Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 880 ｜ The Truth About Scientology ｜ Guests： Jeremiah Roberts & Andrew Soncrant of 'Cultish' (Part One)

00:00:00.620 What is Scientology? What do Scientologists believe? How did this belief system, this cult,

00:00:07.320 become so powerful, filled with such prominent people? And why does it matter? We're going to

00:00:13.660 talk about all of these things and so much more in this two-part series that we've got on

00:00:18.380 Scientology. We've got Jeremiah Roberts and Andrew Sondkrant from the Cultish podcast. You guys love

00:00:25.440 these guys. I love these guys. And they are, of course, as they always do, going to bring the

00:00:31.340 gospel every step of the way. I learned so much from this two-part series. I know that you will

00:00:37.960 too. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to goodranchers.com. Use code

00:00:42.580 Allie at checkout. That's goodranchers.com. Code Allie.

00:00:55.180 Jeremiah, Andrew, thanks so much for coming back and joining us on Relatable. We've got a lot to

00:01:01.620 talk about. A lot to talk about. I want to talk about in this episode, Scientology. And this is

00:01:07.520 just kind of, I want a basic rundown of what Scientology is. We tend to see it in the news.

00:01:12.500 We see it as kind of like this crazy, kooky thing off to the side. But the truth is that the people

00:01:17.420 in Scientology have a whole lot of power and seemingly a lot of influence. So whoever wants

00:01:22.660 to answer, can we like back up from the beginning? What is Scientology? Like, is there any relation to

00:01:28.280 Christianity, Christian science? What the heck is it? Yeah, that's a great question. And so when you,

00:01:34.060 I want to maybe hit this on different levels because it really depends on the entry point

00:01:39.340 at which you find out about Scientology. For us, like I said, it's probably looking at something

00:01:44.260 going on in the news. Like there's some news going on in California about the guy from that 70s show.

00:01:49.240 Or if you look at, you know, something going on with Tom Cruise or perhaps with John Travolta,

00:01:53.820 there's a lot of different vantage points. But when you kind of look at Scientology from just

00:01:57.160 a general interest point, if you go to their website, it kind of looks like a Tony Robbins sort of

00:02:03.260 personal development course, but maybe on the Las Vegas strip. That's the way I would describe

00:02:08.440 it. And so when you kind of look at it from that vantage point, it's more of like, hey,

00:02:13.040 this is how I, how can I improve myself? How can I improve my self-confidence? Are you having

00:02:17.420 struggles with, you know, people approval? And I think this is also, has been one of the appeals

00:02:23.340 to Scientologists in the Hollywood world, just because there's a lot of nervousness when it comes

00:02:27.180 to trying to get auditions. And, and there's just a big part of it just is a big self-improvement

00:02:33.440 point. But it'd be very different from somebody who would grow up in Scientology from a, from,

00:02:40.500 from, from, from growing up in it. Or if you have somebody, for example, who is going through a

00:02:45.020 personal problem and they go into it. So it really depends on which angle that you take. But if we go

00:02:51.300 back to the very, very beginning, it was founded by someone named L. Ron Hubbard and the precursor

00:02:57.820 to him prior to the Church of Scientology, and there's going to be a couple of, there's a unique

00:03:02.340 relationship of sorts. Sometimes the Stockholm syndrome, when it comes between Scientology and the

00:03:06.840 U.S. government, specifically on whether or not they are a religion or whether or not they can get tax

00:03:12.520 exempt status. Right. So you really looked at L. Ron Hubbard prior to this. He actually holds the

00:03:19.080 Guinness Book of World Records for the most amount of books written specifically on science fiction.

00:03:25.640 In fact, if you go into the last couple of times I've been to a used bookstore, you can actually

00:03:29.940 find books written by L. Ron Hubbard. In fact, one of the, but there's actually a movie that came out,

00:03:35.960 is probably one of the worst reviewed movies of all time called Battlefield Earth with John Travolta.

00:03:40.840 And that's actually a book based off of a science fiction book written by L. Ron Hubbard.

00:03:45.100 So really the idea is that a lot of people really don't know what was L. Ron Hubbard's true motive

00:03:51.260 for starting Scientology, for what a lot of people say, and this is articulated in the documentary and

00:03:58.300 Lawrence Wright's book Going Clear, is that he initially wanted to see how can I find a way to

00:04:03.800 make the most amount of money. And that was to start his own religion, which would have given

00:04:09.140 them tax exempt status. So on the, on the surface level, Scientology has an idea of being this

00:04:17.840 self-improvement, very much dealing with mental health issues. So Andrew, why don't you kind of

00:04:22.160 jump in, talk about the beginning of Dianetics and about Dianetics and how that kind of relates to

00:04:27.460 the appeal, initial appeal of Scientology being kind of that, having that self-improvement,

00:04:32.360 personal development aesthetic.

00:04:34.940 Right. So L. Ron Hubbard posited a thesis within a book called Dianetics in 1950. It's called

00:04:42.260 Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health, in that he was making a position against modern

00:04:47.240 psychology. He didn't like modern psychology. You can actually look up a YouTube video of Tom

00:04:51.380 Cruz talking with, I forget who the anchor person is. Matt Lauer. Matt Lauer. Yeah, he starts going off

00:04:56.940 on psychology. It's actually pretty. I remember that and antidepressants and things like that,

00:05:01.600 which some of the things that he was saying, true. Right, right, right. So what's interesting

00:05:07.040 though, about what is posited within Dianetics is essentially that L. Ron Hubbard makes a

00:05:12.840 distinction between what is called the analytical mind and the reactive mind. So the analytical mind

00:05:17.140 in Dianetics is controlling of conscious awareness, rationality and reasoning, memory and retrieval of

00:05:22.960 that memory, creativity and imagination and problem solving and planning. But then there's the reactive

00:05:27.960 mind, which is the subconscious mind. This is where things can be stored from past traumatic

00:05:33.480 experiences, things that they call engrams within Scientology, which influence behavior, give you

00:05:40.460 triggers, and that impacts the analytical mind. So the goal of Dianetics is through auditing,

00:05:47.200 right, is when you go to a, what they would say is like a certified auditor where you're holding

00:05:51.800 those two like metal cans and it's giving you a little meter, the e-meter that's going off,

00:05:56.600 they ask you a series of questions. And when it's triggering correctly, they locate an engram and

00:06:01.140 then you can get rid of these engrams through a series of auditing. So that was the initial class

00:06:06.040 that was given in order to get people kind of hooked. And this came out in the 1950s, but

00:06:10.380 there's a whole worldview that's even behind engrams, presuppositions, the origin of what we would call

00:06:17.940 is a human, right? In terms of how they view what the soul is or what a person even is. It's pretty

00:06:26.020 intense. It gets pretty deep, but these are things that actually you don't even learn in Scientology

00:06:30.560 until you become an operating Thetan level three. So there's something called the bridge to total 0.80

00:06:35.620 freedom within Scientology. And this is essentially, it's the classes that you have to take, right? And

00:06:40.900 each class you have to pay for. I forgot how much it costs, but I think it's somewhere around 150 to

00:06:46.200 almost $300,000 just to become an operating Thetan level three. And I can go into the

00:06:51.240 discussions of what even a Thetan is, or what does it mean to be an operating Thetan?

00:06:55.380 But essentially, just to even find out the origins of our world and who we are, you already have to

00:07:02.340 pay at least $200,000 to $300,000, meaning that Scientology is like being a frog in a boiling pot

00:07:08.020 of water, right? So you get in with Dianetics and you start taking these classes and the water is

00:07:12.820 slowly being turned up. You're going to be so far invested into Scientology by the time you learn

00:07:18.620 about the origins of the universe, it's crazy and as far-fetched as they are, that you're probably

00:07:22.820 just going to believe it.

00:07:23.680 So I'm going to say something really controversial because I'm looking at Hubbard's

00:07:42.480 statement about why he created Scientology. As you said, it was founded in 1953. He said,

00:07:49.700 make money, make more money, make others produce so as to make money. Now, that is not all that

00:07:57.520 different from a lot of the slogans of multi-level marketing companies, which I'm not saying are all

00:08:03.900 cults. I'm not saying it's the same thing as Scientology. That's not what I'm saying. What

00:08:07.980 I do think is interesting is that you do see the rise of certain kinds of cult-like business

00:08:15.780 practices, multi-level marketing practices also happened in the 1950s. And I'm just kind of

00:08:21.920 wondering, like I'm wondering if there is any correlation there because even this idea of the

00:08:27.500 power of positive thinking, which some of that is biblical, that we're supposed to dwell on that,

00:08:31.260 which is like lovely and excellent and true and all of that. But there does seem to be some

00:08:37.520 crossover with like the prosperity gospel, Scientology, a lot of the rise in certain kinds

00:08:45.620 of marketing and business practices in like mid-century America. I don't know. I just wonder

00:08:52.400 kind of why all of these things happened at the same time. And even the self-help movement really

00:08:58.780 started to pick up. The 1950s, 60s, 80s, of course, was like a big boom for all of this. And I just wonder

00:09:05.040 if there's any connection or what was kind of going on in America that caused all of these things to

00:09:09.580 boom around the same time. Yeah, that's a good question. I think from a, as far as the MLM

00:09:15.400 standpoint, we just did a crossover with our friends from Sheologians. And the marketing standpoint of

00:09:21.840 MLM, just to state real quickly, was really, you kind of think of like the Mad Men era where the men

00:09:26.220 went to work. You had all the women who were staying home. And most of the time for a lot of 0.99

00:09:29.920 companies, and this is also a lot of things like washer machines, vacuum, just there's a lot of

00:09:34.720 automation when it came to being a homemaker. And they're trying to figure out, how can I get

00:09:39.160 these products into the household? Well, a lot of times, women would really be a catalyst for 1.00

00:09:45.880 making the decisions of what purchases were made. So the thought was, how can I make women who are 1.00

00:09:51.360 staying at home a distributor in comparison to a traveling salesman, like a Mad Men-like character,

00:09:56.700 like a Jon Hamm character knocking on the door? Well, if someone is just one of your girlfriends

00:10:00.560 knocking on the door to door, hey, that's, that's a great idea. I think there's a similarity in

00:10:04.560 Scientology in the sense to where even then, or even today, in order to go up a company and become

00:10:10.720 a top earner or an ambassador, you kind of have to become your own personality. And there is sort of

00:10:16.520 this lifestyle or bridge to total freedom that's marketed specifically. And a lot of times what is

00:10:22.940 propagated is not what you end up getting on the other, on the other end. So there'd be a similar,

00:10:27.960 there'd be a similar aesthetic to that. Yeah, I think, well, every generation is unique where

00:10:33.020 there's nothing new under the sun. I think people are always wanting to go like, the Lord has put

00:10:38.420 eternity in the hearts of men. And so regardless of what era is around, there's always going to be

00:10:43.860 that unique interest about finding more about ourselves and, and the world and the universe and

00:10:48.760 all that, which is very interesting. So when L. Ron Hubbard published Dianetics, it was one of those

00:10:54.060 instances of something going viral. L. Ron Hubbard didn't really plan to have it be as popular as

00:11:01.500 it was. In fact, it was a New York Times bestseller for quite a bit of time. In fact, people were

00:11:06.380 starting their own independent Dianetics groups. And so when he realized that was happening, that's

00:11:12.180 when he's tried to put more of his teaching out there to try and compartmentalize and also, and also

00:11:17.200 compensate and get compensation. And eventually there was a point where it kind of went big and kind of

00:11:23.060 died off. And that's where Ron Hubbard really was like, okay, well, what can I actually do to kind

00:11:27.620 of rebound and make this about me and really get, because there's my, what I wrote has a lot of

00:11:34.040 appeal to a lot of people. And so that's where he came up with the idea to formulate the religion of

00:11:39.580 Scientology. And so that's what you end up seeing. There's a huge interest in self-improvement that must

00:11:45.260 have just been what was going on in the culture at the time. But I do see, I guess I see somewhat of a

00:11:50.380 similar aesthetic because when you look at having this bridge to total freedom, which we're going

00:11:55.360 to talk about, there is, it is somewhat similar. What are your thoughts, Andrew?

00:11:59.120 Yeah, I'd say it's going to be something that's peaked the American people from the fifties into

00:12:05.900 the sixties, because at that time we have a rise of the infiltration of new age and new thought

00:12:10.080 and theosophy into our society. In terms of MLMs, we got to distinguish between like,

00:12:16.300 there are legitimate MLMs in America, but where it gets bad is when there's pyramid schemes and it's

00:12:21.540 very easy for a pyramid scheme to develop from, uh, an MLM. Uh, we can think about it in terms of

00:12:27.400 Keith Renier and NXIVM. NXIVM is, uh, very much so based off of, I'd say like the bridge to total

00:12:32.940 freedom. Uh, but it gets different with L. Ron Hubbard because what happens like Jerry's, uh,

00:12:38.780 explaining is that over time it developed into a religious system. It wasn't even until I believe

00:12:44.620 1967 until the term operating Thetan was even termed by L. Ron Hubbard. So as he slowly started

00:12:50.740 getting people to go through these processes, uh, the theology of Scientology developed over time,

00:12:56.820 like they're still waiting for new operating Thetan levels to be developed now. It's what keeps them, 0.98

00:13:02.120 uh, many people who have paid X amount of money still on the path to the bridge to total freedom.

00:13:06.580 They're still waiting for new information, uh, to develop. So in terms of the American, yeah,

00:13:12.340 in terms of the American society, I would say part of the reason why people got so interested in things

00:13:18.140 like this is because they started falling away from biblical truth. Uh, and that happened, uh,

00:13:23.400 very shortly after world war two. And, uh, people started looking for other things elsewhere with

00:13:29.600 the infiltration of, uh, the new age, new thought, theosophy into our society. So to L. Ron Hubbard,

00:13:35.220 these things looked very attractive because if you look at the history of L. Ron Hubbard and the things

00:13:38.980 that he taught and the places he went, he was very much so a proponent of Hinduism. Uh, he even

00:13:43.640 dabbled in occultism. Uh, so he, he's somebody with very unique history, very, very unique.

00:13:50.840 Yeah. And even, oh, go ahead. Yeah. So even his theology, uh, and you look at this, the, his basic

00:13:57.440 view of like, what is man? And when you look at, there's nothing new under the sun is that if you

00:14:01.800 look at ancient Gnosticism, what was their, what was their fundamental presupposition? Is that there's a,

00:14:06.700 there's not, there's a duality between the flesh and the spirit where the flesh is bad,

00:14:11.800 but we're mostly spiritual beings, right? And you've also, you always see that depicted in

00:14:15.900 paganism one way or the other. And that's really, when you boil it down, that's what Scientology

00:14:21.380 articulates is that you are fundamentally a spiritual being that being that is trapped inside of a body

00:14:28.700 and in your body. So there's a duality between the flesh and the spirit. And, and this is also just

00:14:34.700 part of cultism is that when you are being recruited, when you are entry level, you're being

00:14:41.200 told, Hey, this is just a personality test. This is a way to help self-confidence. This is just a way

00:14:45.520 to improve. There's nothing about, you know, you being an operating Thetan or on another planet. 0.60

00:14:51.860 There were, uh, there was an attempt to depopulate the planet. And these planets, I believe were put

00:14:56.920 into, uh, caskets or put into human bombs that were dropped into volcanoes. And those volcanoes that

00:15:02.960 exploded, created disembodied spirits, which are now individual. Andrew, what's the term that

00:15:08.480 they're the Thetans, right? Yeah. Yeah. Let me go over this. Do you want me to go over the

00:15:14.620 cosmological? Okay. So this is something, uh, termed and known as the wall of fire within

00:15:20.300 Scientology. Again, it's not something that people know until they're an operating Thetan level three. 0.99

00:15:24.900 So the story involves the existence of a cosmic ruler known as Xenu, uh, who is believed to have

00:15:29.700 lived approximately 75 million years ago. And again, this is something that people learn.

00:15:34.320 Just keep this in your mind after they're so far deep. So what I'm going to tell you right now,

00:15:39.000 you may sit back and you're going to go, this is hilarious, or I don't understand how anyone

00:15:42.540 believes this. Well, you got to understand and put yourself in the position of the person

00:15:46.540 who, who believes this because of what they've been going through. This is indoctrination.

00:15:50.480 Okay. So here's the narrative. Xenu was the ruler of a galactic confederacy in an ancient

00:15:55.340 intergalactic civilization facing severe overpopulation. Like Jerry was saying,

00:15:58.800 to address the problem, Xenu devised a plan. So what he did is he brought billions of beings

00:16:03.300 referred to as Thetans to the planet earth, uh, then known as TGAC or TGI. These beings

00:16:08.980 were allegedly frozen and transported in spacecraft to various volcanoes on earth. And then there's

00:16:13.760 an explosion, right? And Xenu dropped hydrogen bombs into the volcanoes and triggered a massive

00:16:19.080 explosion, killing the Thetans. The spirit of these Thetans known as body Thetans were released 1.00

00:16:23.720 from their physical forms. Now these spirit Thetans went to then implant stations. And in

00:16:29.340 these implant stations, uh, essentially false narratives were implanted into the Thetans minds.

00:16:35.520 So one example of a false narrative that was implanted into the Thetans mind was Jesus. Okay. 0.96

00:16:41.480 That was a false story implanted by Xenu in order to create a certain type of manipulation over the

00:16:47.600 people. So that would be something that we can call as a formation of an engram. According to

00:16:52.500 Scientology, Jesus was just an implantation of a narrative into the Thetan mind and Thetans, 1.00

00:16:57.060 uh, essentially how's our human body. So when Jerry's talking about Gnosticism, that's essentially

00:17:02.060 what it is. We have to overcome, uh, what is ailing us in this physical form to become an operating

00:17:08.520 Thetan so we can master and manipulate matter, energy, space, and time. And that's what they 1.00

00:17:13.800 believe that an operating Thetan can do.

00:17:16.820 And that's right.

00:17:17.700 Yeah. That's really not just everything that you're saying, which I felt like this before

00:17:22.540 when we're talking about different kinds of cults, it's really not that different than

00:17:26.860 what a lot of women are fed in the form of self-help and self-love. This idea that as a 1.00

00:17:32.580 Thetan, we're not originally from this planet. We have to free ourselves from like the chains 0.96

00:17:36.940 of matter and, you know, energy and things like that to truly be liberated, to go on that

00:17:41.720 path to freedom. That is essentially what women are told in a less, I mean, religious context, 0.99

00:17:46.160 but it's basically like, look inside you is trapped like this inner goddess that just needs

00:17:52.080 to be released through the power of self-love and all of these, um, societal standards and

00:17:59.500 advertising and the patriarchy and, you know, your toxic relationships, your husband, your

00:18:04.840 kids, all of these things are holding you back. But when you throw those things off and

00:18:08.920 go on this radical self-love, self-understanding journey, then you will finally be free of all of

00:18:14.540 these chains, truly find who you are and really be happy, really be successful, really afford

00:18:19.000 that new car and all this stuff. It's not Scientology. I mean, we're basically, in some

00:18:24.100 cases we're told it's theology. Like we're actually told that that's like a form of Christianity.

00:18:28.180 Some women are, or certainly a form of therapy. And so it's really similar. It's so interesting

00:18:34.020 how all of these cults kind of share those characteristics.

00:18:36.600 Yeah, no, no, definitely. In fact, uh, just when you talk about just like the cult-like

00:18:42.760 characteristics, when you understand the worldview and also how it's being boiled like a frog,

00:18:48.340 but what their beliefs are on the higher levels that the, and this is a case with, with any,

00:18:52.720 whether it's Mormonism, where they talk about what goes on in the temple, or if you think about

00:18:56.640 what actually goes on with behind the policy decision-making within the Watchtower Bible and

00:19:01.520 track society, these things on the high levels, this is never communicated to a potential convert

00:19:06.960 at all. But however, you do see that applied on very minuscule levels, even on the very, uh,

00:19:12.460 on the entry levels, or the, or the very, uh, lower levels of Scientology, for example. So

00:19:18.760 when somebody is holding on to the e-meters, if you ever, if you've ever seen those, if you look

00:19:23.360 up any Scientology video, they're holding on to these two canisters, and there's this, and there's

00:19:28.500 this dialogue going back and forth. And the idea is everything that happens, most of your personal

00:19:34.060 problems are related to something going on in your quote-unquote reactive mind. So think about

00:19:39.220 social media. Let's use an example so you can, maybe our audience can understand. So on this video

00:19:44.200 and other videos that you've done that have been controversial, there's a YouTube comment section,

00:19:47.760 and we know that it's so easy to go there and someone says something about you or someone who

00:19:52.840 replies you on social media, and there's that, you have that ability sometimes to emotionally sort of

00:19:58.280 knee-jerk react to a comment, right? So that would be an example of Scientology, a Scientologist would

00:20:04.540 say, that's your reactive mind, you reacting to that. So the idea is to go in these sessions of

00:20:11.060 auditing, whether, and they'll talk about something from your childhood or even maybe even a previous

00:20:14.920 life once you start going further up, and ask, well, why are you reacting to that? So the idea is to

00:20:20.400 keep on saying things that would get you to react, but then allow you to detach the emotion from

00:20:27.500 whatever this is. And in that process, eventually you'll pass one level and you'll go up to being

00:20:34.800 OT-1 to an OT-2, which is operating Thetan. And so yeah, that's what you end up, that's what the

00:20:40.740 initial process is. But then you find out later on that, you find out later on on the higher levels

00:20:46.980 about a lot of the strange beliefs about, you know, Xeno and dropping bombs into volcanoes and

00:20:53.420 things like that. But it is until later. And the whole process, there's this love bombing where

00:20:58.400 you are told you're the most amazing person. Every single level on which you achieve, you're just

00:21:04.240 completely applauded and you think so much of yourself. So even the idea of beginning to question,

00:21:11.600 even you don't, no one has to sort of initially force you like not to question it. You sort of do it

00:21:16.860 on your own. And so a lot of people, when we talk with Mike Rinder from A&E Scientology,

00:21:22.640 The Aftermath, he really described it in his book. And even on our podcast, the interview we did with

00:21:27.640 him, it's really just a mind prison that gets created for yourself. And so you're actually

00:21:33.760 thinking you are achieving total freedom and that's what's propagated, spiritual freedom. But in reality,

00:21:40.740 it ends up being a prison, both spiritually, theologically, mentally, psychologically. And

00:21:49.580 it goes on too. Like you, you only associate with people who are in Scientology and then you end up

00:21:56.240 having something called disconnection, which is part of Ron Hubbard's fair game tactics. It's related

00:22:02.040 to that, where if you begin to question or you think about leaving, you have, you end up being

00:22:06.460 disconnected. So a huge majority of what you would see, if anyone's seen the show,

00:22:11.260 Scientology, The Aftermath, with that Leah Remedy from The King of Queens did, you saw just the

00:22:18.780 emotional devastation of people who grew up believing this thing. And this is honestly one of the

00:22:26.000 challenges that people on the outside, it's very easy to make fun of Scientology. You look at like a

00:22:31.140 South Park episode or just a lot of the pop culture depictions of it. But we have to realize

00:22:37.120 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. 0.99

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. 0.79

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 0.98

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, 0.88

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 0.98

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.

00:27:51.200 Yeah. Jerry, you want to go first?

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 0.74

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 0.87

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 0.97

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 0.92

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 0.91

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 0.99

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. 0.87

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

00:36:00.500 these guys. Thanks so much for tuning in.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - September 27, 2023

Ep 880 ｜ The Truth About Scientology ｜ Guests： Jeremiah Roberts & Andrew Soncrant of 'Cultish' (Part One)

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