Ep 880 ｜ The Truth About Scientology ｜ Guests： Jeremiah Roberts & Andrew Soncrant of 'Cultish' (Part One)
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Summary
In this episode of Relatable, we talk to Andrew Sondkrant and Jeremiah Roberts about what it means to be a member of the Church of Scientology, why it's important to be involved, and why it matters so much.
Transcript
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What is Scientology? What do Scientologists believe? How did this belief system, this cult,
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become so powerful, filled with such prominent people? And why does it matter? We're going to
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talk about all of these things and so much more in this two-part series that we've got on
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Scientology. We've got Jeremiah Roberts and Andrew Sondkrant from the Cultish podcast. You guys love
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these guys. I love these guys. And they are, of course, as they always do, going to bring the
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gospel every step of the way. I learned so much from this two-part series. I know that you will
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too. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to goodranchers.com. Use code
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Allie at checkout. That's goodranchers.com. Code Allie.
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Jeremiah, Andrew, thanks so much for coming back and joining us on Relatable. We've got a lot to
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talk about. A lot to talk about. I want to talk about in this episode, Scientology. And this is
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just kind of, I want a basic rundown of what Scientology is. We tend to see it in the news.
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We see it as kind of like this crazy, kooky thing off to the side. But the truth is that the people
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in Scientology have a whole lot of power and seemingly a lot of influence. So whoever wants
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to answer, can we like back up from the beginning? What is Scientology? Like, is there any relation to
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Christianity, Christian science? What the heck is it? Yeah, that's a great question. And so when you,
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I want to maybe hit this on different levels because it really depends on the entry point
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at which you find out about Scientology. For us, like I said, it's probably looking at something
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going on in the news. Like there's some news going on in California about the guy from that 70s show.
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Or if you look at, you know, something going on with Tom Cruise or perhaps with John Travolta,
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there's a lot of different vantage points. But when you kind of look at Scientology from just
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a general interest point, if you go to their website, it kind of looks like a Tony Robbins sort of
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personal development course, but maybe on the Las Vegas strip. That's the way I would describe
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it. And so when you kind of look at it from that vantage point, it's more of like, hey,
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this is how I, how can I improve myself? How can I improve my self-confidence? Are you having
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struggles with, you know, people approval? And I think this is also, has been one of the appeals
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to Scientologists in the Hollywood world, just because there's a lot of nervousness when it comes
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to trying to get auditions. And, and there's just a big part of it just is a big self-improvement
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point. But it'd be very different from somebody who would grow up in Scientology from a, from,
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from, from, from growing up in it. Or if you have somebody, for example, who is going through a
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personal problem and they go into it. So it really depends on which angle that you take. But if we go
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back to the very, very beginning, it was founded by someone named L. Ron Hubbard and the precursor
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to him prior to the Church of Scientology, and there's going to be a couple of, there's a unique
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relationship of sorts. Sometimes the Stockholm syndrome, when it comes between Scientology and the
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U.S. government, specifically on whether or not they are a religion or whether or not they can get tax
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exempt status. Right. So you really looked at L. Ron Hubbard prior to this. He actually holds the
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Guinness Book of World Records for the most amount of books written specifically on science fiction.
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In fact, if you go into the last couple of times I've been to a used bookstore, you can actually
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find books written by L. Ron Hubbard. In fact, one of the, but there's actually a movie that came out,
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is probably one of the worst reviewed movies of all time called Battlefield Earth with John Travolta.
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And that's actually a book based off of a science fiction book written by L. Ron Hubbard.
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So really the idea is that a lot of people really don't know what was L. Ron Hubbard's true motive
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for starting Scientology, for what a lot of people say, and this is articulated in the documentary and
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Lawrence Wright's book Going Clear, is that he initially wanted to see how can I find a way to
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make the most amount of money. And that was to start his own religion, which would have given
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them tax exempt status. So on the, on the surface level, Scientology has an idea of being this
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self-improvement, very much dealing with mental health issues. So Andrew, why don't you kind of
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jump in, talk about the beginning of Dianetics and about Dianetics and how that kind of relates to
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the appeal, initial appeal of Scientology being kind of that, having that self-improvement,
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Right. So L. Ron Hubbard posited a thesis within a book called Dianetics in 1950. It's called
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Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health, in that he was making a position against modern
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psychology. He didn't like modern psychology. You can actually look up a YouTube video of Tom
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Cruz talking with, I forget who the anchor person is. Matt Lauer. Matt Lauer. Yeah, he starts going off
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on psychology. It's actually pretty. I remember that and antidepressants and things like that,
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which some of the things that he was saying, true. Right, right, right. So what's interesting
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though, about what is posited within Dianetics is essentially that L. Ron Hubbard makes a
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distinction between what is called the analytical mind and the reactive mind. So the analytical mind
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in Dianetics is controlling of conscious awareness, rationality and reasoning, memory and retrieval of
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that memory, creativity and imagination and problem solving and planning. But then there's the reactive
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mind, which is the subconscious mind. This is where things can be stored from past traumatic
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experiences, things that they call engrams within Scientology, which influence behavior, give you
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triggers, and that impacts the analytical mind. So the goal of Dianetics is through auditing,
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right, is when you go to a, what they would say is like a certified auditor where you're holding
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those two like metal cans and it's giving you a little meter, the e-meter that's going off,
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they ask you a series of questions. And when it's triggering correctly, they locate an engram and
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then you can get rid of these engrams through a series of auditing. So that was the initial class
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that was given in order to get people kind of hooked. And this came out in the 1950s, but
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there's a whole worldview that's even behind engrams, presuppositions, the origin of what we would call
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is a human, right? In terms of how they view what the soul is or what a person even is. It's pretty
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intense. It gets pretty deep, but these are things that actually you don't even learn in Scientology
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until you become an operating Thetan level three. So there's something called the bridge to total
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freedom within Scientology. And this is essentially, it's the classes that you have to take, right? And
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each class you have to pay for. I forgot how much it costs, but I think it's somewhere around 150 to
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almost $300,000 just to become an operating Thetan level three. And I can go into the
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discussions of what even a Thetan is, or what does it mean to be an operating Thetan?
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But essentially, just to even find out the origins of our world and who we are, you already have to
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pay at least $200,000 to $300,000, meaning that Scientology is like being a frog in a boiling pot
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of water, right? So you get in with Dianetics and you start taking these classes and the water is
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slowly being turned up. You're going to be so far invested into Scientology by the time you learn
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about the origins of the universe, it's crazy and as far-fetched as they are, that you're probably
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So I'm going to say something really controversial because I'm looking at Hubbard's
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statement about why he created Scientology. As you said, it was founded in 1953. He said,
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make money, make more money, make others produce so as to make money. Now, that is not all that
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different from a lot of the slogans of multi-level marketing companies, which I'm not saying are all
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cults. I'm not saying it's the same thing as Scientology. That's not what I'm saying. What
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I do think is interesting is that you do see the rise of certain kinds of cult-like business
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practices, multi-level marketing practices also happened in the 1950s. And I'm just kind of
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wondering, like I'm wondering if there is any correlation there because even this idea of the
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power of positive thinking, which some of that is biblical, that we're supposed to dwell on that,
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which is like lovely and excellent and true and all of that. But there does seem to be some
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crossover with like the prosperity gospel, Scientology, a lot of the rise in certain kinds
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of marketing and business practices in like mid-century America. I don't know. I just wonder
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kind of why all of these things happened at the same time. And even the self-help movement really
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started to pick up. The 1950s, 60s, 80s, of course, was like a big boom for all of this. And I just wonder
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if there's any connection or what was kind of going on in America that caused all of these things to
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boom around the same time. Yeah, that's a good question. I think from a, as far as the MLM
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standpoint, we just did a crossover with our friends from Sheologians. And the marketing standpoint of
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MLM, just to state real quickly, was really, you kind of think of like the Mad Men era where the men
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went to work. You had all the women who were staying home. And most of the time for a lot of
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companies, and this is also a lot of things like washer machines, vacuum, just there's a lot of
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automation when it came to being a homemaker. And they're trying to figure out, how can I get
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these products into the household? Well, a lot of times, women would really be a catalyst for
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making the decisions of what purchases were made. So the thought was, how can I make women who are
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staying at home a distributor in comparison to a traveling salesman, like a Mad Men-like character,
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like a Jon Hamm character knocking on the door? Well, if someone is just one of your girlfriends
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knocking on the door to door, hey, that's, that's a great idea. I think there's a similarity in
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Scientology in the sense to where even then, or even today, in order to go up a company and become
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a top earner or an ambassador, you kind of have to become your own personality. And there is sort of
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this lifestyle or bridge to total freedom that's marketed specifically. And a lot of times what is
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propagated is not what you end up getting on the other, on the other end. So there'd be a similar,
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there'd be a similar aesthetic to that. Yeah, I think, well, every generation is unique where
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there's nothing new under the sun. I think people are always wanting to go like, the Lord has put
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eternity in the hearts of men. And so regardless of what era is around, there's always going to be
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that unique interest about finding more about ourselves and, and the world and the universe and
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all that, which is very interesting. So when L. Ron Hubbard published Dianetics, it was one of those
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instances of something going viral. L. Ron Hubbard didn't really plan to have it be as popular as
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it was. In fact, it was a New York Times bestseller for quite a bit of time. In fact, people were
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starting their own independent Dianetics groups. And so when he realized that was happening, that's
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when he's tried to put more of his teaching out there to try and compartmentalize and also, and also
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compensate and get compensation. And eventually there was a point where it kind of went big and kind of
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died off. And that's where Ron Hubbard really was like, okay, well, what can I actually do to kind
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of rebound and make this about me and really get, because there's my, what I wrote has a lot of
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appeal to a lot of people. And so that's where he came up with the idea to formulate the religion of
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Scientology. And so that's what you end up seeing. There's a huge interest in self-improvement that must
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have just been what was going on in the culture at the time. But I do see, I guess I see somewhat of a
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similar aesthetic because when you look at having this bridge to total freedom, which we're going
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to talk about, there is, it is somewhat similar. What are your thoughts, Andrew?
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Yeah, I'd say it's going to be something that's peaked the American people from the fifties into
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the sixties, because at that time we have a rise of the infiltration of new age and new thought
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and theosophy into our society. In terms of MLMs, we got to distinguish between like,
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there are legitimate MLMs in America, but where it gets bad is when there's pyramid schemes and it's
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very easy for a pyramid scheme to develop from, uh, an MLM. Uh, we can think about it in terms of
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Keith Renier and NXIVM. NXIVM is, uh, very much so based off of, I'd say like the bridge to total
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freedom. Uh, but it gets different with L. Ron Hubbard because what happens like Jerry's, uh,
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explaining is that over time it developed into a religious system. It wasn't even until I believe
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1967 until the term operating Thetan was even termed by L. Ron Hubbard. So as he slowly started
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getting people to go through these processes, uh, the theology of Scientology developed over time,
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like they're still waiting for new operating Thetan levels to be developed now. It's what keeps them,
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uh, many people who have paid X amount of money still on the path to the bridge to total freedom.
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They're still waiting for new information, uh, to develop. So in terms of the American, yeah,
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in terms of the American society, I would say part of the reason why people got so interested in things
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like this is because they started falling away from biblical truth. Uh, and that happened, uh,
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very shortly after world war two. And, uh, people started looking for other things elsewhere with
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the infiltration of, uh, the new age, new thought, theosophy into our society. So to L. Ron Hubbard,
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these things looked very attractive because if you look at the history of L. Ron Hubbard and the things
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that he taught and the places he went, he was very much so a proponent of Hinduism. Uh, he even
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dabbled in occultism. Uh, so he, he's somebody with very unique history, very, very unique.
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Yeah. And even, oh, go ahead. Yeah. So even his theology, uh, and you look at this, the, his basic
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view of like, what is man? And when you look at, there's nothing new under the sun is that if you
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look at ancient Gnosticism, what was their, what was their fundamental presupposition? Is that there's a,
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there's not, there's a duality between the flesh and the spirit where the flesh is bad,
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but we're mostly spiritual beings, right? And you've also, you always see that depicted in
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paganism one way or the other. And that's really, when you boil it down, that's what Scientology
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articulates is that you are fundamentally a spiritual being that being that is trapped inside of a body
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and in your body. So there's a duality between the flesh and the spirit. And, and this is also just
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part of cultism is that when you are being recruited, when you are entry level, you're being
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told, Hey, this is just a personality test. This is a way to help self-confidence. This is just a way
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to improve. There's nothing about, you know, you being an operating Thetan or on another planet.
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There were, uh, there was an attempt to depopulate the planet. And these planets, I believe were put
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into, uh, caskets or put into human bombs that were dropped into volcanoes. And those volcanoes that
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exploded, created disembodied spirits, which are now individual. Andrew, what's the term that
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they're the Thetans, right? Yeah. Yeah. Let me go over this. Do you want me to go over the
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cosmological? Okay. So this is something, uh, termed and known as the wall of fire within
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Scientology. Again, it's not something that people know until they're an operating Thetan level three.
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So the story involves the existence of a cosmic ruler known as Xenu, uh, who is believed to have
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lived approximately 75 million years ago. And again, this is something that people learn.
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Just keep this in your mind after they're so far deep. So what I'm going to tell you right now,
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you may sit back and you're going to go, this is hilarious, or I don't understand how anyone
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believes this. Well, you got to understand and put yourself in the position of the person
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who, who believes this because of what they've been going through. This is indoctrination.
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Okay. So here's the narrative. Xenu was the ruler of a galactic confederacy in an ancient
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intergalactic civilization facing severe overpopulation. Like Jerry was saying,
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to address the problem, Xenu devised a plan. So what he did is he brought billions of beings
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referred to as Thetans to the planet earth, uh, then known as TGAC or TGI. These beings
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were allegedly frozen and transported in spacecraft to various volcanoes on earth. And then there's
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an explosion, right? And Xenu dropped hydrogen bombs into the volcanoes and triggered a massive
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explosion, killing the Thetans. The spirit of these Thetans known as body Thetans were released
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from their physical forms. Now these spirit Thetans went to then implant stations. And in
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these implant stations, uh, essentially false narratives were implanted into the Thetans minds.
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So one example of a false narrative that was implanted into the Thetans mind was Jesus. Okay.
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That was a false story implanted by Xenu in order to create a certain type of manipulation over the
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people. So that would be something that we can call as a formation of an engram. According to
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Scientology, Jesus was just an implantation of a narrative into the Thetan mind and Thetans,
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uh, essentially how's our human body. So when Jerry's talking about Gnosticism, that's essentially
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what it is. We have to overcome, uh, what is ailing us in this physical form to become an operating
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Thetan so we can master and manipulate matter, energy, space, and time. And that's what they
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Yeah. That's really not just everything that you're saying, which I felt like this before
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when we're talking about different kinds of cults, it's really not that different than
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what a lot of women are fed in the form of self-help and self-love. This idea that as a
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Thetan, we're not originally from this planet. We have to free ourselves from like the chains
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of matter and, you know, energy and things like that to truly be liberated, to go on that
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path to freedom. That is essentially what women are told in a less, I mean, religious context,
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but it's basically like, look inside you is trapped like this inner goddess that just needs
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to be released through the power of self-love and all of these, um, societal standards and
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advertising and the patriarchy and, you know, your toxic relationships, your husband, your
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kids, all of these things are holding you back. But when you throw those things off and
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go on this radical self-love, self-understanding journey, then you will finally be free of all of
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these chains, truly find who you are and really be happy, really be successful, really afford
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that new car and all this stuff. It's not Scientology. I mean, we're basically, in some
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cases we're told it's theology. Like we're actually told that that's like a form of Christianity.
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Some women are, or certainly a form of therapy. And so it's really similar. It's so interesting
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how all of these cults kind of share those characteristics.
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Yeah, no, no, definitely. In fact, uh, just when you talk about just like the cult-like
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characteristics, when you understand the worldview and also how it's being boiled like a frog,
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but what their beliefs are on the higher levels that the, and this is a case with, with any,
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whether it's Mormonism, where they talk about what goes on in the temple, or if you think about
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what actually goes on with behind the policy decision-making within the Watchtower Bible and
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track society, these things on the high levels, this is never communicated to a potential convert
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at all. But however, you do see that applied on very minuscule levels, even on the very, uh,
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on the entry levels, or the, or the very, uh, lower levels of Scientology, for example. So
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when somebody is holding on to the e-meters, if you ever, if you've ever seen those, if you look
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up any Scientology video, they're holding on to these two canisters, and there's this, and there's
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this dialogue going back and forth. And the idea is everything that happens, most of your personal
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problems are related to something going on in your quote-unquote reactive mind. So think about
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social media. Let's use an example so you can, maybe our audience can understand. So on this video
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and other videos that you've done that have been controversial, there's a YouTube comment section,
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and we know that it's so easy to go there and someone says something about you or someone who
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replies you on social media, and there's that, you have that ability sometimes to emotionally sort of
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knee-jerk react to a comment, right? So that would be an example of Scientology, a Scientologist would
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say, that's your reactive mind, you reacting to that. So the idea is to go in these sessions of
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auditing, whether, and they'll talk about something from your childhood or even maybe even a previous
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life once you start going further up, and ask, well, why are you reacting to that? So the idea is to
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keep on saying things that would get you to react, but then allow you to detach the emotion from
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whatever this is. And in that process, eventually you'll pass one level and you'll go up to being
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OT-1 to an OT-2, which is operating Thetan. And so yeah, that's what you end up, that's what the
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initial process is. But then you find out later on that, you find out later on on the higher levels
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about a lot of the strange beliefs about, you know, Xeno and dropping bombs into volcanoes and
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things like that. But it is until later. And the whole process, there's this love bombing where
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you are told you're the most amazing person. Every single level on which you achieve, you're just
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completely applauded and you think so much of yourself. So even the idea of beginning to question,
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even you don't, no one has to sort of initially force you like not to question it. You sort of do it
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on your own. And so a lot of people, when we talk with Mike Rinder from A&E Scientology,
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The Aftermath, he really described it in his book. And even on our podcast, the interview we did with
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him, it's really just a mind prison that gets created for yourself. And so you're actually
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thinking you are achieving total freedom and that's what's propagated, spiritual freedom. But in reality,
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it ends up being a prison, both spiritually, theologically, mentally, psychologically. And
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it goes on too. Like you, you only associate with people who are in Scientology and then you end up
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having something called disconnection, which is part of Ron Hubbard's fair game tactics. It's related
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to that, where if you begin to question or you think about leaving, you have, you end up being
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disconnected. So a huge majority of what you would see, if anyone's seen the show,
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Scientology, The Aftermath, with that Leah Remedy from The King of Queens did, you saw just the
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emotional devastation of people who grew up believing this thing. And this is honestly one of the
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challenges that people on the outside, it's very easy to make fun of Scientology. You look at like a
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South Park episode or just a lot of the pop culture depictions of it. But we have to realize
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that all of us are so incredibly susceptible to false beliefs. We are incredibly suggestible.
00:22:45.580
If you look up Steve Hassan, who wrote the book Combating Cult Mind Control, he talks about
00:22:50.080
what is called undue influence because brainwashing, that tends to be something that the idea of that
00:22:57.400
you're being forced against your will. So if you think of a prisoner of war like John McCain when
00:23:02.240
he was captured in Vietnam and how he was broken down and eventually had to articulate communist
00:23:09.080
propaganda, that went by way of torture and sleep deprivation and all these things.
00:23:14.880
When it comes to undue influence, it's very simple. It's easy for us to have a conversation
00:23:19.620
when we are about, for example, gender and how transgenderism is wrong and all that.
00:23:26.160
But if you are in a college classroom, if you're not, say you're doing that at church,
00:23:32.640
but say that all of a sudden you're at a classroom with a gender studies professor and every single
00:23:37.520
person in that class except you is a social justice warrior who completely believes in this ideology,
00:23:44.000
it's going to be a lot harder for you to raise your hand if you disagree. So you kind of see it on
00:23:49.740
a very minuscule level, but that really is what happens in Scientology. And so when you
00:23:54.620
see someone who leaves, who is abused, who is disconnected, that's in that show, there's levels
00:24:01.820
of embarrassment, shame that I was duped, that I believe these things. And then in the process of
00:24:11.360
having to realize that in order for me to not believe this, I have to lose everything. I have to be cut
00:24:17.960
off by my brothers, by my, you know, whether it's my older parents and you look at grandparents who've
00:24:24.200
been separated from their children or vice versa. And that show honestly was just heartbreaking.
00:24:30.160
And in fact, you know, I think we articulated Bad Theology Hurts People. It's actually one of our
00:24:34.240
shirts that we have. Like that show, like in many ways was a huge sort of inspiration for us to even
00:24:42.780
like do this podcast when it came out. Yeah, it was a huge inspiration. What are you, Andrew, what are
00:24:48.720
your thoughts? Yeah, I want to add some like biblical perspective to the conversation real quick with
00:24:53.500
regards to self-help culture and even Scientology, right? Like we're born into a fallen world. There's
00:24:58.900
something within us that knows that there's something wrong, but there's something wrong. And so the Bible
00:25:04.780
clearly states that where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And it also says people, unless
00:25:09.920
they're freed by God, don't like the things of the spirit. So we're either a slave to Christ or a
00:25:15.820
slave to sin, we submit to something. Okay. So with regards to self-help culture or Scientology,
00:25:22.180
what's going on is they're looking for a solution to a problem, but it's all the elementary principles
00:25:27.860
of men. It's not actually the freedom that God gives because they tell you to do X, Y, and Z. It says
00:25:34.660
in Colossians 2, it says, if you have died with Christ, so the elementary principles of the world,
00:25:38.160
why is if you were living in the world, you submit yourself to decrees, do not handle, do not taste,
00:25:41.740
do not touch, which deal with everything destined to perish with use, which are in accordance with
00:25:46.340
the commands and teachings of men, which are matters having to be sure a word of wisdom and
00:25:50.320
self-made religion and self-abasement, severe treatment of the body, but are of no value in
00:25:53.840
stopping the indulgence against the flesh. So if anyone is submitting to a self-help culture in
00:25:57.880
order to solve their problems and not relying on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross to absolve our
00:26:02.160
sins, you're never going to be satisfied. The bridge is going to continue to get longer and longer.
00:26:06.200
You're going to look for the next object, the next material to satisfy your desires,
00:26:10.380
but you're never going to be satisfied because there's a disconnect between you and God. And
00:26:14.900
that bridge can only be gapped by Jesus Christ, who is God in the flesh, who died on the cross for
00:26:19.180
our sins. And the same thing goes with Scientology. That's why they're waiting for the next thing on
00:26:22.620
the bridge to total freedom is because they're not free at all. When the sun sets you, you are free
00:26:27.600
indeed. That's the biblical perspective in terms of how we should even relate in our life to any form of
00:26:32.420
idolatry. Our hearts should break for people who are being held captive to a system of man because
00:26:39.080
it doesn't stop the indulgence of the flesh. Instead, it actually creates more of an indulgence
00:26:43.780
in the psalm state that if you worship idols, you eventually become just like them.
00:26:59.440
There are some people who are Scientologists who also claim to be Christians. Joy Villa,
00:27:04.600
you might remember, she kind of made waves in the conservative world when she wore some kind of
00:27:10.980
dress to some of it. I don't even remember a few years ago, maybe 2017, 18, that said make America
00:27:15.760
great again. She did another one that was pro-life. She was on Fox News a lot. And she's a Scientologist,
00:27:22.140
but she will also say like she's a Christian. And so I've seen this from a few people saying,
00:27:29.500
sure, you can be a Christian and a Scientologist. Obviously, we know that's not true, or you can even
00:27:33.540
be a Buddhist and a Scientologist. But in addition to what you just explained so well, Andrew,
00:27:38.820
what are some reasons why Scientology and Christianity are just opposed to each other?
00:27:45.380
And why also would Scientology say that you can do both? That seems a little weird.
00:27:53.380
Well, yeah, I would refer people back to the interview we did with Mike Rinder from Scientology
00:27:57.960
The Aftermath. Just because, honestly, even though this is a podcast that Andrew and I do,
00:28:03.180
this is also a ministry that we do, it's our vantage point is from the outside looking
00:28:08.440
in. I've never done a Scientology course. I've never been audited. And so I'm really from
00:28:15.380
the outside looking in. I think Mike Rinder is one of the most qualified people as far as
00:28:20.080
he's somebody who grew up around Ron Hubbard. He was on the Apollo with him. If you've ever
00:28:24.380
seen, if anyone watching the documentaries, Going Clear, he was actually on the boat. He was
00:28:29.380
part of the Sea Org. He was pretty much the public spokesperson for Scientology for a very
00:28:34.720
extended amount of time. He was also very much involved with Tom Cruise's public relations
00:28:40.260
in relation to the Church of Scientology. But in the very, very beginning, we asked him
00:28:45.340
just about his thoughts on Scientology in relation to Christianity. And I think it's right around
00:28:50.680
the 20th. If you go to our podcast, Mike Rinder, Inside the Mind Prison Scientology, he basically
00:28:56.520
himself. Mike Rinder's not a Christian, but he emphatically stated that Scientology is
00:29:01.600
not Christian. The basic fundamental tenets of Jesus being an actual man who died on the
00:29:10.820
cross, the historical figure of Christ, Ron Hubbard adamantly denied. I believe he said
00:29:16.980
that Christ was a false memory implanted here. And so you have that aesthetic, but look at even
00:29:25.120
the actions. You should judge a tree by its fruit. So Ron Hubbard, the only real appeal
00:29:29.760
from what I remember, even like the cross and their symbol, was just to sort of have a marketing
00:29:34.640
appeal. In fact, he did an advertising campaign, which Mike explained to us on the podcast, where
00:29:39.500
he would sort of have these sort of meetings that he would try and market to Christians to
00:29:46.560
talk to them about Scientology. I was saying it's a Christian religion, or it's completely
00:29:50.800
compatible and syncretistic, but as soon as people attended the meeting, he completely
00:29:54.980
flip-switched and it was a straight-up Scientology presentation. And so I would say just from
00:30:01.160
independent eyewitness and testimony of somebody, and like Mike's story has been verified by many,
00:30:07.620
many, aside from the Scientology propaganda outlets, I mean, he has one of the most unique
00:30:13.500
vantage points. And yeah, so just from his vantage point of like what even what L. Ron Hubbard
00:30:19.320
both taught, believed, and articulated and practiced out during the early years of Scientology
00:30:25.540
would say that they are so polar opposites of each other. That would be an understatement to
00:30:31.180
begin with. What are your thoughts, Andrew? Yeah, so I would say with regards to Scientology,
00:30:35.980
they're extremely pragmatic, right? Every single world religion has to do something
00:30:39.640
with Jesus. He's the most important central figure in human history. To appeal to people,
00:30:45.080
of course, they're going to say things like, you can be a Christian and be a Scientologist.
00:30:48.560
I mean, LDS people say that they're Christian too. I talk to them all the time on the street.
00:30:52.100
There's Muslims who say that they believe in Jesus, right? There's even Jehovah Witnesses. They say
00:30:56.120
that they believe in Jesus. I mean, we have biblical precedent for this. Not only does Jesus tell us
00:31:01.900
there's going to be many who come in his name, right? But 2 Corinthians 11, 4, Paul tells us,
00:31:06.000
he says, for if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed,
00:31:09.640
or if we receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel
00:31:13.400
from the one you accepted. He's warning the church in Corinth at that time. He's like,
00:31:16.820
I think you'd put up with it. You are putting up with it. And he corrects them. We're told also in
00:31:20.940
1 John 4, he says, don't believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see that they are from God.
00:31:25.460
For many false prophets have gone out in the world. By this, you know the spirit of God. Every spirit
00:31:29.200
that confesses that Jesus is the Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not
00:31:35.080
confess Jesus is not from God. Meaning this, that when Jesus is the Christ,
00:31:38.960
we're looking back at Isaiah 9, 6, that he is Emmanuel. He is the mighty God. He is the God
00:31:43.140
from everlasting into everlasting, who took on flesh and saved his people from his sins, Isaiah 53.
00:31:49.380
And also, like Jerry was saying, we have a historical point, in fact, for the resurrection
00:31:54.420
of Jesus. We have an empty tomb. And if Christ is not dead, it says in 1 Corinthians 15, then we are
00:32:00.020
still in our sins. And we know that Scientology is completely antithetical to the gospel. Because
00:32:05.080
number one, when you believe in a different Jesus, say, if you believe in Jesus, that's a
00:32:09.580
false memory, then he didn't satisfy or atone any form of sin. You're going to have to actually have
00:32:13.660
to satisfy that requirement for yourself by going through the bridge to freedom. But again, you'll
00:32:18.640
never be able to satisfy it. Therefore, you get a different gospel like we're warned of in Galatians
00:32:22.700
1, 8. And if anyone comes with a different gospel or with a different Jesus, it's actually not
00:32:29.360
Christianity. And we use the same standard when we're talking to a Jehovah's Witness, or we're
00:32:33.880
talking to an LDS person, or we're talking even to a Muslim. So we actually have the Bible to protect
00:32:39.460
us from false Jesuses and from false gospels. So I would say that it's not me and my own personal
00:32:45.460
feelings that would tell someone like Joy Villa that they're not a Christian. I'd actually say it's
00:32:49.020
God through the Holy Spirit who says that you're not a Christian because he is God himself.
00:32:52.940
Yeah. And one thing I was thinking of when you were talking about all the things that you don't even
00:32:57.260
know when you first walk into Scientology, when you're starting to be audited, like you don't
00:33:01.620
even learn about how L. Ron Hubbard believed that the world was created and all of these different
00:33:07.220
things. And you may never if you don't, I guess, invest enough money and get to that level and all
00:33:11.460
of that. And that seems true of a lot of these different cults. And you could probably tell us
00:33:16.200
whether that's a characteristic of all cults, but you have to kind of travel to this like inner
00:33:20.580
sanctum of, you know, closeness to the people who are in charge to really, you know, be
00:33:27.080
revealed all of this stuff. And that's so different than Christianity where we want to lay it all out
00:33:33.900
there. That doesn't mean that there aren't some theological concepts that are more difficult to
00:33:39.440
understand than others, but we're like, come to our church, see how we worship, see what we talk
00:33:45.560
about. Here's the entire Bible. Like we're not going to hide anything from you. There's not some other
00:33:50.380
secret text that has the weird stuff in it that we don't really want to show you quite yet.
00:33:54.720
You don't like get to be one day closer or you shouldn't be able to get to one day be closer
00:34:00.560
to our pastor or our leaders if you invest enough money. And then we finally reveal to you what it
00:34:05.160
really means to be a Christian. Like it's so out there that actually the most, the central part of
00:34:10.500
Christianity, the most controversial part of Christianity, Jesus Christ himself, he actually
00:34:15.100
became flesh into all the monk people. And was God, declared that he was God, acted as God.
00:34:22.440
And so there's nothing to hide within Christianity. The entirety of the gospel is right there. And we
00:34:28.200
actually desperately want you to know all of it as much as possible. That seems to be one big
00:34:34.080
difference between these kind of Gnostic cults and Christianity.
00:34:38.000
Yeah, definitely. And in fact, one of the fruits too, which you could kind of jump into as far as
00:34:44.120
Scientology's behavior, both towards the US government and towards those who have defected and spoken out
00:34:50.780
against the church of Scientology, which would make it unequivocally not Christian, is the basic
00:34:57.200
teachings of Jesus. When he talked about his disciples said, hey, love those and pray for those
00:35:02.500
who persecute you. Scientology is the exact polar opposite, where it says, destroy anybody who
00:35:10.160
questions anything regarding the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard, who speaks out against the church of
00:35:15.400
Scientology. Okay, we left you on a cliffhanger there. Purposely, you got to tune in for part two, we're going
00:35:33.380
to be talking about some of the mysterious and very disturbing practices within Scientology. And again, talking
00:35:40.940
about the significance of this, obviously, theologically, morally, but also politically,
00:35:48.200
like there is a lot of, there are a lot of strange connections between the government, between state
00:35:55.420
and local governments and Scientology. So we're going to explore those in the next episode with