And that's because if you are. Yeah, Expelled.
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Unknown A
If you're declared a suppressive person, then if you have other family members in Scientology, you can basically never speak to them again. So by being expelled, he risks losing his family, his wife's whole family. And so that's why many people stay in and pretend to be good Scientologists and don't say anything because they have a lot to lose. Especially if you've grown up in Scientology. Those are all the friends you've ever known. And in many cases, like, those are all the connections you have. Especially, like, if you did not get an education. The only connections you have for work or things like that is through Scientologists. So if you're expelled, you're basically like, are you.
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Unknown C
Do you go to, like, high school or anything like that? Or is it normal for Scientology to be, like, all homeschooled in their own communities for everything?
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Unknown B
Or the Scientologists do very much do homeschool. But there's also. Remember, because there's so few Scientologists, they're mostly concentrated in a few key cities. There's a lot of little private schools in Clearwater, Florida, and the Los Angeles area for Scientologists. And the main reason.
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Unknown C
Do you need, like, accreditation or something to be a substitute for an ordinary public school? Do they just get that, or. Because I thought you're like, state mandated to get education up until 16 or something. No.
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Unknown B
So. No, no. So these little private schools that, I mean, they'll usually go through 12, you know.
-
Unknown C
Okay, okay.
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Unknown A
But, like, so because I was in the C organization, I was in a. Like, there are other Scientology schools. Yeah, there's other Scientology schools that are like actual schools. But because I was in the C organization where what I was at, like, the boarding school that I went to, basically, they can do whatever they want. Like, there's no rules that for a religious private school that say you have to teach these subjects for this amount of time, anything you Do. Including learning Scientology falls under the criteria of education. And so, like, when I moved to Florida when I was 12, I only went to school one day a week, and there weren't grades. It was kids of all ages in one room. There wasn't a teacher teaching the class. We just all had our own lists of things to learn. And all of the rest of the Scientology training I did throughout the week was all counted as school.
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Unknown B
Yeah.
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Unknown C
When you said. You both said you didn't go to school. So neither you went to traditional K through 12, or I went to public.
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Unknown B
School until the sixth grade, and that was it. I never got a GED. I never graduated. I never went to high school or anything. She never even went to a real school.
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Unknown A
Yeah. And, I mean, I'm learning about school through my kids.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown A
At this point.
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Unknown B
And even these private Scientology schools that exist, they're run by Scientologists, and Scientologists do not care about anything other than can you read and can you write, maybe do some basic math? Because really, these schools are just there to keep the kids out of public schools because Scientologists believe they've just been infiltrated by psychiatry, and everyone's just put on drugs in those schools. That's the main priority, is keep the kids out of the hands of the psychs. And then they just need to be able to read enough and write enough to be able to do real Scientology courses and join staff or join the sea organization. And that's all these schools are there for. Yeah. And add on top of that that Scientologists believe you've already learned all of these subjects a million times before in your previous lives anyway. And so they're like, you will not find us.
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Unknown B
I do not know any kid that's grown up in Scientology who went on to become, like, a doctor or a lawyer.
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Unknown A
Right. Or like, college isn't prioritized.
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Unknown B
I only know a few Scientology kids that have ever gone to college because you. Why would they go to college? Instead, they just go do Scientology courses full time.
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Unknown C
There's a shitty sitcom joke or something where some guy is finally awakened, and he has all his past memories, but in every single life, he just went to a Scientology school. So there's actually no knowledge to recall. And he's like, fuck, we will change this. That's great.
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Unknown A
Well, in the end, Scientology believes that, like, Earth and everything that's happening here is just a game that we're playing as spiritual beings to amuse ourselves. And so it's like, why learn all about that? Why participate in this pretend world, it's just the Matrix.
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Unknown C
That's how I feel when I argue politics on YouTube sometimes. I can definitely understand that.
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Unknown B
Yeah. Yeah. So, like, Earth itself to a Scientologist, might be a prison planet, but even if you got out of Earth, everything else is still just a game. Like, the physical universe is just Satan's having fun. There's multiple, you know, like, hey, you know, like, hey, let's give ourselves a bit of a challenge. We're going to level up, make this physical universe, and let's create problems. And yeah, L. Ron Hubbard's just. Everything's a game. Everything's.
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Unknown A
And thetans are kind of seen as mischievous troublemakers.
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Unknown C
So I can understand you guys being relatively younger on your way out. You said your parents, though, got out when you were 16, so they would have been older. Do you mind saying what was the big shift for them, or have you ever spoken with them about it? Because it seems a lot harder to leave if you've gotten that far in your life under that belief system.
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Unknown A
For sure. Yeah. I mean, I think, like, they had gotten to a point where they just, like, things. Crazy things were going on. Like, they were seeing, like, my uncle, like, beat people and stuff, and people were like. Like, the senior. Most executives in Scientology were, like, being made to, like, live in this trailer and sleep under the desks, and, like, like, we're just getting publicly humiliated, like, for days on end. So I think that when you're at the top of Scientology, like, on some level, when you're a lower level Scientologist, you idolize the senior executives, and you're like, oh, everything must be great there. And they're figuring it out. But when you're at the top and you're seeing what's happening every day, you, you, you. It's easier to become disillusioned more quickly.
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Unknown C
Gotcha.
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Unknown B
Yeah. So, like, your mom, for example, like, she's someone who worked directly with L. Ron Hubbard.
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Unknown A
Yeah.
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Unknown B
Back in the day.
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Unknown A
Right.
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Unknown B
And so you've got a certain type of Scientology executive.
-
Unknown A
Right.
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Unknown B
Most of which are gone, but not all of them.
-
Unknown A
Yeah.
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Unknown B
Who they know what it was like working under the guy who really matters, which was L. Ron Hubbard.
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Unknown A
Right. Yeah. And in the end, Dave is like, some guy they knew who took over. It's like my dad's brother. He's like, I lived in a room with you when you were a kid, so I think it's easier to see him as a human or somebody maybe who. Somebody else could have just easily taken over Scientology. And so I Think. Yeah, sorry, go ahead.
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Unknown B
Well, no, exactly. And so, you know, someone like your mom is going to be less willing to put up with shit from Dave, who's being much more of a maniac than L. Ron Hubbard ever was. And this is supposed to be the L. Ron Hubbard show, not the David Miscavige Show. And I gotta. I don't know that we've ever spoken about this. Like, I don't actually know. What was the tipping point for your mom wanting to leave? Was it real? Was she gonna go to the rpf? Was there?
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Unknown A
I know that it was my dad that said, I want to get out of here. And she was like, okay, let's go. But I think, like, witnessing people being beaten was a big part of it. And just like. I mean, it was just like mayhem. Like, people were like, screaming at each other. Like, I remember this one senior executive gal, Jenny devoc, was like, ripped my dad's like, military bars off his shirt, and it was just like. Everything was just crazy.
-
Unknown B
You mentioned the.
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Unknown C
You mentioned to go into the rpf. What was that?
-
Unknown B
So the RPF is called the Rehabilitation Project Force. And you know, in Scientology, when you've done the unforgivable, usually you just be declared a suppressive person and expelled. But for a Sea Org member, if they consider you've done the unforgivable for a long time, for a long, long time, you had the option of being expelled or doing the rpf, which really is as close to a North Korean style labor and, you know, a brainwashing, reconditioning camp that you could ever approach in modern day United States, where for years and years and years on end, it's five hours of manual labor, five hours of interrogations and auditing. 365 separation from your spouse, no days off, wear all black. You have to run everywhere, speak, only have spoken to, because you're considered not even a Sea Org member. You're considered lucky to even be here in any way, shape or form.
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Unknown B
You'd have people on the RPF for 10 years, three years, four years, five years, six years. And your mom actually did the RPF at one point? Did it take her two or three years? Did she actually get reprieved? She never finished the whole thing or what?
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Unknown A
She. She did it quickly because I think that they didn't, like, they knew that she would kind of revolt if she was on it for a really long time. But yeah, she did do it very shortly before she left. I think that she was disillusioned for a long time. But I think my dad wanting to leave and being separated from me for so long and then seeing people being beaten just became the last straw for her.
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Unknown B
Yeah, that's. That type of violence is not something that, to my understanding, occurred under L. Ron Hubbard. Like, you'll hear the people who worked with him closely. He had a huge temper.
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Unknown A
Right.
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Unknown B
And maybe that would include screaming and throwing things. But like Janice Grady, for example, I've never heard her talk about L. Ron Hubbard ever hitting anyone.
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Unknown A
Right.
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Unknown C
Who made Dave boss? Why did that happen?
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Unknown B
What's that?
-
Unknown C
Who made Dave boss? Why did that happen?
-
Unknown B
That's a good story.
-
Unknown A
You can tell. I never remember the specifics. I was. It was when I was, like, two.
-
Unknown B
So what had happened.
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Unknown C
Good reason not to remember.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, yeah.
-
Unknown B
And I wasn't there either. But I'm passionate about retaining this information. Than Jenna, she's like, I don't care. So the last, like, six years of L. Ron Hubbard's life, he was off in complete seclusion. Like, he was off hiding, but he was working on his upper level OT research. There were only a few people that had any contact with him during that period. David Miscavige was not one of them. Okay. There was a couple, Pat Broeker and Annie Broeker, who are his two most trusted aides, caretakers. So Pat and Annie were basically on the L. Ron Hubbard side of things. David Miscavige was, at this, at the risk of oversimplifying it, pretty much handling the Scientology operations side of things, whereas Pat and any broker were with L. Ron Hubbard. One of the things David Miscavige was supposed to be doing was getting rid of all of the legal threats against L.
-
Unknown B
Ron Hubbard so that he could come out of hiding. And so he wasn't. His job wasn't to run Scientology, but because David Miscavige was sort of the point man to rendezvous with Pat Broeker. Like. Like, the only way information could get to L. Ron Hubbard was through David Miscavige and Pat Broeker. So David Miscavige would be the courier of all the information, deliver it to Pat Broeker. Pat Broeker would bring it back to L. Ron Hubbard when L. Ron Hubbard died, to the best of my understanding, and the people who were intimately involved in all of this, it was Pat Broeker and Annie Broeker who were supposed to be in charge, even if being in charge meant selecting the new echelons of executives. Scientology was never supposed to have a single leader after L. Ron Hubbard died. This is where things get fun. We haven't spoken a lot in this interview about the bridge, which is funny because we're talking about Scientology, but I.
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Unknown A
Mentioned it, but we haven't spoken a lot about it.
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Unknown B
We've talked about the upper confidential levels.
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Unknown C
Okay?
-
Unknown B
The upper confidential levels that Scientologists can actually do go up to 8. Ot 8. But there's upper unreleased confidential levels that are supposed to go up to 15.
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Unknown C
Okay?
-
Unknown B
Okay? Now, us being good little Scientology soldiers, we always knew that all the Scientologists that we knew who were OTA weren't nothing special.
-
Unknown A
Yeah.
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Unknown B
Like, no, thank you. I don't want that.
-
Unknown A
It was a little thing in the back of your mind. You're like.
-
Unknown B
But, like.
-
Unknown A
But my grandma is an ota, but she's like, she doesn't have any special powers that I've seen.
-
Unknown B
Yeah, but it was the belief in the upper unreleased OT levels. That's where the magic was.
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Unknown C
Okay?
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Unknown A
And they're marked on the bridge, even though they haven't.
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Unknown B
They're on the post. They're there. Okay? Scientologists are told that L. Ron Hubbard finished these up before he died, and they're just sitting in the vault waiting to be released as soon as we get our together and make Scientology big enough. Okay? So Pat claimed to have the upper unreleased OT levels. That's how Pat and Annie retained power for a couple years after lvon Hubbard died. David Miscavige sort of got sick of this being held over his head as some sort of leverage. One time, he orchestrated a raid on the ranch, the warehouse on the ranch where all these materials were held, literally saying, the FBI's on their way. We've got to get the materials out or the feds are going to have the OT levels. They showed up with trucks and shotguns and everything. They took every scrap of paper in every file that Pat Broeker had, and they went through everything.
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Unknown B
Nothing there. No upper OT levels. This is, to my understanding, the first time David Miscavige was even finding out. Oh, shit. It was all a lie. And you have to wonder, what changed in David Miscavige? I wonder what changed in David Miscavige, his mind when he's now having to come to terms with the reality that, oh, my God, a whole big piece of this puzzle that I've always thought was there is not there. And what does that mean? Does that mean L. Ron Hubbard was lying about everything? How could he not start to wonder if Elrond Hubbard was lying about that? What else was he lying about? So this is how Miscavige was able to get rid of Pat and any broker. He basically threatened to report Pat to the IRS for all the money they'd been funneling to L. Ron Hubbard over the last six years and not reporting.
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Unknown B
He was basically threatened to throw. Throw Pat to the wolves. And Pat is still alive to this day. He actually. I shouldn't say what state he lives, and I can tell you offline, he's alive to this day. He's never spoken out. And one of the things that came out a few years ago, maybe. Maybe five years ago now, is David Miscavige had paid a couple PIs over the past 20 previous 25 years, over $10 million to follow Pat Broeker around everywhere he went to move in next. Basically, full time surveillance on Pat Broeker, because Pat Broeker is one of the only people out there who could truly tell the story of L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology and David Miscavige in a way that would end David Miscavige.
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Unknown C
How much is this guy worth? $10 million over 20 years. Jesus.
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Unknown B
How much is who worth, Dave?
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Unknown C
It's a lot of money.
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Unknown A
Scientology.
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Unknown B
Oh, he's using Scientology money.
-
Unknown A
Yeah.
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Unknown C
Is it really that well funded?
-
Unknown B
A few billion.
-
Unknown C
Okay.
-
Unknown A
And all the buildings they own. It's like a real estate empire.
-
Unknown C
Where did their. Where did it all come from originally? Just donations from Scientology is expensive. Okay.
-
Unknown A
You have to pay to do Scientology.
-
Unknown B
And. But. But the truth is, the most amount of money these days in Scientology doesn't even come from courses and auditing. It comes from direct donations. Miscavige has figured out how to squeeze a lot more money out of a lot less people.
-
Unknown C
Yeah, clearly.
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Unknown A
And then have free labor. So the people who deliver the auditing, they basically work for free as Sierra members. But everything, every course in Scientology costs money.
-
Unknown B
Yeah. So aside from the mainline mother church that is really concerning itself with selling Scientology courses and auditing, there's a separate side membership organization called the International association of Scientologists, or the ias. And Scientologists think of the IAS as like their war chest. This is how we. This is so that when we have to take on governments and hostile forces, we need. You need a pool of money. So about 20 years ago, the most. The highest status that you could have in the IAS, like you get awards for giving money. 20 years ago, the highest status was only a quarter million bucks. Part of what Miscavige has done is he's like, man, that's small. Think you got a 10x the game bro, we got to get the grant. The Grant Cardone program. You got a 10 exit, okay? So now there's Scientologists who've donated over $300 million.
-
Unknown B
And so Miscavige just keeps creating higher and higher IAS statuses, so he makes so much more money. And Grant Cardone is one of Scientology's biggest contributors, by the way. That's why I make the 10x joke.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown B
He's an OT.
-
Unknown C
Okay. Okay. I do the same thing in my chat. We had tier 3 subs and I was like, I got a lot of tier three subscribers. Why not tier four it? And then that got all Tier four, why not tier five it? If someone's gonna pay, why not? Yeah, okay, I understand that's a small thing.
-
Unknown B
Bro, you gotta up your game.
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Unknown C
Yeah. You gotta up your game. Yeah. You don't be a T5. Right? We had tier six. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
-
Unknown B
So Scientology makes all its money these days through the IAS and through direct donations to real estate projects. They're buildings. They'll say, we need a new building. You got to donate directly to the building. And yeah, like Scientology is not even in the business of selling Scientology anymore. Hardly.
-
Unknown C
When you get out of Scientology and you're trying to like reassemble your view of the world, what do you do personally to make sure you don't just fall for the next thing?
-
Unknown A
I mean, I think that the first thing I had to do was to re evaluate everything I thought. Like, I was like, do I really. Do I really believe that I'm a spiritual being? And yeah, that was like a process over many years. And what do I really think? To be honest, I was struggling with some of it when I was in there. Like some things that I just couldn't. I just. They didn't sit right with me. But it's just something that's been a years long process. And I. I actually think in many ways that I'm less likely to fall for something else because I'm like so on guard. I know what it's like to have done that. Many people don't have the, like, they don't have the fear in them of falling for something else. And so, yeah, I think that I'm always like second guessing myself probably too much.
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Unknown A
It's probably crippling, you know, more in that way. Yeah.
-
Unknown B
The way I think about it and honestly, sometimes I think there's just something wrong with me is first of all, I. I really had sort of. I bought into that sort of self brainwashing that we did as Scientologists, that we weren't believing anything. This wasn't a belief system. This wasn't a faith. And for me, I didn't have any sort of existential crisis or whatever when on. On any point in my path out of Scientology, I never went. I never went through that. What do I really believe? I was like, there were already parts of Scientology. I had no problem as a Scientologist believing. We're. Didn't make sense. And I was like, okay, fine. If someone asked me, I at least have to know about it. I have to pretend like. But I had no problem internally being like, yeah, I think that's just kind of bullshit.
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Unknown B
And for me, I was always pretty aware that it was my belief in the upper unreleased OT levels and their existence and the state of full operating thetan. I truly believe that L. Ron Hubbard had attained that and that that would.
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Unknown A
Explain the many questions or many things that.
-
Unknown B
Yeah.
-
Unknown A
Didn't.
-
Unknown B
That's right.
-
Unknown A
Pan out there.
-
Unknown B
And when. After leaving Scientology, because honestly, I didn't even find out that those things didn't exist until I was already out of Scientology. But once I found that out, I was like, oh, that's all. That's all I needed to know. I'm good. There's no. There's no big crisis happening here. I think because I had convinced myself we never actually believed anything to begin with, that I never felt like I lost my belief.
-
Unknown A
I've definitely felt different. Yeah. Than that.
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Unknown B
Yeah.
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Unknown A
And I had, like, many crisises going on at the same time. Like, sort of losing my beliefs and not knowing how to drive and having to get a job and having to talk to normal people who are sort of like Muggles to me, and just trying to be normal and, like, instantly having to make a living and stuff.
-
Unknown B
Yeah.
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Unknown A
And so I think. I think that maybe it would have been more existential if I didn't have all those things going on at once. Oh. And also losing everybody who I ever knew. So maybe I would have had more time to, like, have a crisis if I wasn't having to do all those things. But it's definitely something that I thought about all the time.
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Unknown B
And I get emails from people going through that crisis all the time.
-
Unknown A
Yeah.
-
Unknown B
You know, people leaving Scientology, one of the biggest things that they struggle with is who in the hell can they talk to about any of this stuff? Because you can't talk to any. Your Scientology friends or even your spouse. They'll. They'll write you up, they'll turn you in. They'll report you yeah. And the idea of talking to a former Scientologist who's a big bad SP is almost unthinkable. Even if you're starting to question Scientology yourself, you're like, yeah, I'm questioning it, but if I connect up to an sp, that's like the point of no return.
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Unknown C
Yeah, right.
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Unknown B
I mean, but I still get emails of like, I don't know, I'm going through this. People do go through a crisis.
-
Unknown A
Yeah. And at the time, my ex husband's parents were Scientologists. And so those were really the only Scientologists would speak to. And they were very much in touch with the church, reporting back everything we were saying and doing and trying to get us to go back and do what Scientology wanted us to do. And Scientology was putting a lot of pressure on them to cut us off or to get us back. And those were sort of the only people who we would talk to about Scientology. Although I did find that many of the new friends I was making, like, when I would tell. When I would like explain to them how I grew up or what I was going through, like, that they were very like. Like in Scientology, I was used to just never being believed. And anything you say that's wrong or bad is just you complaining.
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Unknown A
And you're only doing it because you did something bad. You would only complain about something because you were bad. It was very different to be able to talk to people who would actually, like, take it in and believe you and be like, oh my God, I can't believe that's happening to you. So on some level, that's more satisfying than talking to a Scientologist. And so I think that did. That was really helpful. And that was something that I was slowly learning at that time. That made a big difference to me that regular people in the regular world aren't just scary Muggles, they're really nice. And it's okay to be nice to people and to believe them.
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Unknown B
You know, Scientology has a word for non Scientologists.
-
Unknown C
I'm sorry, what?
-
Unknown B
Wag.
-
Unknown C
Wag. Okay.
-
Unknown B
And as American based Scientologists, we had no idea that wog is actually a racial slur in most other parts of the world.
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Unknown C
For what?
-
Unknown B
Non white, basically.
-
Unknown C
Wog?
-
Unknown B
Yeah. In a str. In Australia, it's a slur. In the uk, it's a slur in many parts of. Well, I guess that's why I'm saying Muggles. Yeah, but. And it's funny. Like, it's. It's actually a very offensive slur in the uk, which is funny. Because scientist, everyone Hubbard would have known that like L. Ron Hubbard was based in the UK for a long time.
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Unknown C
It's like their racial undertones, you think, to Scientology, like do they prefer certain races to other races or.
-
Unknown B
No, no, no. I mean there's certainly a lot of racist Scientologists that I knew, but the truth is this. This belief in the immortal, spiritual, genderless race, raceless nationality, list being does not. Does not really inspire racism. L. Ron Hubbard himself.
-
Unknown A
Sexism. Really?
-
Unknown B
Yeah.
-
Unknown A
There's actually like less sexism in Scientology, I think then out. Out here.
-
Unknown B
The irony is that L. Ron Hubbard himself was demonstrably quite racist. I always say about as racist as you would expect someone. A white man born in 1911 to be. He makes a lot of derogatory comments about certain black tribes and Asian. Asians cultures. But. So that was the man.
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Unknown A
He's definitely less racist though. Like he traveled the world. He's probably less racist than people of his time.
-
Unknown B
I mean, I don't know. Yeah, I wasn't there. But. But as racist as he was, I. I'd have to say Scientology. The information in Scientology is not racist. Or it also doesn't even. I don't even see it. It doesn't. It wouldn't even be possible. But having said that, given this belief in the. The genderless immortal thing, you also shouldn't be homophobic. But L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology is unbelievably homophobic in a way that just doesn't even make sense.
-
Unknown A
Yeah.
-
Unknown B
Yeah.
-
Unknown A
I think it's because it has to do with sex. Like they're just anti sex kind of in every way. So that's just another layer of it.
-
Unknown B
Yeah. But I guess I'm saying as I growing up a Scientologist, there was never any racial undertones for me.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, same.
-
Unknown B
Yeah. Or racist undertones.
-
Unknown C
Okay, that's good.
-
Unknown B
Although it's unbelievably white, like there's less than 2%. Less than 2% black Scientologists.
-
Unknown A
Yeah. Yeah.
-
Unknown B
And I know that because I ran for Clearwater City Council and I got all the. The demographic info for everyone living in all the Scientology propert.
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Unknown A
Yeah. In fact, Scientology, like a lot of people come together from different countries and train together. Like there was a lot of access to different cultures and people from different places. That is. That was more so there than in the. Yeah, I missed that.
-
Unknown B
It is one of these things though. Like people bring a lot to their belief system sometimes instead of taking it out of it. I knew a lot of racist Scientologists who didn't seem to think there was some dissonance between their racism and the Scientology belief system. Politically speaking, Republican Scientologists will be like, Scientology is completely in line with Republican values. And. And liberal Democrat Scientologists would tell you the exact same thing. Just sort of cherry picking from what they feel is. Is most important. So I know there are a lot of people who would take issue with me saying there's not a racist component to Scientology, but that's just what I truly believe.
-
Unknown A
Yeah. And I think that component may have been, like, more prevalent in public Scientologists rather than people who were, like, in its core group, like Sea Org members, people who have been more affected by the politics and economics.
-
Unknown B
Yeah, but being gay in Scientology is one of the worst things you can be. I mean, that's right up there with like, alien psychiatrist sp.
-
Unknown A
Yeah.
-
Unknown C
Okay. Geez. All right. As people who have left Scientology, do you. What do you do for work?
-
Unknown A
Do you say I do YouTube?
-
Unknown C
You do YouTube as well. Okay. Do you guys ever worry about getting pigeonholed into just being not Scientologists?
-
Unknown B
I don't worry about it. So, like, she might do YouTube now, and I might mostly do YouTube now, but that's not been true since leaving Scientology.
-
Unknown C
Okay.
-
Unknown B
So, like, when I left Scientology, I was in the hedge fund research space. That's how I know Bill Ackman.
-
Unknown C
Okay.
-
Unknown B
I worked for Bill Ackman, and then I got into real estate, and then I started doing YouTube years and years and years before my videos started getting any views or making any money.
-
Unknown C
Okay.
-
Unknown B
And. And you've. You've done a lot of other work.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, but I actually do. I have been worried about that, especially just growing up, because. Because of who my family is, I was already just always pigeonholed as, like, somebody who was the niece of the leader in Scientology. Like, so feeling very much like I wanted to do my. I wanted to be valuable to the group just as myself. So I feel like after leaving, I mean, I had my own jobs. I had like, I think that when in the last few years I had my own business and just because, like, I'm a creative person and I got to create my own business and create a lot of relationships that were just people who didn't know anything about that and people who appreciated me very much for who I am. I also, in San Diego, I wasn't really a big part of the ex Scientology community for.
-
Unknown A
For many years, for like the last 10 or 12 years. So all of my friends and all of the people who I worked with were Just people who just like me for me. But that was something that I. Even coming back into it, it's something that I have. I struggle with because I was always told in Scientology, whenever I was dissenting, it was like, you just think that you. You can get away with that because you're Gentleman Scavage. And so I'm saying that to myself in my mind. Oh, I think that I. People just want to listen to me because of my name and not because of my story. That's like the internal monologue that I'm always having that I have to overcome every day. But in the end, it's something like I. I create. I left. I decided that Scientology was bad on my own.
-
Unknown A
I rebelled from it, and this is my story, and it's unique. And.
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Unknown C
Yeah, so there's a lot of. When I look at. Especially people that were Muslims who are ex Muslims, sometimes I see a lot of the content I make, and a lot of it is revolves around being, like, ex Muslim. And I wonder sometimes if it feels a little bit suffocating that, like, okay, well, here I am to be the ex Muslim guy again, or every single take I give is through that lens. And then I wonder. Sometimes it feels like you're pigeonholed into just doing. I'm not a Scientologist anymore. Here's why. Content.
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Unknown B
I mean, I'm kind of asking for it because the name of my channel is Growing up in Scientology. Yeah, your channel is Jenna Miscavige.
-
Unknown A
Yeah. And I kind of.
-
Unknown B
She doesn't even do Scientology content.
-
Unknown A
I do, too. I just.
-
Unknown B
Just.
-
Unknown A
I. Mine is more about the stuff that I like doing now. And in the end, my way of coming out of, like, it's about building a life that I didn't have. And so I can basically have anything under that banner, anything I want to do, anything that I'm interested in. And so in the end, everything kind of is about that because it's learning about the world and learning who I am without having to, like, fall in line as a cult member. So I can't help but have some of it be about that. But I don't know. I guess I'm using it in a way that's helpful and productive to me, rather than it being something that I'm forced to do.
-
Unknown B
I guess when I say I'm not worried about being pigeonholed, it's not that I don't think it's going to happen. It's that I don't really mind.
-
Unknown C
Okay.
-
Unknown B
I don't really mind as long I'VE always said, like, I'm just somewhat motivated by trying to be David Miscalcule. Just continuing to keep. Just continuing on, even if the content doesn't get better or more interesting or anything, just continuing on should at least send the message of what can these people really do to you? Well, like, should you really be afraid to speak out? Should you really be afraid to leave? I'm motivated by pure revenge.
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Unknown A
Yeah. I was early on, but now less so. But it's kind of like what you said, like, growing up in Scientology, they sort of. You. You. You don't have your own identity. You're just. Your identity is whatever Scientology wants you to be. You don't have your own interests. You don't learn about yourself. Nothing about what makes you an individual is cultivated. And so coming out. That's still what I'm learning now. I've. I was still in there longer than I've been out, and I think for me to, like, you know how you're talking about how when you grew up, like, if you were just going against what your parents wanted, then that was still sort of controlling you in that way. So for me to purposefully only, like, avoid Scientology in every way would sort of be my version of that. And I'm coming to a sort of middle ground where I'm not only going against or I'm not trying to stay away from Scientology as much as possible.
-
Unknown A
I'm sort of mixing in what. What is my past and not running away from it with who I actually am now.
-
Unknown C
Have you. You mentioned being able to reference a state offline? Is there any desire from ex Scientologists to find. Was his name Patrick?
-
Unknown A
Pat Broker?
-
Unknown C
Pat Broker, Yeah. To, like, find him and bring him out and to have him do the.
-
Unknown B
So I've never heard anyone express, okay, I have an interest in doing that.
-
Unknown C
Yeah.
-
Unknown B
And I know where he lives, and I've thought about making a road trip.
-
Unknown C
Yeah.
-
Unknown B
And I very much think about it.
-
Unknown C
Oh, that sounds like it'd be really good content. Yeah.
-
Unknown B
Yeah.
-
Unknown C
Are you both atheists now or spiritual or religious or.
-
Unknown B
Yeah, I think it's fair to say.
-
Unknown C
Fair to say atheists, yeah. When you look at the things that you saw in Scientology, are there other movements in the United States or in the world or whatever, where you look and you're like, oh, man, I see a lot of overlap between that stuff and, you know, this stuff.
-
Unknown B
Well, the risk of insulting a lot of people, the answer that I'm gonna. My answer is based on the feedback I get from former members of this group, and it just happens to be the Jehovah's Witnesses.
-
Unknown C
Okay.
-
Unknown B
I, I've got nothing against the Jehovah's Witnesses. As a former Scientologist, the, the members, the former members of other groups that seem to have the most in common with our experience and the ramifications and the disconnection and all that stuff is Jehovah's Witnesses.
-
Unknown A
But L. Ron Hubbard thinks he was the Buddha or something.
-
Unknown B
Elron Hubbard does say he was Buddha. He's the reincarnation of Buddha. And that's, that was one of the things as good little Scientologist. One day it dawned on me if someone asked me, why do we think this man's words are so important? I don't even know what I would say. And then I saw this thing where he's like, I'm Buddha. I'm like, everybody loves Buddha. That's a great answer. Yes, he was Buddha. Everybody loves Buddha.
-
Unknown A
Yeah. And I guess maybe I don't see like the beliefs of Scientology and other things, but obviously I see like cult like behavior and absolutely everything.
-
Unknown C
Do you feel the same way about Mormons? That's a really common one that people bring up.
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Unknown B
So there's another channel, another creator, a former Mormon named Shalis Ansola.
-
Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown B
And I've been on her channel, she's been on my channel, and she does something that I think I'll eventually do, which is focus on interviewing former members of all these other groups. And my conversations with Shalice are very much like these. Eye opening. Wow. So much similarities. For whatever reason, I do not get contacted by former Mormons the way that I do by former Jehovah's Witnesses. But, but, and also there's so many Mormons. I mean, there's like 20,000 Scientologists. There's probably like legitimately 10 or 15 million Mormons. They've got their own, they've got states, they've got senators, they've got Scientology. Can't even get a council person. So. And I'm hesitant and I try to really stay in my Scientology lane because obviously it's, I, I, I don't know enough about those organizations and their belief systems. You hear about Mitt Romney and the magic underwear and all that stuff when he was running for president.
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Unknown B
And a lot of the weird Mormon stuff came to light the way the weird Scientology stuff comes to light. And it's like, I just don't know enough about their core. I'm hesitant to actually equate a large religion like Mormonism with a tiny little Human trafficking cult like Scientology.
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Unknown A
Yeah. And it's less about the similarities and beliefs and more about just high control groups.
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Unknown B
And I think all these organizations and organized religions in general are going to have these high control elements actions. And you have people who have different experiences.
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Unknown A
Right.
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Unknown B
I think in Scientology, people are more likely to have the same experience than in a giant organization like Mormonism. You're more likely to have people that are like, my God, I've never experienced that in any way, shape or form. Whereas in Scientology, everybody knows someone who's, you know, done the rpf, been disconnected from all this kind of stuff.
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Unknown A
Exactly, yeah.
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Unknown C
If there are cult leaders that are listening, I'm hearing something that's very annoying. One of the, One of the advantages of capitalism and liberalism is that it incorporates its own criticism so effectively. So if you think of a lot of like socialists or whatever, like today in America, they're oftentimes a very successful capitalists and liberalism is very good at incorporating so many different aspects of culture into it, such that it's not even like people say US exports culture to the world is kind of true. But it's more that like the US is like continuously participating in world culture as well. Like, you know, Gangnam Style, K Pop, these different movies and actors. You know, every day I'm discovering, unfortunately, that another beloved American actor is actually British. And they were under cover the entire time. And I even noticed around in my own community there's a very fine line to walk between, like how much criticism of myself that I host versus how much I try to get rid of.
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Unknown C
Because obviously I don't like to say criticism because I, you know, that feels bad. But if you ban too much of it, then you start to develop these anti fan communities that like, you know, just want to attack you. Yeah. And it seems. Yeah. Like in Catholicism, which is what I grew up in, and I think in Christianity in general, pretty sure they encourage a healthy amount of skepticism. And like asking priests like, hey, like, I don't. This doesn't make any sense to me. Like, how is there evil if God is this and that?
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Unknown B
Right. Sometimes that makes your belief stronger. Yeah.
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Unknown C
You're supposed to go through those phases. And it seems very strange that Scientology. That just seems like a very ineffective method of like, you can't ask any questions. And that's, It's. It reminds me of the. When you look out the window of an airplane or when you look at a modern car, you see the airplane wing bend and you see the car crumple and you're like, oh, they don't make them like they used to. And it's like the bending is actually really good because if it doesn't bend, then it snaps. So you'd rather have these things that are crumpling and that are bending instead of just like breaking in half. And yeah, it seems like very not good to have that.
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Unknown B
That's a perfect example of how if someone. And I'll use the word smarter, even though it's not the right word, if someone smarter was running the show over at Scientology, I think it would theoretically be possible to reverse the spiral. Because the whole you're so rigid, you break, and if you're flexible, you'd survive. That is something that is so obvious, especially when you're running a big organization. Like, how do you ensure the long term survival of the organization? You've got to be flexible and able to change over time.
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Unknown C
Yeah.
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Unknown B
And it's so baked into Scientology that nothing can change. And yet you also have the contradiction that Miscavige has changed so much, but the one thing he hasn't changed is the ability to question without it being an attack.
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Unknown A
Right.
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Unknown B
Or criticize a report, or you can criticize anyone. It's just not David Miscavige.
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Unknown A
Right. And I think that maybe that works more on people who are already in or who grew up there. Like in Scientology, they believe that if you don't agree with something or you don't understand something that's in their policies, it's because there's a word in it that you don't understand. And it's sort of like, then you have to find what word you don't understand, look it up. If you still don't understand it, you have to go back. And it's like this thing where you're incentivized to be like, okay, I understand it now. Like, I can't go through. I can't keep doing this. Like, it's in your best interest to just, like, agree. So you can stop doing that thing or stop. Like, if you, like, you're not allowed to leave an auditing session unless you basically are happy. And so at some point you're just going to make yourself happy so that you can get out of it.
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Unknown A
So you're almost incentivized to pretend like it works. I mean, that's not on a big organizational level, but just like, on a micro level. There's things built in that.
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Unknown B
Yeah, but even this idea of questioning your faith and that it's healthy to question your faith. Oh, my God, is that not okay? In Scientology, it is not okay. In Scientology, even talking about things is actually forbidden. Like, if I actually had something L. Ron Hubbard wrote, and you were. You were either my supervisor or my senior, and I came to you and I said, what does this mean? You're literally not even allowed to talk to me about it all. You're allowed. And it's kind of what you said.
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Unknown A
Verbal data.
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Unknown B
What word did you not understand? If you understood all the words there, you would know what it means. It's actually called verbal tack. Scientologists are not allowed to verbally discuss the meanings of things. So not only can you not question it, you can't even discuss what it actually means. Like, it's so crazy to say it out loud and then be having been away from it for so long to think, how could any organization bake in that type of rigidity? You know, there's no, like, mental elasticity. You can't even sit there and chew on these things. You can't have, like, some sort of a Scientology reading group where you read a chapter and you all discuss it. Oh, my God. If it was found out that Scientologists were doing that, they would be nuked. They'd be sent right to the ethics officer for interrogations, and the beatings would continue until morale improved.
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Unknown A
Yeah, and there's a part of it that's like, it is true that if you don't understand a passage in a book, that if you find a word that you don't understand, that you will maybe potentially be able to understand it. But they take that little piece of something that's true and apply it to things where it's just not workable and it becomes destructive. But that little piece of truth in it is what sort of lets you be brainwashed by it.
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Unknown C
Can you give an example of that?
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Unknown A
Yeah. Like, so in Scientology, like I said, with the word you don't understand, but when you're a little kid just trying to study, like, a fiction book or, like, math or something, like, if there's a word you don't understand, like, that applies more to a Scientology principle than it does to something that is written by whoever in your math book, or it's not helpful for you to be asked as a kid when you need help understanding something, what word don't you understand? As a six year old, like, that's something that might be useful to an adult who's a writer, who is, like, in some sort of literary job, but as a little kid, it, like, makes it impossible to learn anything on your own without some Help.
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Unknown B
Okay, so organizationally speaking, you know, Scientology is in the middle of a today 20 year long real estate strategy that is destroying the organization. And a high level Scientology executive would not be allowed to compile a very thoughtful presentation to show David Miscavige how this strategy is not working. Like, that type of feedback is not allowed. It's not.
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Unknown A
Well, yeah, you'd be toast.
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Unknown B
You would not. It's not even like you'd be thanked and ignored. You'd be expelled for treason.
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Unknown C
Okay, so going off of that and then incorporating what you said. So I'm just trying to think, so what an example be like, so somebody would say, like there would be a rule that would say like, killing is wrong. And then you might ask like, I don't understand, when you say wrong, what do you mean? And rather than being able to fill that with like some type of meaningful content, they would just like restate, well, it's wrong. Like you can't do that, or you're not allowed to do that. So there'd be no. Okay, so then people lack the ability.
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Unknown B
Or they would just say, well, what word didn't you understand? Yeah, just earlier, just prior to the sentence where it says that killing is wrong, what word didn't you understand?
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Unknown C
Gotcha.
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Unknown A
And take it even further. Like you could be like, well, what if I'm protecting myself? What if I'm protecting my kid? And it's like, well, no, L. Ron Hubbard says killing is wrong.
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Unknown C
Okay, gotcha. Okay, okay, okay. And so. Okay, why. Why do you think the real estate business is going bad for them?
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Unknown B
Well, because there aren't enough Scientologists in the world to support the real estate strategy. So David Miscavige decided that the reason Scientology orgs weren't expanding fast enough, or more than they were, is because they're not big and beautiful enough. And so a certain amount of people are just repelled by the building. Now, never mind the fact that Scientology expanded just fine under L. Ron Hubbard when all the buildings were total shit already. So it's not the reason, it's not the linchpin. So he'll take an organization that has five staff members and is in a 3,000 square foot facility, and he'll say, you guys have to go get a 50,000 square foot building, you have to buy it and you have to renovate it, and you can only fund this with new donations. We're not using any of the money in the bank, and it's your job.
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Unknown B
Go. And these people during this whole time period, because they're not fulfilling or executing the order, executing the strategy. They have withheld from them normal marketing efforts that would normally be funded by international management. And so realize staff members only get paid a certain percentage of the adjusted gross income of the organization. So the overhead and the expenses have a lot to do with how much staff members end up getting paid. How much staff members end up getting paid have a lot to do with whether they're able to even continue being on staff. So you take an org that has five staff, and you put them in a 50,000 square foot building, now they can't even pay the electric bill. Now you can't pay any of the staff. Now it's harder to hire staff. But you already didn't have enough staff to staff the 50,000 square foot building. It doesn't make any sense.
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Unknown C
Do they ever do anything else with this real estate, or is it just for Scientology?
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Unknown B
Just for the Scientology.
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Unknown C
Org.
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Unknown B
Okay, so like, here in Miami. Here in Miami, I'm sure they have what they call. When they get their new big building, they call it an ideal organization. I'm sure the one here is ideal. And if we can figure, if we can swing by on a way out of town, we will. I'm sure it's got less than 10 staff.
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Unknown C
Oh, not good. Okay. And then for people listening, because a lot of people get this wrong. Real estate, homeownership, all of this doesn't generate money because the asset appreciates, because you're making money on rents appreciation. Plus, rents will give you a lot of value. But if you're not actually renting a building out, just buying it and sitting on it and not having anybody rent it, it's like buying a car and then wondering why you're not making money by owning the car when the taxi driver does. Well, it's because the taxi driver's renting rides and you're not in your car unless you do Uber.
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Unknown B
So, okay, at least the real estate appreciates while the car depreciates. Yeah, sure, but Scientology is not selling these buildings. They're holding forever.
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Unknown A
Yeah, and also they're. They're fundraising for the building from the public there. That's there around that Scientology Church. But that public is also supposed to be the ones who are giving income to the church through receiving training and auditing. And so they're depleted on some level too, just by buying the building itself.
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Unknown C
Is the building owned by local. Is the building just owned by the Church of Scientology or another church owns it?
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Unknown B
Yeah.
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Unknown C
Geez. Okay.
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Unknown B
And. And yeah, like she said, those scientologists are supposed to be buying Scientology auditing and courses, but there's so much money needed for the building itself that the Scientologists literally go bankrupt. Like they over leverage themselves. And Scientology has more interestingly delved into bank fraud, loan fraud, wire fraud, credit card fraud, even identity theft to raise the hundreds of millions of dollars needed for these things. So great is the pressure on the fundraisers. And this is where Scientology literally, this real estate strategy, has created an environment where Scientology has resorted to such means. They've opened themselves up to actual federal criminal prosecution. Now, maybe not for the next four years with Pam Bondi as the ag She's a very close friend of Scientology's, But I'm telling you, this is the kind. That's the kind of prosecution that Scientology will eventually go down for. It's not the human trafficking, it's not the beating people up.
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Unknown B
It's. It's the bank fraud and the loan fraud and the credit card fraud. And it's all because of this real estate strategy.
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Unknown C
They should have just done NFTs, some.
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Unknown B
Some board apes. Right.
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Unknown C
Do you think that when you look at the higher level people, so either these people that are. Wait, are there people like from level 9 to 15 right now that. Okay, for the people that are level 8 or the highest people they org. Do you think that they genuinely believe it? And when you look at the celebrities like the Tom Cruise's, do you think that they genuinely believe it?
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Unknown B
I believe that Tom Cruise believes I do too.
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Unknown A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't know. I mean, it's impossible not to question. Like, I don't. I think that people maybe have little seeds of doubt in the back of their mind. I mean, like my grandma, she was an OTA and she died of emphysema. And I think that she was like maybe a little bit disillusioned. She would say little things to me about my uncle or whatever, but I think that there's so much like all of her kids are in Scientology. So it's like, what is she gonna do? Leave and not be able to talk to them? So there's this like, society or like peer pressure or many incentives to stay. At that point it's just easier and more comfortable.
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Unknown C
I don't like that For a lot of things in life, people don't consider the chances of them that like, wow, you know, like we'll sit here and we'll think like, I believe all these things and I'm very smart and I've thought of all these things and it's like, do you not consider the coincidence that you happen to agree, like 98 with everybody in your immediate vicinity or the fact that like political beliefs even have like this heritability that's like in the 70s, that. Yeah. I think people discount not only just inheriting beliefs from people around you, but how much pressure there is to maintain the beliefs. I'm a very independent person online and sometimes people say things like, oh, like, it's so cool that, you know, I have different beliefs from different areas, depending what we're talking about, but I pay almost no cost for having them.
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Unknown C
I'm very independent from my family. I have my own community online. Like, I can have, you know, a news report come out tomorrow and I can take whatever I want on it at no cost. And for some people, even something as stupid as believing in the results of an election or believing a thing about trans people or gay people, like, this belief, for them to overcome that hurdle could alienate them from a significant portion of their, like, support system or life and everything. And these are much harder calls for some people to make.
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Unknown A
Yeah, yeah.
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Unknown B
You know, it's interesting. You talk about. Yeah. Questioning. Questioning whether it's even good that you believe 99% of the thing, everything around you believes. Certainty and confidence is considered so virtuous in Scientology. So virtuous. And so everyone being certain and confident about the same thing is like this self reinforcing virtue.
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Unknown C
Sure.
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Unknown B
It's almost like, how could we be wrong when we're all so right?
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Unknown C
Yeah.
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Unknown B
Right. And then. And then as a good little Scientologist growing up, you see that and. And it's seems to be the right way to be.
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Unknown A
Yeah. And it's also hard to let go of that. Like, it must be nice to be so certain about so many things. Like that seems like a warm, nice luxury, you know, that easy. Like, you know, if I believed that I was going to live again, that would just be so. That would. That would make me very happy.
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Unknown B
And yet no one is. Everyone in the organization at the time is somewhat oblivious to the huge social cost for not believing that.
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Unknown A
Yeah. Yeah.
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Unknown B
And I think if someone were to point that out to me while I was in, I'd be like, well, yeah, of course it would be a problem if I didn't believe this, but even if I didn't have to, I would anyway. And you're like, yeah, how do you know?
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Unknown C
Yeah, it's really hard.
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Unknown B
How would you know?
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Unknown C
Yeah, like, I think we all, like ask ourselves, like, if the year was like 1790, like I would be one of the few people against slavery. Or if I was in Germany in the 30s, like, I would be one of the few people saying the Nazis are bad. And then you look at things today, and it's like, well, what's the equivalent? And it's like, would I be on the right side? I'm not sure. Like, they can be hard to figure out sometimes.
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Unknown A
Yeah. Cancel culture.
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Unknown C
Sure. Or. Yeah. I was thinking. Oh, I had a thought. I lost it. But I. I like that.
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Unknown B
I like that one of everyone does think that if they were alive in the days of slow, you'd always. They would be the ones that were against. It's like, no. You'd be at the auction.
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Unknown C
Yeah. Do you think my. My handwriting is so illegible. I take. I take notes. Sometimes I look at. I'm like, not actually sure. Oh, I see. Okay. I thought this said exact memes, but it says extract, meaning. Sorry, is there anything from Scientology that you take where you're like, actually as crazy or as stupid as the whole thing is? I do like this aspect. Or I wish more things were like this. Like, I can think of one big thing you've said that I actually do appreciate, and I would argue it should be part of Christianity. I was going to make this joke earlier where you were saying people can be Scientologists and Christians at the same time, and you said it's because Scientology is just about doing and has nothing to do with beliefs. And I would say that seems to fit because a lot of Christians seem to think it's enough to believe without actually doing, which is a bit cynical.
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Unknown C
But I do like that aspect. At least, I think that acts and doing things in this world are more important than just having a belief system that doesn't manifest in any applied way. Is there any, I guess, aspect of it? And I understand, to be fair, this is a lot more cultish and extreme than just like an ordinary religion. So maybe that's okay.
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Unknown B
But you realize that when they say it, they're not talking about doing things in your community. They're talking about doing Scientology on each other.
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Unknown C
Yeah. Okay.
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Unknown B
You know, the part that I think is valuable about Scientology is the message, essentially, there is always something you can do about anything. I take that actually very seriously.
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Unknown A
Anything's possible.
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Unknown B
Yes. And even if anything, they might. Not necessarily. I feel like they might stop short of saying anything is possible. Well, no. In the sea or. It's like, anything.
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Unknown A
Make it go right.
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Unknown B
Yeah. Make it go right.
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Unknown A
Yeah.
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Unknown B
There's something to be said for knock off the bullshit and just get it done. I mean, whether you want to say that's good for the employer or. I think it's a healthy way to approach life. Of course, it can be overdone in some cases. Yeah, yeah. And taking a look at what your responsibility is on any given thing is a healthy way to approach. It's a healthy way. It's a healthy, productive way to approach life. And I think it's one of the things that I do feel at the entry levels of Scientology gets people hooked, especially if they think Scientology is about crazy aliens and hydrogen bombs and xenu in the galactic confederacy. And then they go in and it's like, how to communicate better. Yeah, how to communicate better. Communication is something a lot of people struggle with.
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Unknown C
So you ever spoke to Chris Williamson? Are you familiar with this content online or is he.
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Unknown B
Oh, I know who you're talking about. He's got the very highly produced podcast. Right?
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Unknown C
That's what. Yeah. Yes.
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Unknown B
Very, very highly produced podcast. I'd love to talk to him someday.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown B
I've never spoken to him the. I think I actually messaged him on Twitter.
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Unknown C
Okay. Okay. Yeah, we've spoken a couple times. And one of the things that came up is because I'm a very socially, like, I'm very. Well, it depends on what community I'm in. Anywhere. I'm anywhere from far left to announce, I guess depends on who. What issue we're talking about. But I would consider myself center left, pretty far left. But on an individual level, when I'm talking to somebody, I'm very much like, locus of control is within your domain. And he kind of asked me to reconcile that. And the way that I would always say it is you have, like, if you think of data and you've got, like, a plot, you have a thing called, like, a tail. Like, what's the range of the data? And there's going to be some environmental or biological realities that, you know, looking at me, I'm probably never going to make it very far in the NBA, no matter how much I practice, probably.
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Unknown C
But that within these, like, given ranges, you have, like, your own right, you know, effort that you can exert to do better or do worse. And that. Yeah, when I'm talking on a societal level, I'm very much speaking like. Like, we need to create optimal environments. You know, tax people, redistribution, whatever we have to do. But I'm talking on an individual level. I'm always telling people, like, yeah, nobody cares about you as much as you do. Like, it's. You against the world. You have to figure it out on your own, like, whatever you like, have you done everything you can? Yeah. And sometimes I feel like left leaning movements especially are missing sometimes that aspect of control. And a lot of the further right movements that I would argue are bad for a lot of reasons. They do provide that and it feels very, it's deceptively empowering.
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Unknown C
Like, a lot of people on the outside will look at things that red pillars or conservatives will say or whatever where it's like, God, like, you know, these people are saying it's all your fault and the world is like against you and everything. And it's like, like, yeah, they're kind of saying that. But the takeaway at the end is like, you're the only one that can do anything. Like it's you against everything, like you've got it, whatever. And to some extent it does feel very, you know, like empowering, like, oh, cool, okay, I can do anything. Yeah, right.
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Unknown B
It is interesting, some of the messaging that I can just think of hearing from, whether it's Denzel Washington or Thomas Sowell, sometimes where it's like, sure, there may be factors that are against you, but is telling someone that that's what they should focus on helpful to them? Probably not. If your message is, and therefore that's why it's so important that you work so much harder, then sure, there's the empowerment.
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Unknown C
Yeah, yeah. I think that's probably the big thing is I think about like, like medical diagnoses where the only reason to diagnose something is because there's a treatment pathway, there's some therapeutic pathway. So if you have a thing like, nobody should ever tell you, like, this is an easy red flag. When I speak to people about like, mental illness, if somebody says something like, I have X mental illness, or like, I can't do this because I have this mental illness, or like, like this is difficult for me because I have this mental illness. It's always like a red flag. As opposed to some people will say things like, I have X mental illness, so I have to do this or this in order to do this. Or like I have, you know, like I have adhd, so when I go to work on this, I have to shut everything off, or I have borderline, so I can't make friends with people that have like these types of communication issues.
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Unknown C
Right. Where I see that somebody has like diagnosed some kind of problem. And I'm using diagnose here formally and then I'm talking about mental illness. But it could be where anything like, maybe I'm. I can be lazy if there's alcohol around, or I can be. Whatever that. When people identify those things and they use those to, like, do better rather than to use them as a crutch, I think it's a really important.
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Unknown A
Right. Or something you can't do versus something you have to work with.
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Unknown C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're identifying, like, adapt with. Exactly.
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Unknown B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Unknown C
Adaptation rather than crutches or.
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Unknown A
Yeah, yeah, totally.
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Unknown B
I think that's just obviously the most helpful part of Scientology is the. The responsibility is on you, and it will always be, even for. Even for the worst things that happen to you. That's where it can get a little abusive. Like, and especially with kids. It's like, even if a kid gets molested, the Scientology perspective is going to be, well, what did you do in a past life to pull that in?
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Unknown C
Sure.
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Unknown B
That's destructive as hell.
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Unknown C
Absolutely right.
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Unknown A
It gets taken to this other pathological.
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Unknown C
It can get destructive. But I will say something that's kind of funny. Not funny. Something that's kind of dark or surprising is in the psychology literature, having an overarching narrative for the world is actually a protective factor against developing PTSD after trauma, because you think that things are happening for more of a reason. So, like, I believe religious people are less likely to develop PTSD after highly traumatic events than a non religious person. Because, you know, something like that, you know, happens to me, I'm like, jesus, this is horrible. Like, what the. Was it religious person be like, this is bad. But, like, I'm sure there's, like, part of a greater plan here and it can help you.
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Unknown A
Yeah.
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Unknown C
Although there's. Obviously there are limitations to this. You can't be abusive to someone and say it's because of God, you'll be fine. You know, like, beat the hell out of your kids or something. Or. Yeah, that can be taken too far, of course, but.
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Unknown A
Yeah, yeah, totally. But there was, like, an incident that I had with somebody in my family, and their daughter was in the nicu, the newborn intensive care unit, when she was born. And I remember saying something like, oh, isn't it so sad to see all the little babies in there that are so little? And he was a Scientologist, and he said, yeah, but you've got to wonder what they did in a past life in order to have that happen to them. And so it's like when you're applying something like that to babies, it's just like, there are some truisms, but when they're taken too far, it Just kind of makes you into an.
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Unknown B
So if that's what Scientologists think about brand new babies and incubators in the nicu, imagine what they think about the underprivileged or the homeless or the handicapped. And then ask yourself whether Scientology really cares about any of its social betterment activities. They don't, Right?
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Unknown A
Exactly. Yeah, but there are some, like, organizational tools in Scientology that in retrospect, I've, like, find helpful, but because I was learning them as such a young kid, like, it's almost like you need to have a problem. You need to have experience in order to understand why some of these things are working. You know, it's like if you're just teaching self help to a little kid, they're like, I don't know what the problem. I don't know what the problem is.
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Unknown C
I feel like this is the great paradox of life. I actually hate that I hated school so much. And I don't know just because of the ADHD thing or what, but. Oh my God, I couldn't do homework. I just hated every. All the book. I hated everything. And. And I. There's a thing. It's like, youth is wasted on the young.
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Unknown B
Yeah.
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Unknown C
And it's like that quote, if I could do, they should just work my ass when I was 5 until I was 20, and then at 20, send me to school. I would appreciate this shit so much more.
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Unknown A
Yeah.
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Unknown C
Like, do I really care at 5 years old, Lord of the Flies or whatever? Like, I don't care about these kids. Like, or like I'm reading about the Scarlet Letter. Adultery. I don't even know how to masturbate yet. And they're teaching me about adultery. I don't know what any of this means.
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Unknown A
It's so true. Ye worthless to you at that time. But when you have context of trying to live, then it's like, okay, I see how that can be useful, but that was confusing as. As a child.
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Unknown B
It might also explain why generationally Scientology was never going to work because people in. In the early days, Dianetics was. People were getting into Dianetics because it was solving some problem they already had.
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Unknown C
Yeah.
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Unknown B
But then when most of the organization is composed of people who are just born into it and never had any choice, they care about it less and less and less and they drift off and they're like, I don't need this.
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Unknown A
Yeah, totally.
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Unknown C
Well, jeez. Anything else you guys like to talk about or visit or anything you want to.
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Unknown B
We could go on forever, but sure, I'm good.
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Unknown C
What would you like to see, I guess, in the future. Do you like. Do you hope that like, I guess like to some extent you. You've almost gotten your wish, I guess, and that Scientology seems to be kind of a joke, I think, on like the. On the world stage, you know, as opposed to. I don't know if it was ever more serious, maybe just less heard of. Yeah. Is there like a big event that you are hoping, you know, that like Dave has a big downfall or that somebody new comes in and reforms it or the only.
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Unknown B
There's two big events that I would like to see happen, even though I acknowledged it maybe 10, 15, 20 years away. One is actual federal prosecutions against Scientology for crimes. For actual crimes which in. In this case I believe are going to be the financial crimes crimes. I would like to think that that would also lead to or make more possible the eventual revocation of Scientology's tax exempt status.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown B
Because the, the religious tax exemption that they have right now protects them in courts. Protects them in the courts in ways that are just hard to even. Hard to even believe. And if they were just another corporation open up to civil litigation. I mean, they are open to civil litigation, but I mean, where I'm going, I want their tax exempt status revoked. That's a star high goal. Someone from the IRS even recently explained to me how unlikely, like the organization only has a few billion dollars now to you and I, that's a lot of money. But I think the IRS's annual budget is like 70 billion. And the. Let's say it would take them tens of millions of dollars and a decade of litigation to. If they were going to revoke Scientology's tax exemption and that. And at the end of that, they don't even get the several billion, they just get to tax Scientology on its revenue going forward.
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Unknown C
Yeah.
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Unknown B
So it's been explained to me that the government may not even have an incentive. They're like. They lose a few billion dollars in their couch cushions. They're not. They don't have an incentive to pick that fight with Scientology. That is still the ultimate thing that I would like to see happen. But I also recognize one, it's outside of our control. And two, although it would be nice, it's not necessary. We can help bleeding them of their members every single day. I didn't even mention yet that one of the things that gives a little greater value to what we do on YouTube is, you know, we run a non profit called the SP TV Foundation. By the way, you. We already discussed SP, right?
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Unknown C
Yeah.
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Unknown B
So we call our YouTube channels. SPTV on YouTube.
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Unknown C
SP. Suppressed Person Training videos or television. Oh, my God. Okay. Okay. Sptv, baby.
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Unknown B
And so we created the SPTV foundation, and we help people who are leaving Scientology and suffering from disconnection and fair game and may not know how to drive and have never had a job and don't have a resume and don't have credit history or maybe they need to get back to their family.
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Unknown A
Job training.
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Unknown B
Yeah. And so our audience. You know, the audiences of our collective channels are really where the financial support for. Because they're watching our content. They're watching the content of these former Scientologists telling these crazy stories, and they are very passionate about helping other people leave Scientology. And so it's just another way of being David Miscavige's worst nightmare, acting out my dreams of revenge, but honestly being as helpful as possible to make it easier for others to travel the path we traveled and have it be easier for them than it was for us.
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Unknown C
When you do break somebody out of it, what's, like, the most common way that it happens?
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Unknown A
Usually somebody they know is already out.
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Unknown B
Mike's mother is, like, one of the perfect examples. Mike Brown is one of our board members, and he was born and raised in the organization. His mom worked at the highest levels for 30, 40 years. They had. Actually, the way it was even possible is they had shipped her off to a home to basically die. They shipped her off to a home, elderly to die, where they had a bunch of elderly Sea Org members who they just expected to die. It literally was.
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Unknown A
If you're in the Sierra your whole life, you don't have retirement or medical. You don't have anything. So when you get old and you can no longer work, it's like.
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Unknown B
It literally was sneaking her a phone, planning out some logistics, flying out there, and actually just showing up with people and a camera and breaking her out. Okay, it really was. But other times, another example that I'm thinking of from it was, was it not Cincinnati? What's the other? Oregon, Ohio? I'm gonna lose it. She was working at the organization. She'd been planning on leaving for weeks. At the end of the day, she would go back to where she lived with her roommates and was just kind of secretly quietly packing a little bit each day. So it wasn't so obvious when people woke up one morning and saw all of her clothes off of the hangar and eventually had her stuff all packed up, and we just arranged for a volunteer to show up, pick her up. We had flights arranged, took her right to the airport, made sure she had all her travel documents.
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Unknown B
You know, sent her to a place with a hotel, got her a place to stay, got her a job, taught her how to drive, all that kind of stuff. Not everyone leaving Scientology has to escape, per se, but for those who.
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Unknown A
Less so now.
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Unknown B
Well, less so now. I mean, if a Sea Org member needs to escape, I mean, it's always going to be. It's always going to be like an escape. I mean, kind of. Right?
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Unknown A
Yeah.
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Unknown B
Not necessarily jumping in the trunk of a car, but like a. Public.
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Unknown A
Scientific stories of that, though, like escaping on motorcycles, escaping a trunk of a car where they. You. They have all your credit card information, so they call the company and ask where it was last used. They track you down, and so that was something that they did.
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Unknown B
The more common scenario is someone is either a public member or a staff member and not a Sea Org member, and they already exist in the real world. But. But Scientology is wrapped up in so many areas of their life that they still need help finding housing, finding a job, getting to a different location.
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Unknown A
But it's not as strict as the Sea Org, which would be manned with security outside it.
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Unknown B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Unknown C
Interesting that these are also, like, these are big abuser tactics that when you see somebody who's trying to make you more and more reliant on them in many different areas, it's fostering a sense of interdependence. It makes it impossible to ever walk away because now you're weighing so much more for the cost of living.
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Unknown A
Exactly. Yeah. And incentivizes you to believe in it too, because what are your options?
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Unknown C
Yeah.
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Unknown B
And this propaganda, internal propaganda, is pushed pretty heavily that the outside world is dangerous. Everyone's on drugs, everyone's a criminal. You know, like, even us. Scientology will tell its members that we are now working for Big Pharma.
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Unknown C
Okay?
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Unknown B
Big Pharma, Big psych, Control everything. Control the media. It's why you can't trust the media, and it's why you can't trust any of the negative information out there about Scientology.
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Unknown C
Because I do think it was a little bit strange because it's pretty hot outside, and then seeing you both come in in the big Johnson and Johnson jackets, I was like, you guys show up all the time in these or. Okay.
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Unknown B
A couple years ago, we went on a cruise, and just for the hell of it, we brought T shirts that said big Pharma Whore. We all took group photos. Big Pharma Whore, where's my paycheck?
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Unknown C
What if people are looking for you? Guys, where do you want them to look you up? Where do you want them to find you?
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Unknown A
My YouTube channel is just Jenna Miscavige.
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Unknown B
And I'm growing up in Scientology.
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Unknown C
Okay. And no other socials, Twitter, anything else?
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Unknown B
I've got them, but it doesn't matter.
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Unknown C
Okay, cool.
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Unknown B
Yeah.
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Unknown C
Well, thanks a lot for joining us, and hopefully more people leave Scientology. Hopefully your big moments come and. Yeah, thanks for the conversation.
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Unknown B
Thanks.
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Unknown A
Thank you. It's fun.
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Unknown C
Okay. Hey, guys. Welcome to this episode of Bridges. Today I am talking to Jenna Mix.
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Unknown A
Sorry.
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Unknown C
Nope, it's not your fault. No, no, don't mind. Hold on. I am a. When I work, I get very upset. Don't worry. I'm not screaming at you. I'm just screaming at myself because I hate myself. Okay. It's not good. You're good. Don't apologize. You're fine. Okay. Jenna Miscavige and Aaron Mark Levin.
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Unknown B
Aaron Smith Levin.
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Unknown C
Aaron Smith Levin. Okay. Hey, guys. Welcome to today's episode of Bridges. Today I am talking to Jenna Miscavige and Aaron Smith Levin, and we're gonna be talking today about Scientology and their journeys out of Scientology, and I'm gonna be learning about a bunch of stuff about Scientology that I didn't know before. So. Yeah. Okay, Good enough.
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Unknown A
All right.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown A
Cool. Are we all on camera together?
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Unknown C
There's like a. There's three different shots. There's a wide shot where they can see all three of us kind of.
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Unknown A
Oh, okay. I just was wondering if we were in the shot for that, because that was, like, you did it in front of us.
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Unknown C
I would be. Oh, there's a. There's a. This camera, hopefully, is the one that he.
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Unknown A
The news is divided.
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Unknown C
Ground News puts it back together so you can see how many sources are.
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Unknown A
Reporting on any breaking story, where they.
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Unknown C
Fall on the political spectrum, how reliable they are, and who owns them. Compare headlines and read full articles to.
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Unknown A
See which details are prioritized, exaggerated, or left out entirely.
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Unknown B
Because the more we understand the media.
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Unknown A
The more we'll understand each other.
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Unknown C
Visit Ground News to learn more.