The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #947 - Ron Miscavige

00:00:03.000 Four, three, two, one.

00:00:06.000 And we're live.

00:00:07.000 What's up, Ron?

00:00:08.000 How are you?

00:00:09.000 I'm doing okay.

00:00:10.000 You're doing all right?

00:00:10.000 Yeah.

00:00:11.000 I'm doing good, man.

00:00:12.000 Quick start.

00:00:12.000 I came in here ten seconds ago.

00:00:14.000 We're on the air, you know?

00:00:14.000 I know.

00:00:15.000 Well, I wanted it to be that way.

00:00:16.000 It's more natural.

00:00:18.000 Sometimes, like, some of the best stuff gets said off mic, so we figured now how to do it where people get in, and pretty much as soon as we sit down, we start talking.

00:00:28.000 No complaints.

00:00:29.000 So, you contacted us after the Leah Remini interview.

00:00:33.000 Right.

00:00:34.000 And you wanted to get on, and you have this book that you wrote.

00:00:37.000 It's called Ruthless...

00:00:39.000 What's the correct pronunciation?

00:00:41.000 It's Cabbage?

00:00:42.000 Ms. Cabbage?

00:00:42.000 No, Ms. Cabbage.

00:00:43.000 Ms. Cabbage.

00:00:43.000 Yeah, the actual name of the book is Ruthless, Scientology, My Son David Miscavige and Me.

00:00:49.000 Right.

00:00:50.000 Now, let me just say this before we get started, because Scientology, this is the first time I've ever been contacted...

00:00:57.000 They sent an email to my publicist and they have a rebuttal to what you wrote and their rebuttal is at a website ronmiscavagebook.com and they want people to know about their website which is Scientology.org and they have a statement.

00:01:21.000 This is their statement.

00:01:24.000 Ron Miscavige is seeking to make money on the name of his famous son David Miscavige.

00:01:31.000 Oh, David Miscavige has taken care of his father throughout his life, both financially and by helping him in even the most dire circumstances.

00:01:39.000 Ron Miscavige was nowhere around when David Miscavige ascended to the leadership of the Church of Scientology, mentioned by and working directly with the religion's founder L. Ron Hubbard and entrusted by him with the future of the Church.

00:02:18.000 So that's...

00:02:21.000 That's their statement.

00:02:22.000 That's what they wanted to say.

00:02:24.000 And I feel like it's only fair.

00:02:26.000 You know, we had Leah Remini on, and we have you on, and I've had Louis Theroux on.

00:02:31.000 Right.

00:02:32.000 And, look, I feel like, I don't know the story, but any time a father is so disconnected from his son, they have to write a book about him.

00:02:43.000 It's a sad time.

00:02:45.000 Do you feel like that?

00:02:46.000 No.

00:02:47.000 You don't feel sad at all?

00:02:49.000 I don't feel that...

00:02:51.000 I just woke up one day and said, I'd like to write a book about Scientology.

00:02:55.000 And if I can give you a short encapsulated statement, I think we could set a nice groundwork for the whole interview.

00:03:02.000 You mind if I do that?

00:03:03.000 Sure.

00:03:03.000 Okay.

00:03:05.000 I was a Scientologist for 42 years.

00:03:07.000 Were you raised in it?

00:03:09.000 No.

00:03:09.000 I got my family in, in 1970. But I was in the church for 42 years.

00:03:14.000 The last 26 and a half years, I worked at the International Base in Hammett, California.

00:03:21.000 I escaped from that base on March 25th, 2012. You escaped?

00:03:27.000 Escaped.

00:03:27.000 That's right.

00:03:28.000 I had to plan that escape for six months.

00:03:30.000 We can go into this in more detail, but just let me give you the short story.

00:03:33.000 Okay.

00:03:34.000 About a year and a half later, there was a private investigator caught by the name of Dwayne Powell who was around the corner from my house looking at a house to buy so he could spy on me from that house.

00:03:48.000 Okay. 0.99

00:03:48.000 There's no shit. 0.99

00:03:50.000 So a lady in the neighborhood saw him and she thought he was a drug dealer or up to no good. 0.99

00:03:55.000 So she called the West Dallas police and Nick Pye came out and confronted the guy. 0.98

00:04:01.000 He gave Nick some shit, and Nick said, hey, listen, man, you're under arrest. 0.97

00:04:04.000 Do you mind if I look in your car? 0.99

00:04:07.000 So Nick went to the van and opened it up, and in a trunk, there were five license plates from five different states.

00:04:14.000 There were two handguns, a stun gun, two rifles, one fitted up with a silencer, and 2,000 rounds of ammunition.

00:04:23.000 So they arrested the guy.

00:04:25.000 They took him in for interrogation.

00:04:28.000 And then his son came looking for him because his son was a partner in this business.

00:04:32.000 The father's name was Dwayne Powell and the son was Daniel Powell.

00:04:37.000 Daniel came looking for his father.

00:04:39.000 And by the way, if you want to hear these interviews, they're on Tony Ortega's website.

00:04:43.000 Tony Ortega, the underground bunker.

00:04:44.000 You can hear what I'm telling you.

00:04:46.000 Okay.

00:04:46.000 So Daniel is telling me, you know, how they operated.

00:04:49.000 They were getting paid $10,000 a week to follow me and report on my doings from 8 o'clock in the morning till 8 o'clock every night.

00:04:57.000 An incident happened in Janesville, Wisconsin.

00:05:01.000 What do you do?

00:05:02.000 What could you possibly do that would be worth studying?

00:05:06.000 Is it just to freak you out?

00:05:07.000 That's what I don't understand.

00:05:08.000 If I follow Jamie, you know what I'm going to get?

00:05:12.000 I'm going to get Jamie looking at the internet, Jamie watching basketball, maybe Jamie goes to the gym, maybe Jamie goes for a run, maybe Jamie goes on Tinder and does a little swipe and write.

00:05:22.000 I don't know.

00:05:24.000 What do people do that you could get out of watching them?

00:05:26.000 It's not like you're out there burying bodies.

00:05:29.000 No kidding.

00:05:30.000 Anyway, just let me continue, because this goes on.

00:05:32.000 So they're interrogating them.

00:05:34.000 That's Nick Pye, and there's an alcohol, tobacco, and firearms agent, Ricky Hankins, because they were concerned about that silencer.

00:05:41.000 They thought, hey, maybe they're out to hit me, because I am the father of the chairman of the board.

00:05:46.000 So then Daniel, the son, is being interrogated, and he said that...

00:05:51.000 I think?

00:06:10.000 They're looking at me in the van, which they had been following me in.

00:06:14.000 They saw me.

00:06:15.000 The father called his contact and said, listen, it looks like the target is having a heart attack.

00:06:21.000 What shall we do?

00:06:21.000 They referred to me as the target.

00:06:23.000 Oh, Jesus. 1.00

00:06:24.000 No shit. 1.00

00:06:24.000 They got a silencer and fucking 2,000 rounds of ammo. 1.00

00:06:27.000 All right. 0.99

00:06:27.000 Okay. 0.99

00:06:28.000 So they called.

00:06:29.000 The guy, Greg, said, listen, let me call you back. 0.99

00:06:32.000 A couple minutes later, a guy come on the phone, identified himself as David Miscavige, and he said to them, listen, if it's his time to die, let him die. 0.60

00:06:42.000 Don't do anything.

00:06:43.000 Don't intervene.

00:06:45.000 That's my son.

00:06:48.000 All right?

00:06:49.000 Well, it didn't just happen, right?

00:06:51.000 I mean, you didn't...

00:06:52.000 I don't want to interrupt your story because I feel like it goes on.

00:06:55.000 But, I mean, your relationship with your son didn't just start there.

00:07:00.000 So it had to go sour. 1.00

00:07:02.000 No shit. 1.00

00:07:03.000 Right? 0.99

00:07:04.000 Listen, my relationship with David when he was a kid...

00:07:07.000 It was incredible.

00:07:07.000 I mean, we got along great.

00:07:09.000 He was a snappy little kid.

00:07:11.000 He was just very bright, great sense of humor.

00:07:15.000 Just, I enjoyed his company.

00:07:17.000 But as he grew older, as he got into Scientology, which I got him in, by the way, and I can get into that, how I got him in, he then started acquiring power.

00:07:26.000 And I think he went from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde.

00:07:30.000 As an example, when I worked on staff, he never referred to me as Dad.

00:07:35.000 He called me Ron.

00:07:37.000 The base that I lived on in Hammett It got to the point where if you wanted to send a letter to somebody, you had to write the letter, put it in an unsealed envelope, the security guards would read it, see if there was anything bad in there that I shouldn't be saying, send it back, and I would correct it.

00:07:53.000 When it was okay, then they'd seal the envelope and send it out.

00:07:56.000 If I wanted to call somebody on the telephone, I had to have somebody listening on the other extension.

00:08:01.000 And this is by his orders?

00:08:04.000 Or is this just how Scientology runs?

00:08:06.000 No, it's not how Scientology works.

00:08:08.000 He is the undisputed dictator of Scientology.

00:08:13.000 So this is his entire doing.

00:08:15.000 That's the way he wanted it to run.

00:08:17.000 Scientology in 1970, when I got in, was totally different.

00:08:21.000 How was it then?

00:08:22.000 It was like for a free spirit, you know, just very laissez-faire, but you did courses.

00:08:27.000 You could come in and do things that would actually improve your ability to communicate, to have better interpersonal relations.

00:08:35.000 I bought the book.

00:08:37.000 I bought Dianetics in 1994 because I moved to California and I was really into self-help books and stuff like that.

00:08:43.000 And I saw one of those late night infomercial ads.

00:08:46.000 And I was like, this looks like the reactive mind.

00:08:49.000 Hey, I want to have control of the reactive mind.

00:08:53.000 And, you know, I got into it, I read it a little bit, and I was like, hmm, probably some good principles in here, some decent ideas.

00:08:59.000 And I always associated Scientologists with being positive people that got a lot of things done.

00:09:06.000 That's a very true statement.

00:09:08.000 And I'm telling you, at what they call the bottom of the bridge, because the entire Scientology experience would be A bridge to total freedom.

00:09:17.000 You enter in at a certain point, you're given basic things, basic courses, basic communication skills that you're taught.

00:09:24.000 And I'm telling you, you go out on the street after you do this stuff, and you're more effective in handling life.

00:09:28.000 So the early stages of it you feel are very effective.

00:09:32.000 Absolutely.

00:09:32.000 They're very effective.

00:09:33.000 I mean, they were effective then, they're effective today.

00:09:35.000 If you learn the proper communication formula, That will improve your life alone.

00:09:41.000 Sure.

00:09:41.000 Just communicating correctly, knowing there's parts of it.

00:09:45.000 It's not just, hey, you, and the other guy says, what do you want?

00:09:49.000 No, it's literally get the other person's attention, make sure you're giving him a communication that he can understand.

00:09:57.000 You're not going to talk to somebody in French if he's English, you know, just all little details that you learn and you drill these.

00:10:04.000 And then there's other things about interpersonal relationships with your wife or a group.

00:10:09.000 You learn these, you're better off.

00:10:11.000 So they're essentially telling you how to be a better person in the beginning.

00:10:15.000 Yes, and part of that, you would then also become more positive just simply by having these skills.

00:10:21.000 Well, this sounds good.

00:10:22.000 It is good.

00:10:22.000 So where does it go bad?

00:10:24.000 Well, here's where it goes bad.

00:10:26.000 Look, the further on you get in, Let me back up a second.

00:10:34.000 Let's say you learn the component parts of communication.

00:10:39.000 And you say, hey, you know what? 0.99

00:10:41.000 This is good shit. 1.00

00:10:43.000 You agree to that. 1.00

00:10:45.000 That's the first step on taking you on this entire journey.

00:10:49.000 And then maybe you'll learn how you could divide your business into seven parts so that you could monitor various parts of it, or your life into seven parts so you could manage how you're doing income-wise, how education is your public relations.

00:11:03.000 These are all things you can easily agree to.

00:11:06.000 So now, a little later on, there's a datum or a fact introduced that doesn't quite make sense to you.

00:11:13.000 You think, you know what, everything they told me was good so far, I'm just going to accept this.

00:11:18.000 Now you're on the road.

00:11:19.000 Can you give me an example? 0.99

00:11:23.000 Is it like Xenu type shit? 0.99

00:11:26.000 Well, yeah, that would be a big example. 1.00

00:11:27.000 But that's way down the line, right?

00:11:29.000 That's way down the line.

00:11:30.000 But there's some early wackiness that give you indications that...

00:11:34.000 Well, no, I'm going to tell you something.

00:11:36.000 I think you're right.

00:11:37.000 I think that's the one where you've agreed to so many things so far, and all of the auditing you've gotten that's helped you.

00:11:44.000 When it comes to that, as an example, when I got on that level, I thought, well, wait a minute.

00:11:51.000 There's 150 billion people on 76 nearby planets.

00:11:56.000 And they brought them here in spaceships. 0.96

00:11:58.000 How the fuck did they get everybody here? 0.96

00:12:00.000 I looked at it from... 0.99

00:12:01.000 Physics point of view?

00:12:03.000 Yeah, from a point of view of logistics.

00:12:05.000 Right, it's a lot of spaceships.

00:12:07.000 But I thought, well, I'll accept it.

00:12:09.000 I'll just do it.

00:12:10.000 150 billion people?

00:12:12.000 Per planet.

00:12:12.000 The problem was overpopulation, right?

00:12:15.000 Oh.

00:12:16.000 But do you see what I'm saying?

00:12:17.000 So, at that point, you've agreed to so many things that were right.

00:12:20.000 Right, I understand.

00:12:21.000 When it comes up to that... 1.00

00:12:22.000 You're not going to say, hey, you're out of your goddamn mind. 0.99

00:12:24.000 So it's helping you give you a direction in life. 0.99

00:12:27.000 It's making you more positive.

00:12:29.000 It's giving you better communication skills.

00:12:31.000 You have a structure that you can follow when you communicate with people.

00:12:35.000 It makes you more presentable.

00:12:36.000 So everything's good in the beginning.

00:12:38.000 Yeah.

00:12:38.000 Why doesn't somebody just take that part and just, like, get rid of the rest?

00:12:43.000 Listen, I tell in my book what we're looking at right here.

00:12:47.000 You know, ruthless, Scientology, my son David Miscavige and me.

00:12:51.000 I say at the very end, if they were just to stick to the beginning things, number one, and number two, have a general amnesty where they forgive everybody who they think has tried to dunderman.

00:13:03.000 The shit's gonna hit the fan, but maybe at the end of it, you'd get some people back and knock off the disconnection policy.

00:13:10.000 I think if they did that, it could be one of the best self-help groups ever. 1.00

00:13:14.000 But once you get up into those upper levels where they tell you you're going to become a superhuman, as an example, you'll be able to, as a spiritual being, leave your body and go some other place, as an example, and read a newspaper in Germany.

00:13:30.000 Huh.

00:13:31.000 Isn't that like remote viewing?

00:13:33.000 Yes.

00:13:34.000 And I'm going to tell you, Joe, I was involved for 42 years.

00:13:37.000 You never went to Germany?

00:13:38.000 No.

00:13:39.000 Never left your body? 1.00

00:13:40.000 France and Portugal, but you know, what the fuck? 0.99

00:13:43.000 No. 0.94

00:13:44.000 Seriously, though, I never met one person that ever achieved that, nor did I achieve it.

00:13:49.000 But you don't talk about it.

00:13:51.000 I understand.

00:13:52.000 One of the things that say, you don't talk about your case to somebody else.

00:13:56.000 So that's compartmentalized.

00:13:58.000 So everybody who's done this is thinking, eh, I never got it.

00:14:02.000 Maybe I'm the only one.

00:14:03.000 Right.

00:14:03.000 So, like, maybe if I just keep working at this, one day I'm going to pop through.

00:14:07.000 That's exactly it.

00:14:08.000 And you keep on going for the next level.

00:14:10.000 Do they explain how you're going to do that?

00:14:11.000 Is it through meditation techniques?

00:14:13.000 Is it through some sort of hypnosis?

00:14:15.000 Like, how are they supposed to go to Germany and read a newspaper?

00:14:19.000 Well, there's drills that they have you do, like in the earlier, what they call OT levels, operating thetan.

00:14:29.000 Thetan is a word they use for spiritual being.

00:14:33.000 And one of the drills that you would do would be spot three objects outside of your body, spot three objects inside your body, spot three objects outside your body, spot three objects inside your body on a repetitive basis.

00:14:47.000 And that's supposed to Let you out, as an example.

00:14:51.000 So it's like a meditation.

00:14:53.000 I guess it would be.

00:14:54.000 When you say spot, are you saying like envision?

00:14:58.000 Well, I mean, in the physical universe, you can look at three spots.

00:15:01.000 So you look at like that clock, this book, like that kind of thing?

00:15:03.000 Yeah, three of them.

00:15:03.000 And then inside your body, just think?

00:15:06.000 You'd envision three spots in your body.

00:15:08.000 Your lungs, your ribs?

00:15:09.000 Yeah.

00:15:09.000 Okay.

00:15:10.000 But then the other thing is, like when you get to OT3 and you're talking about body thetans, these are the...

00:15:17.000 Alien beings that were brought here, put on a nearby volcano, an hydrogen bomb was set off, and they sent up a ray, grabbed these people.

00:15:28.000 You can look on the internet and find this out.

00:15:30.000 Oh, no, I've read it all.

00:15:31.000 Okay.

00:15:32.000 Unfortunately.

00:15:33.000 And what happens then is they are all latched to your body like a bunch of fleas. 1.00

00:15:38.000 Damn it. 1.00

00:15:38.000 And they're affecting your thinking. 1.00

00:15:40.000 Right.

00:15:41.000 And your personality.

00:15:42.000 And the idea on these upper levels is to get rid of all of them.

00:15:47.000 And achieve this.

00:15:49.000 Nobody's ever done it.

00:15:50.000 Look, if there were three people who did it, I'd say, you know, maybe it can be done. 0.99

00:15:54.000 Not a fucking one. 0.99

00:15:55.000 Excuse my French, buddy. 1.00

00:15:56.000 No, you can swear away.

00:15:57.000 Okay.

00:15:58.000 Listen, I got my doctorate degree in swearing in the United States Marine Corps.

00:16:02.000 So how did you go from that to this?

00:16:04.000 How do you go from the Marine Corps, which is about as real as it gets, to this?

00:16:08.000 You're just looking to improve yourself?

00:16:10.000 Yes.

00:16:11.000 I was always...

00:16:12.000 Listen, as a little kid...

00:16:16.000 In Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, where I was born and raised.

00:16:18.000 I used to go up in our garret or the attic, whatever you want to call it.

00:16:22.000 And my dad had all these books there.

00:16:24.000 And I used to take books off the shelf and read them and try to find out about life.

00:16:28.000 I was always looking for something.

00:16:30.000 And always looking to improve myself or find a better way to live.

00:16:35.000 And I had a friend back in the 60s, Nelson Sandy.

00:16:39.000 I'm a musician, too.

00:16:40.000 I don't know whether you knew that.

00:16:41.000 No, I didn't.

00:16:41.000 Yeah, I played professionally my whole life.

00:16:45.000 Nelson Sandy, and I've also been in the sales business because I had four kids, and you know, you've got to pay the bills no matter what you do.

00:16:51.000 So Nelson was a friend of mine in sales, and one day he said to me, Ron, how would you like to make an extra $100,000 a year?

00:16:58.000 I said, what the hell, you know?

00:16:59.000 Great.

00:17:00.000 So he introduced me to something called Holiday Magic.

00:17:04.000 It was a multi-marketing scheme, alright?

00:17:07.000 You know what I mean by multi-marketing, like Amway, right?

00:17:10.000 Yeah.

00:17:10.000 What scheme?

00:17:11.000 Pyramid scheme, right?

00:17:12.000 Pyramid, yeah.

00:17:14.000 So I went to an opportunity meeting, and I thought, you know, maybe I could do this.

00:17:17.000 So I bought in, and I started doing it, and one day we're at an opportunity meeting that we were running.

00:17:23.000 And there's a girl standing next to me talking to a guy over here, and I'm talking to this guy.

00:17:27.000 This guy says, I'm a Scientologist.

00:17:29.000 I just hang on a second.

00:17:30.000 What is that?

00:17:31.000 I pinned him down for about a half an hour, and for whatever reason, the name rang a bell.

00:17:37.000 So, he told me that I could go visit somebody who was a Scientologist, and they discuss it one day a week, a guy by the name of Frank Ogle in Woodbury, New Jersey.

00:17:47.000 By the way, you're from North Jersey, aren't you?

00:17:49.000 Yeah, Newark.

00:17:50.000 Newark, yeah.

00:17:51.000 Okay, so I go to this place, and he would have little classes where he'd talk about communication and various things.

00:17:59.000 I went there for about four days in a month.

00:18:03.000 Like for a month, one day a week, and I thought, okay, I got it now.

00:18:08.000 Another factor here, David, when he was born, was cursed with an asthma condition that was the bane of his existence.

00:18:18.000 I mean, as a little baby, sometimes he turned blue, he couldn't breathe out, and it was horrible to watch this.

00:18:25.000 And I was the one who took care of that just about Totally.

00:18:30.000 As a matter of fact, when he would have these attacks, I would take him to a pediatrician in Burlington, New Jersey, called Dr. Ziegler.

00:18:36.000 He'd give him a shot of adrenaline.

00:18:38.000 And I knew that giving a little kid a shot of adrenaline was not great.

00:18:42.000 Okay?

00:18:43.000 So I would try all kinds of...

00:18:45.000 They didn't have inhalers back then?

00:18:47.000 They had inhalers, but that's handling the...

00:18:52.000 The symptom, not the cause.

00:18:53.000 And I didn't know what to do to handle the cause.

00:18:56.000 Right. 0.99

00:18:56.000 I used to do shit like one winter. 0.99

00:18:59.000 He's just in a full-blown attack, turning blue. 0.99

00:19:02.000 It's in a cold Jersey, you know, cold Jersey winter.

00:19:06.000 I took him upstairs to the bathroom, took off his clothes, took off mine, stood in the shower, said, David, I'm not punishing, man.

00:19:12.000 I'm with you.

00:19:13.000 I had the warm water on.

00:19:14.000 I turned it off.

00:19:15.000 That water's not coming out of there about 34 degrees.

00:19:18.000 He started breathing.

00:19:21.000 Kicked it.

00:19:22.000 Wiped them down with a Turkish towel. 0.63

00:19:23.000 That handled it for the moment. 0.99

00:19:25.000 I used to do shit like that. 0.98

00:19:26.000 Anything to handle them. 0.98

00:19:27.000 So now, I found out about Scientology from this Nelson Sandy.

00:19:32.000 And Frank Ogle was the guy.

00:19:34.000 I took David down one day and I said, is there anything you can do for David with Scientology?

00:19:39.000 Auditing, which is basically another word for counseling.

00:19:41.000 Right.

00:19:42.000 He took David in and 45 minutes later, David comes out.

00:19:45.000 I say, how's it going?

00:19:47.000 He says, dad, I'm handled.

00:19:49.000 And he never had another severe attack in his entire youth.

00:19:52.000 How is that possible?

00:19:54.000 With communication.

00:19:55.000 With communication you can stop asthma?

00:19:58.000 You come to the point where you have a realization maybe where it started or how you could be contributing to it or maybe where it starts kicking in you.

00:20:06.000 How old was he when you brought him in there?

00:20:07.000 I guess this was, he was about nine years old.

00:20:10.000 Wow.

00:20:11.000 Yeah.

00:20:11.000 Okay.

00:20:11.000 So, like, what tools did they use to help him kick asthma?

00:20:16.000 That.

00:20:17.000 Communication.

00:20:18.000 Just communication.

00:20:20.000 Like, hi, what's going on?

00:20:21.000 You got asthma, buddy?

00:20:22.000 That's communication.

00:20:23.000 Like, what do you mean by communication?

00:20:26.000 Okay.

00:20:26.000 He used what's called creative processing, which is something that they used to use.

00:20:31.000 And what it is, is you figure out how you could be contributing to that, and then you do a mental image picture of something that you think you're doing to contribute to that.

00:20:45.000 And back and forth.

00:20:47.000 It's a little...

00:20:48.000 For me to try to explain it in a little session like this, it's a little hard because...

00:20:53.000 Well, it's a little hard to understand, but it did work on him.

00:20:56.000 So you're saying in some sense, asthma may be psychosomatic and may be in your head?

00:21:02.000 For him, it was to that degree.

00:21:04.000 Yes, I am saying that.

00:21:05.000 And he never got asthma again?

00:21:06.000 He never had a severe attack again.

00:21:08.000 He had minor attacks.

00:21:10.000 But he was able to stop them with these methods?

00:21:12.000 He used to get attacks so bad that it would debilitate him.

00:21:16.000 I mean...

00:21:18.000 He was out of school for a week one time with an asthmatic attack.

00:21:20.000 This is before I ever took him to see Frank Ogle.

00:21:23.000 And that impressed me.

00:21:28.000 The fact that this handled that for the moment anyway.

00:21:32.000 So with that and some other things, I decided I'm going to get my whole family in Scientology.

00:21:38.000 Because look, his whole life, that was a problem for me to handle.

00:21:43.000 And this, at least at that moment, got him to the point where...

00:21:48.000 He was like in charge of it.

00:21:49.000 It didn't happen to him again that severe.

00:21:52.000 Does that make sense?

00:21:53.000 Yeah, it does make sense.

00:21:54.000 So that's what persuaded you to begin?

00:21:57.000 Quite a bit.

00:21:58.000 So everything was good for a while.

00:22:00.000 Right.

00:22:00.000 I got in.

00:22:01.000 I'll tell you how good it was.

00:22:02.000 I got in and my whole family got in.

00:22:05.000 I decided to take my whole family to England and in 1972 I moved there for a year and three months and had the whole family study Scientology.

00:22:13.000 In England?

00:22:14.000 Yeah.

00:22:16.000 Yeah, and then came back for a little while and went over again in 1974, studied more Scientology.

00:22:23.000 When I was there at that time, I got a recording deal with the Polydor Company, solo album, and I got a writer's contract with Chappell's Publishing, and I got asked to play on VBC. All of this is in the book, by the way.

00:22:35.000 I'll give you details.

00:22:35.000 So this was all while L. Ron Hubbard was alive?

00:22:38.000 While he was alive, yeah.

00:22:39.000 Did you meet him?

00:22:40.000 Never met him.

00:22:41.000 Nope.

00:22:43.000 But your son did?

00:22:44.000 Listen, my son joined the Sea Organization when he was 16 years old.

00:22:48.000 Within seven months, he was working with L. Ron Hubbard.

00:22:51.000 What is the Sea Organization?

00:22:54.000 Explain that to people.

00:22:55.000 Okay.

00:22:57.000 There are several different ways that you could do Scientology.

00:23:01.000 The number one way would be is if you're a public person and you just go into an organization.

00:23:06.000 They're called orgs.

00:23:07.000 You go in and you buy services, but you live in the outside world.

00:23:12.000 You have a job, you have a home, you know, all these things, but you pay for a service.

00:23:18.000 That's number one.

00:23:19.000 Another level would be that you worked for an organization and You could sign a two-and-a-half-year or a five-year contract to work there.

00:23:29.000 Don't they have, like, billion-year contracts, too?

00:23:31.000 Well, now what?

00:23:31.000 You're getting ahead of it.

00:23:33.000 That's working for an organization on the level of a two-and-a-half or a five-year contract.

00:23:41.000 The last step would be the C organization.

00:23:44.000 There you sign a billion-year contract.

00:23:46.000 In other words, you're signing away your future lives to get this Scientology disseminated.

00:23:53.000 Has anybody ever challenged one of those billion-year contracts?

00:23:57.000 Like, what does it mean?

00:23:59.000 Like, do you owe them anything for billion years?

00:24:01.000 Listen, you're getting the skinny, and as hard as this is to believe, once you're in it for a while, and you see that this is helping you and maybe your family, The point of is that they want to get this disseminated to every man, woman,

00:24:17.000 and child on the planet and improve life for everybody.

00:24:20.000 So it's like you're on this crusade to get it disseminated.

00:24:24.000 So they believe they're doing this to help people.

00:24:27.000 Yes.

00:24:27.000 It all sounds good, right?

00:24:28.000 All sounds good in the beginning.

00:24:29.000 Well, it reads better than it lives.

00:24:31.000 It's not that way at all, though.

00:24:32.000 Well, how is it?

00:24:34.000 How is it?

00:24:34.000 I'll tell you.

00:24:35.000 These days?

00:24:36.000 Right now, like?

00:24:37.000 Sure.

00:24:39.000 They get people to donate money to what's called the International Association of Scientologists, or donate money to build a new church someplace, and they give you a piece of paper and commend you, you know?

00:24:52.000 It's a nice business, low overhead, you know?

00:24:54.000 So, you give them money, they give you paper?

00:24:57.000 They give you a commendation, or saying you're this or that.

00:25:00.000 Some level, right, you've achieved some success.

00:25:03.000 And the thing is, look, they've opened a lot of new buildings.

00:25:05.000 But, Joe...

00:25:07.000 There's not people in there.

00:25:08.000 There's air, okay?

00:25:09.000 But they say we're expanding.

00:25:11.000 They're expanding their real estate interests, but they're not expanding the number of people in Scientology.

00:25:16.000 Why is that?

00:25:17.000 Well, if you go on the internet, you can find out all the abuses they've done.

00:25:20.000 Like people going bankrupt because they had to contribute so much money they get a second and third mortgage on their house, give it to the church.

00:25:27.000 They can't afford it.

00:25:28.000 They have to declare bankruptcy.

00:25:30.000 People being disconnected from their families.

00:25:32.000 Let's talk about that.

00:25:34.000 I want to go back to the Sea Org thing for a second, but then let's talk about that.

00:25:37.000 Talk about that.

00:25:37.000 Yeah.

00:25:38.000 So the Sea Org thing is your son joins the Sea Org when he's 16 years old?

00:25:42.000 Yeah.

00:25:42.000 Here's what happened.

00:25:42.000 I came home from work one day, and he's laying in his room on his bed, kind of like that, with his head in his hands.

00:25:50.000 I said, hey, Dave, what's up, man?

00:25:52.000 He says, daddy, I don't want to go to school anymore.

00:25:55.000 I said, why not?

00:25:56.000 He said, listen, all the kids are taking drugs.

00:25:58.000 They just...

00:26:00.000 They don't show the teachers any respect.

00:26:03.000 They're not willing to learn anything.

00:26:04.000 He says, I want to join the Sea Org.

00:26:06.000 I want to help L. Ron Hubbard.

00:26:08.000 Because by this time, we've been to England twice.

00:26:11.000 He's trained to be an auditor.

00:26:13.000 An auditor is a person who applies this technology of Scientology in auditing or counseling, okay?

00:26:20.000 And he says, this is what I want to do.

00:26:22.000 Well, I thought to myself, he's 15. He's going to be 16 shortly.

00:26:27.000 Look, when I was 17, I joined the Marines.

00:26:32.000 My dad had to sign for me because I was only 17. And it probably was one of the best moves I ever made.

00:26:37.000 I mean, the first night in boot camp, I said to myself, this is the worst fucking mistake I've ever made in my life. 0.91

00:26:45.000 At that moment, 12 weeks later, I said to myself, I can make myself do anything. 0.98

00:26:52.000 And in that 12 weeks, it turned me from an undisciplined civilian into a disciplined Marine.

00:26:57.000 And I've utilized that my whole life.

00:26:59.000 It's helped me always.

00:27:01.000 I kind of looked at that and I thought, well, I was 17. Maybe it looked like I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but I came out a winner.

00:27:09.000 And if David wants to do this, and what is he going to get out of going to school?

00:27:14.000 And he has no desire to do anything else.

00:27:16.000 I said, okay, I'll help you.

00:27:18.000 So that was it.

00:27:19.000 So when he was 16, the next day, we put him on a plane.

00:27:23.000 He went down to the Flag Land Base in Florida.

00:27:25.000 And as I say, within, I think it was seven or eight months, he was working right with L. Ron Hubbard out in California.

00:27:30.000 Now, the Sea Org, like, is it a boat?

00:27:32.000 You're actually on a boat?

00:27:33.000 No.

00:27:35.000 The Sea Organization is a term used because...

00:27:40.000 In 1967, Ron started what he called the Sea Project, where he bought this ship and invited people to come with him to contribute to this project.

00:27:54.000 Saying that his research could be done better away from land masses.

00:27:59.000 I mean, in fact, the law was after him.

00:28:02.000 Oh, right.

00:28:03.000 It was a tax thing, right?

00:28:04.000 Yeah, I mean, they were trying to snag him, and when you're out in international waters, they can't serve you a subpoena.

00:28:11.000 But it was such an adventure story.

00:28:13.000 Right.

00:28:14.000 It's clever.

00:28:15.000 Plus, you get to wear a captain's outfit.

00:28:18.000 No, not everybody.

00:28:19.000 He got to, right?

00:28:20.000 Oh, yeah.

00:28:21.000 Admiral, not captain.

00:28:22.000 Did he give himself medals?

00:28:24.000 Elrond Hubbard?

00:28:25.000 Yeah.

00:28:25.000 You know, I never saw that.

00:28:27.000 All I saw was that he was considered the Commodore.

00:28:30.000 But you remember the Peace Corps?

00:28:32.000 Yes.

00:28:33.000 Alright, now that was an adventure, and people would go on that.

00:28:35.000 Sure.

00:28:35.000 But they actually were doing something, though.

00:28:37.000 Right.

00:28:38.000 What was the Sea Org doing?

00:28:39.000 Well, the Sea Org was on this ship, and they'd have people come there for advanced-level services, get that, and they would send missions out to various organizations to correct any outnesses in the way maybe they were delivering the technology or fix something that was going wrong.

00:28:57.000 It was run like a little military organization.

00:29:01.000 And then the Sea Org went ashore and they established the flag land base in Clearwater, Florida.

00:29:09.000 So that is still referred to as flag.

00:29:13.000 Yet when L.R. and Hubbard had the ships, that was considered the flagship.

00:29:19.000 Okay.

00:29:20.000 Am I filling you in enough on this?

00:29:21.000 Yeah.

00:29:22.000 So he joined that.

00:29:24.000 He ascended through the ranks.

00:29:25.000 He's working with L. Ron Hubbard.

00:29:26.000 Yeah.

00:29:26.000 And slowly you guys get disconnected.

00:29:28.000 Is that what happens?

00:29:29.000 No.

00:29:29.000 As a matter of fact, when he was doing that, we were still in very good communication with each other.

00:29:34.000 Like, I'm telling you something.

00:29:37.000 We had a lot of great times together when he was growing up.

00:29:40.000 There's no two ways about it.

00:29:41.000 And I can't say that it was like bad relationship in any way.

00:29:48.000 There was a guy by the name of Lord Acton.

00:29:51.000 He was a Britisher.

00:29:53.000 He was a member of Parliament.

00:29:54.000 He lived from 1834 to the early 1900s.

00:29:57.000 He's the one that made the observation, power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

00:30:06.000 And I think this is what happened to David.

00:30:09.000 That when L. Ron Hubbard died, he saw a chance to move up And he got people out of the way who didn't want to cooperate with him, put people on various posts that would cooperate with him, and he took over the ownership and the leadership of Scientology.

00:30:26.000 And what contributed to that was an incident where he had a severe asthmatic attack and they had to take him to the emergency room of a hospital.

00:30:35.000 Paul Grady is the guy that took him there.

00:30:38.000 And when Paul picked him up after they did the stuff, they handled him, he was okay.

00:30:44.000 David said to Paul, listen, I had a great realization when I was there, and it's this.

00:30:50.000 Power is not granted.

00:30:52.000 It is assumed.

00:30:54.000 So he assumed the leadership of Scientology, and he rose right to the top.

00:30:59.000 That's how that happened.

00:31:00.000 So how did you get disconnected from him?

00:31:03.000 Well, look, there was an event that he had.

00:31:09.000 Not an event.

00:31:10.000 There's something that he did, which...

00:31:12.000 He'll always be admired for it.

00:31:13.000 He actually got the Church of Scientology tax exemption.

00:31:17.000 Alright?

00:31:18.000 He literally got the IRS to grant the fact that this is a church.

00:31:23.000 You have now a tax exemption.

00:31:24.000 People contribute to it.

00:31:25.000 Can you deduct it?

00:31:27.000 That was a very, very big win.

00:31:30.000 That then gave him power.

00:31:32.000 Okay?

00:31:33.000 I decided to join the Sea Organization in 1985. I wanted to contribute to doing whatever I could to help them.

00:31:40.000 I joined the C organization and I'm at the Hammett base.

00:31:47.000 I'm coming out of the music studio because since I was a musician I worked in the music studio and we did films.

00:31:53.000 I composed music for various technical films we had or public relations films.

00:31:57.000 And I walked out of the studio one day and I saw him a little distance off to the left with an entourage and I yelled out, Hey Dave!

00:32:04.000 And he turned around and he looked at me.

00:32:07.000 And I'm telling you, Joe, he gave me a look that I thought, I better never do that again.

00:32:12.000 On that base, I was then a staff member.

00:32:18.000 The fact that I was biologically his father, and in fact, his father, he referred to me as Ron when he spoke to me.

00:32:25.000 When he sent me a gift for my birthday or Christmas or something, he always said, Dear Dad.

00:32:31.000 But that was the beginning.

00:32:32.000 Now, further on down the road we got, the more it became...

00:32:37.000 I used to have to call him sir after a while, okay?

00:32:41.000 It became more and more me, Ron Miscavige, the staff member, and David, the leader of the church.

00:32:48.000 Once they started implementing the rules at the base, Where you couldn't send a letter out without it being checked.

00:32:55.000 Where you surround it with barbed wire pointing in and pointing out.

00:32:58.000 You couldn't talk on a telephone without having somebody listen. 1.00

00:33:01.000 You couldn't drive off on your own to go to a store to get a fucking pair of underwear. 0.99

00:33:06.000 You had to order it on the internet. 0.99

00:33:08.000 If you got on the internet, there was a filter on it where anything about Miscavige or Scientology come up, you'd be blocked.

00:33:16.000 So now I'm living a sequestered life, waking up in the morning, going to breakfast at 9 o'clock, 9.30, having a muster.

00:33:24.000 You know what a muster is?

00:33:25.000 No.

00:33:25.000 Okay, you line up your people and account for everybody.

00:33:28.000 All right?

00:33:30.000 12 o'clock, go to lunch.

00:33:32.000 12.30, line up for another muster.

00:33:34.000 Go to work in the afternoon.

00:33:36.000 5 o'clock, go to dinner.

00:33:37.000 5.30, go to another muster.

00:33:39.000 And then work the rest of the night.

00:33:41.000 Or sometimes, 9.30 or 10 o'clock, have another muster.

00:33:44.000 That was my life.

00:33:45.000 Seven days a week.

00:33:46.000 Except on Saturday, you'd work on the grounds to beautify the base.

00:33:51.000 Doesn't sound like a good time, Ron.

00:33:53.000 It's a great existence, Joe.

00:33:54.000 Is it?

00:33:56.000 How would you like to live that way?

00:33:58.000 It doesn't sound good.

00:33:59.000 It wasn't good.

00:34:00.000 Were you stuck?

00:34:01.000 Well, here's the thing.

00:34:04.000 There were enough times when I did things that were good, like we would do an album.

00:34:11.000 As a matter of fact, here's something that we didn't.

00:34:13.000 I first got in, and there was a book that came out called Mission Earth that L. Ron Hubbard wrote.

00:34:20.000 Edgar Winner.

00:34:20.000 You remember Edgar Winner or no?

00:34:22.000 Edgar Winner, Johnny Winner's brother?

00:34:24.000 Yes.

00:34:24.000 The musician?

00:34:25.000 The musician.

00:34:25.000 The rock guy.

00:34:26.000 Yeah.

00:34:26.000 Okay, Edgar came to the bass and we did an album.

00:34:29.000 I played on the album with him.

00:34:30.000 Edgar Winner came to the...

00:34:32.000 Wow.

00:34:32.000 He was a Scientologist.

00:34:33.000 He was?

00:34:33.000 He probably still is.

00:34:35.000 Wow.

00:34:35.000 One of them's dead, right?

00:34:37.000 Johnny's dead.

00:34:38.000 Johnny's dead.

00:34:38.000 Yeah, Johnny's dead.

00:34:38.000 But Edgar...

00:34:39.000 I mean, he was...

00:34:41.000 You have no idea how good he is until you see him operate in the studio.

00:34:44.000 Anyway, I played the trumpet parts on the album.

00:34:47.000 I played solos and some of the stuff.

00:34:48.000 That was what I did, and it was a great time. 0.99

00:34:51.000 Bust your ass working, but that's a good time. 0.99

00:34:55.000 Isaac Hayes. 1.00

00:34:56.000 I used to do gigs with him.

00:34:59.000 Of course, you know how Isaac Hayes is.

00:35:01.000 Great guy, and those were fun times.

00:35:03.000 There were other things that we did that turned out good.

00:35:06.000 But then there's time in between, where you're working sometimes days on end.

00:35:11.000 Okay, a couple days, no sleep. 0.70

00:35:13.000 Working your ass off. 0.99

00:35:15.000 And if you screwed up, it was hell to pay. 0.99

00:35:18.000 What kind of work is being done?

00:35:19.000 What is all the work?

00:35:21.000 Okay, I'll give you an example.

00:35:22.000 There's about six major events that are done by the church every year.

00:35:30.000 In New Year's there's a major event, okay?

00:35:33.000 And then in March you have L. Ron Hubbard's birthday.

00:35:37.000 And then in May you have Dianetics.

00:35:40.000 What do you guys do for L. Ron's birthday?

00:35:42.000 Well there would be an event where you would Show him in various aspects of life Improving life in some aspect and we have a video on that and we would have to write music for that Sydney would have to shoot the pictures or take old pictures and Produce these edit them we do music for it and we'd have a product or an event when David's doing the event they could present this for when the The anniversary of Dianetics,

00:36:10.000 Modern Science and Mental Health, that was another event.

00:36:12.000 Okay.

00:36:13.000 So you're preparing for events, essentially?

00:36:15.000 All the time.

00:36:16.000 You'd end one, you'd have to start the next one.

00:36:18.000 In June, you have the anniversary of the maiden voyage.

00:36:21.000 That was something we did every year.

00:36:23.000 And then there's Auditor's Day in August, alright?

00:36:26.000 And then there's the International Association of Scientology event in October.

00:36:30.000 So all this time you're just constantly working, you're never hanging out with your son, you don't have any quality time together?

00:36:36.000 Sometimes he would come to the base for two months and wouldn't even give me a phone call. 0.98

00:36:41.000 Look, Joe, you gotta understand, I wish the fuck this didn't turn out this way, okay? 0.99

00:36:45.000 Just straight up. 0.98

00:36:47.000 So do you feel responsible in any way for bringing him in?

00:36:53.000 Well...

00:36:54.000 Everybody deals with life the way they deal with it.

00:36:56.000 My other son isn't that way and my daughters aren't that way.

00:36:59.000 Is your other son Scientology as well?

00:37:01.000 He's out of Scientology now.

00:37:03.000 Did he quit with you?

00:37:04.000 He quit earlier than me.

00:37:05.000 And what about your daughters?

00:37:06.000 They're in.

00:37:07.000 They're in?

00:37:08.000 Yes.

00:37:09.000 And are you disconnected from them?

00:37:10.000 They're disconnected from me.

00:37:12.000 Right, you're not allowed to, they're not allowed to talk to you.

00:37:14.000 Well, here's what happens though.

00:37:15.000 If they were to talk to me, their friends would disconnect from them.

00:37:19.000 If you have a job with a Scientology employer and they found out that you talked to me, you'd get fired that day.

00:37:26.000 It's insidious.

00:37:27.000 It spreads out. 0.78

00:37:28.000 The penalty for talking to what's called a suppressive person, which would be me, like a real-life prick.

00:37:35.000 As an example, when I was 70 years old, David and my two daughters bought me a car.

00:37:42.000 Okay?

00:37:43.000 A car.

00:37:44.000 When I was 75 years old, my daughter sent me 75 gifts.

00:37:48.000 Now I left.

00:37:49.000 Now I'm the worst father who's ever lived. 0.98

00:37:52.000 I'm a slimeball. 0.99

00:37:53.000 They character assassinate me on their hate sites. 0.96

00:37:57.000 They would give a card to somebody who was that bad.

00:37:59.000 Oh, we made a mistake. 0.99

00:38:00.000 He really was a prick all along. 0.97

00:38:02.000 It doesn't make sense. 0.94

00:38:04.000 So if you're trying to make sense out of it, it doesn't make sense.

00:38:07.000 But this is built into the policy of Scientology.

00:38:09.000 Anybody who leaves And says anything about the church, could be considered to be a suppressive person.

00:38:16.000 And was this always the case?

00:38:18.000 Or has this been exacerbated?

00:38:20.000 Well, L. Ron Hubbard wrote the policies while he was alive.

00:38:23.000 He also wrote more fiction than anybody that's ever lived.

00:38:27.000 Yeah.

00:38:27.000 Does everybody know that inside the church?

00:38:31.000 They probably do, yeah.

00:38:32.000 But didn't they...

00:38:33.000 Does anybody make that connection?

00:38:35.000 No.

00:38:36.000 No. 0.99

00:38:37.000 The guy wrote more fake shit than any person that's ever walked the face of the earth, but he also had the time to talk to the aliens to get all this data to write this real stuff. 1.00

00:38:53.000 That's a suspension of disbelief that defies logic. 1.00

00:39:00.000 Well, as I said...

00:39:02.000 Or defies understanding, I should say.

00:39:04.000 Maybe I just need to get to a higher OTC. What is it?

00:39:07.000 Is that it?

00:39:08.000 OT Levels.

00:39:10.000 Operating Thetan Levels.

00:39:11.000 But you've got to understand, most people who do it, Don't have rocks in their head.

00:39:17.000 They're not nuts. 0.99

00:39:18.000 They're not stupid people. 0.99

00:39:19.000 No, I've talked... 0.99

00:39:19.000 I had a neighbor who's a Scientologist, a very nice guy. 0.99

00:39:22.000 Yeah.

00:39:22.000 And he sort of fit that bill that I was talking about earlier.

00:39:26.000 Sure, go ahead.

00:39:27.000 He fit that bill that I was talking about earlier, where he's a guy that's always improving himself, he's healthy, exercised, he's well-kept, he was a nice neighbor.

00:39:36.000 He's a good guy.

00:39:38.000 And, you know, I was like, all right.

00:39:40.000 I sort of looked into Scientology after I became friends with him.

00:39:46.000 You know, I mean, I got the book early on, like I said, but I never really did anything other than read the book.

00:39:51.000 I never looked into...

00:39:53.000 This is before the internet, you know?

00:39:55.000 The internet sort of exposed all this stuff to a lot of people.

00:39:58.000 That was the end of it.

00:39:58.000 Yeah.

00:39:59.000 That literally is the end of Scientology.

00:40:01.000 And how much has it dropped off since then?

00:40:03.000 Well, it's been estimated by people who would know that there's maybe 20,000 Scientologists right now.

00:40:09.000 What was it at its peak?

00:40:10.000 I think it was in the early 90s, about 100,000.

00:40:13.000 Wow.

00:40:14.000 Yeah.

00:40:14.000 20,000.

00:40:15.000 That's like a good Louis C.K. concert.

00:40:20.000 Well, the thing is, most people like at that international base...

00:40:26.000 Are people who have been around for 25, 30, 35, 40 years.

00:40:30.000 Right.

00:40:31.000 And you think, okay, how could you live this way?

00:40:34.000 Look, most people are not going to do what I do.

00:40:36.000 I was 76 years old when I left, okay?

00:40:40.000 And you were 75 when they gave you 75 gifts.

00:40:42.000 So you're like, this is not enough. 0.99

00:40:44.000 I got to get the fuck out of here. 0.98

00:40:46.000 No. 0.97

00:40:47.000 You mean not enough gifts?

00:40:48.000 I should have gotten 76, right?

00:40:50.000 Yeah.

00:40:51.000 Listen, I was...

00:40:54.000 Well, actually, I'll tell you something that happened, and I brought this just to show you, and you have a little...

00:40:58.000 What is that?

00:40:59.000 It's a Kindle.

00:41:00.000 Are you allowed to have those in there?

00:41:02.000 No.

00:41:03.000 Really?

00:41:04.000 You can't have a Kindle?

00:41:05.000 And I didn't know why.

00:41:07.000 I didn't know why.

00:41:10.000 What happened is this.

00:41:11.000 David gave me this Kindle.

00:41:14.000 And the security guards were doing their nut trying to get it away from me.

00:41:19.000 But they wouldn't come and strong-arm me because David is the man.

00:41:24.000 So David gave it to you and the security guards were trying to take it away from you.

00:41:28.000 Why?

00:41:29.000 Okay, I didn't know.

00:41:30.000 Did you tell him it was loaded up with L. Ron Hubbard books?

00:41:33.000 Well, it was!

00:41:35.000 It was his fiction books that he put in there for me.

00:41:37.000 Battlefield Earth?

00:41:38.000 No, not Battlefield Earth, nor Mission Earth.

00:41:40.000 But the other earlier fiction was on here.

00:41:42.000 Oh, okay.

00:41:42.000 Which I thought was pretty interesting.

00:41:44.000 But anyway, they're trying to get this. 1.00

00:41:46.000 I say, hey, fuck you, man. 1.00

00:41:47.000 Dave gave me this. 1.00

00:41:48.000 This is mine, you know?

00:41:49.000 Oh, okay, Ron.

00:41:50.000 They'd back off.

00:41:52.000 Now, one day, I'm reading something, and there's a feature on here where you see this...

00:41:58.000 Is the camera on that now?

00:42:00.000 Yeah.

00:42:01.000 Okay.

00:42:01.000 You see this little...

00:42:04.000 Switch here.

00:42:05.000 That goes this way, this way, up, down, and in.

00:42:12.000 So if you got a word that you'd like to look up and get the meaning of, you'd go to the library, not the library, the dictionary, and you'd select the word and press it to the right and it would say search store.

00:42:26.000 I accidentally held it a little bit too long and it went right past search store and To Google.

00:42:33.000 I was on the internet with no filter.

00:42:36.000 With your Kindle.

00:42:38.000 With my Kindle. 0.99

00:42:39.000 And what the fuck is this? 0.99

00:42:41.000 You didn't even know about the Google back then? 0.99

00:42:43.000 I knew about the Google, but there was filter on all their computers.

00:42:48.000 Oh, but you could go through it with that.

00:42:50.000 There's no filter on this.

00:42:51.000 Wow.

00:42:52.000 And that's why the security guards were trying to get it.

00:42:55.000 But they wouldn't tell me that, obviously.

00:42:57.000 They're not going to say, well, there's no filter so you can get it on the internet.

00:43:00.000 I mean...

00:43:01.000 These guys weren't that swift.

00:43:02.000 They weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, but...

00:43:04.000 But how did they know then?

00:43:06.000 How'd they know about that feature?

00:43:07.000 Ah, they're the ones who, if you get a computer, you give it to them, they put a filter on it, and then they give it back to you.

00:43:12.000 Oh, okay.

00:43:13.000 So they just never... 1.00

00:43:13.000 So they got some techno geeks who had to do that shit. 1.00

00:43:16.000 But they had never done that to the Kindle. 0.99

00:43:18.000 But they wanted to.

00:43:19.000 Well, they wanted to take it away from me straight up.

00:43:21.000 So did you start Googling stuff with your Kindle?

00:43:22.000 I looked at Google.

00:43:24.000 Now...

00:43:24.000 This is the first time I told this story, by the way, Joe.

00:43:29.000 This is an exclusive, you know?

00:43:30.000 Oh, I'm excited.

00:43:32.000 Yeah.

00:43:32.000 Well, I'll tell you.

00:43:34.000 One of the things I looked at was like L. Ron Hubbard's war record.

00:43:37.000 He was not a hero.

00:43:40.000 He didn't have two purple hearts. 1.00

00:43:41.000 This is a fucking made-up story. 1.00

00:43:43.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:43:44.000 And there was a girl named Annie Tidman...

00:43:47.000 Who was with L. Ron Hubbard when he died.

00:43:50.000 Annie Tidman was a messenger with L. Ron Hubbard since she was a little girl and she was with him when he actually died.

00:44:01.000 So Annie was a long-term loyal Scientologist.

00:44:05.000 She's at the base where I lived in Hammett and she got lung cancer.

00:44:11.000 So they sent her to Los Angeles to get care and they sent a girl down To be like a personal servant to take care of her needs so she'd be okay. 0.99

00:44:20.000 So occasionally I would say to Martine, who's the medical liaison officer, in other words, she took care of our health and she'd have us go to the doctors and stuff.

00:44:28.000 I said, Martine, how's Annie doing?

00:44:30.000 Oh, Ronnie, she's doing great.

00:44:32.000 Yeah.

00:44:32.000 Okay, good.

00:44:34.000 I'm on a Kindle.

00:44:36.000 She died six months earlier.

00:44:39.000 Never told anybody on the base.

00:44:41.000 Now, we're living in these apartments on the base.

00:44:43.000 This is several days later.

00:44:46.000 And there was a building called the laundry room where you took your clothes to get cleaned and pressed.

00:44:51.000 You picked up sheets.

00:44:52.000 Little amenities like that.

00:44:54.000 And there's two girls outside the laundry room. 1.00

00:44:56.000 And they said, Ronnie, would you want to chip in for a birthday present for Annie?

00:45:01.000 I said, nah, I'm going to pass on it now.

00:45:03.000 And they thought, Jesus Christ.

00:45:05.000 They either know and they're keeping up the ruse or they don't know and they're being used as shills to make sure people think she's still alive.

00:45:19.000 Well, that was a major thing for me.

00:45:21.000 I then started to think I got to get out of here.

00:45:24.000 Mind you, I thought earlier things were starting to go south and we would have I'll give you an example.

00:45:32.000 Here's what happened.

00:45:33.000 We're on the ship, and we're playing for a show at one of these maiden voyages, anniversary things.

00:45:41.000 And we have a guy there who's a...

00:45:43.000 He's not a rap artist, but he's like a beatbox, you know?

00:45:51.000 Like that, you know?

00:45:52.000 So now Dougie's up there, and then he starts saying, you know, he says, I'll tell you, my kid was picked up by the cops the other day, but he's not really a bad kid, you know?

00:46:00.000 He's hanging out with the wrong guys, and blah, blah, blah. 0.98

00:46:03.000 And he's all saying this shit that you don't say to this exclusive audience. 0.99

00:46:08.000 David hears that. 0.99

00:46:10.000 To handle this, me and the rest of the band were sent to work in the bilges on the ship. 1.00

00:46:17.000 Because he fucked up. 1.00

00:46:19.000 We paid the price. 1.00

00:46:20.000 What I should have done was kicked in the band, because I was directing the band, kicked in the band to start playing the music and drowned them out.

00:46:29.000 You go in the builds, the temperature down there is between 125 and 130 degrees.

00:46:34.000 I'm in my 60s.

00:46:36.000 It doesn't matter. 1.00

00:46:38.000 Shit like that would go on. 1.00

00:46:40.000 So when things like that would happen, I thought, man, we can't live this way. 1.00

00:46:43.000 But my wife, Becky, she is an eternal optimist.

00:46:46.000 She would always say, Ron, it's going to get better.

00:46:49.000 It can't keep on going this way.

00:46:51.000 And I'd say, Becky, listen, if you see a boulder rolling down a mountain, that boulder is not going to stop and start rolling up.

00:46:58.000 It's going to get worse.

00:46:59.000 If things are going bad, they have a tendency to continue going bad.

00:47:03.000 It's just fantastic to me that you found out all this information on Google.

00:47:09.000 Yeah.

00:47:10.000 And that you were shielded from all this stuff.

00:47:12.000 Yeah.

00:47:13.000 That's the craziest part.

00:47:15.000 You were 75 at the time?

00:47:18.000 Somewhere in that range?

00:47:18.000 I was in my 70s in that time.

00:47:20.000 I think it was two years later that we actually escaped.

00:47:23.000 So how did you escape?

00:47:24.000 Well, first of all, I used to run the music department.

00:47:31.000 And when I say run it, you know, I'd make sure we did all the jobs we're supposed to do.

00:47:35.000 And I would compose music.

00:47:37.000 I worked with a guy by the name of Peter Schles.

00:47:40.000 And... 0.99

00:47:41.000 We had some nice shit that we did together. 0.98

00:47:43.000 So at this point, you'd been in for how many years? 0.98

00:47:46.000 40 years?

00:47:47.000 No, in the Sea Organization, over 20-some years.

00:47:49.000 20-something years in the Sea Organization, and all in all, Scientology, much more than that.

00:47:54.000 Yeah, well, I was in Scientology for 42 years.

00:47:57.000 This is your only source of income?

00:47:59.000 Yeah, it's 50. Well, to begin with, when I got in, we got 30 bucks a week.

00:48:05.000 And then...

00:48:06.000 Generous.

00:48:07.000 What's that?

00:48:07.000 Generous.

00:48:09.000 Well, it went up to $50.

00:48:11.000 Oh, it's a big raise.

00:48:11.000 When you got paid.

00:48:13.000 When you got paid.

00:48:14.000 Sometimes you didn't.

00:48:16.000 Sometimes you'd go for months without getting paid at all.

00:48:19.000 Now, the downside of that is you ain't paying much into Social Security. 0.99

00:48:22.000 So if you leave, like some of these people who leave, they got shit for Social Security. 0.98

00:48:27.000 They may have no place to go, no marketable skill, no car. 0.97

00:48:32.000 What are they going to do?

00:48:34.000 Right.

00:48:34.000 So they just stay.

00:48:36.000 They stay.

00:48:37.000 They gut it out.

00:48:38.000 And that's in the position that you were in.

00:48:40.000 What made you decide?

00:48:42.000 Okay.

00:48:44.000 Well...

00:48:45.000 Just the Google information?

00:48:46.000 No. 0.97

00:48:47.000 No, it was the treatment, the way people were being treated, and some of the shit that went down, like... 0.95

00:48:52.000 So would you have been okay if they treated you well, and you still found out that that woman had been dead for six months, that L. Ron Hubbard wasn't really a war hero? 0.95

00:49:00.000 No, but I'll tell you what.

00:49:01.000 If they had been actually disseminating this information, and people on this planet were doing better...

00:49:08.000 And life was becoming better for large numbers of people.

00:49:12.000 I don't know if I still might be there.

00:49:13.000 In other words, if you could do something...

00:49:15.000 So if Scientology was really being effective and doing what you thought it was supposed to do...

00:49:19.000 Precisely.

00:49:20.000 ...which is help humanity.

00:49:22.000 Precisely.

00:49:22.000 Do you think that at the core that its potential to help humanity is still there?

00:49:27.000 You think that, like you were saying, that the beginning stages of Scientology are beneficial and there is something...

00:49:35.000 Like if they got all these beneficial things and just offered those.

00:49:39.000 The odds of that happening, the odds now I'm talking about, would be the same odds as me turning into a penguin right now.

00:49:49.000 It's not likely to happen.

00:49:50.000 Not so likely.

00:49:51.000 Not very likely.

00:49:52.000 Maybe, you know.

00:49:53.000 And your son, he's going to be running it forever?

00:49:56.000 There's absolutely nobody who's going to take over.

00:49:58.000 Is it an election? 1.00

00:50:00.000 No fucking election. 1.00

00:50:01.000 He runs it and that's the end of it. 1.00

00:50:04.000 He's surrounded by people, I guess you'd call them sycophants or sycophants, who just pump him up all the time.

00:50:10.000 And if he says, you know who would like to have such and such, maybe he might want a different car.

00:50:16.000 They'll go out and get it for him.

00:50:17.000 What are those people like?

00:50:18.000 What are the people like that surround him that enable him to maintain this power?

00:50:23.000 They feel that he's a power source and they support him.

00:50:26.000 A power source because he runs the organization?

00:50:29.000 Yes.

00:50:29.000 Well, yeah, because he got his tax exemption.

00:50:32.000 He'll do things.

00:50:33.000 He's tough.

00:50:35.000 Actually, David is a very smart guy. 0.99

00:50:37.000 If it weren't for this streak in him where he attained all this power and had this shit going on in Scientology... 0.99

00:50:45.000 Who knows? 0.98

00:50:47.000 I think he could be successful at anything.

00:50:49.000 Well, I believe that as well.

00:50:50.000 I think anybody who gets to, I mean, it's really unfortunate, but anybody who gets to any, even a position of being like a drug kingpin, like Pablo Escobar, I'm sure he could have been successful at other things had he decided to focus his mind in that direction.

00:51:07.000 You're exactly right, and that's how I feel.

00:51:09.000 So you feel like your son just fucked up in getting on a path that is, in your eyes, illegitimate versus, you know, him being CEO of IBM or something like that? 0.93

00:51:19.000 You could say that. 0.98

00:51:20.000 You could say that, and I'll tell you, I think you would be correct.

00:51:23.000 No, I think.

00:51:23.000 You would be.

00:51:24.000 Do you ever talk to him about Scientology?

00:51:28.000 No, you don't bring it up.

00:51:29.000 You don't bring it up?

00:51:30.000 No, I mean, look.

00:51:32.000 Take anybody with that much power. 0.99

00:51:34.000 Do you think you can sit down and say, now look, what I think is, what the fuck are you talking to me about? 1.00

00:51:38.000 I'm running this fucking show, you know? 1.00

00:51:40.000 Yeah, but if it's your dad, I would think you would just sit down. 1.00

00:51:42.000 I didn't have that line with him, I'm telling you.

00:51:45.000 Listen, if you're a Scientologist and you're at that level, I think?

00:52:06.000 But in your heart, you're actually an independent thinking life unit, an immortal one to boot, okay?

00:52:13.000 Right, okay, but let me ask you this.

00:52:14.000 Do people really believe that, or do they just kind of go along with it because everybody else is going along with it? 0.92

00:52:21.000 Is there ever a time where you're alone with somebody else in the Sea Org, maybe you're setting up some video or something like that, and someone goes, hey man, is this shit on the up and up? 0.94

00:52:32.000 Very seldom. 0.97

00:52:33.000 Very seldom, but what does happen?

00:52:34.000 Well, I'll tell you why, though.

00:52:35.000 I'll tell you why.

00:52:36.000 The walls over yours? 1.00

00:52:37.000 No, fuck no. 1.00

00:52:39.000 Well? 1.00

00:52:39.000 You're telling this to somebody? 1.00

00:52:41.000 They might write a knowledge report on you.

00:52:42.000 A knowledge report? 1.00

00:52:43.000 Now you're in deep shit, okay? 0.97

00:52:45.000 Jamie, I'm writing a knowledge report as soon as we leave here. 0.99

00:52:49.000 Okay, listen.

00:52:51.000 Okay. 1.00

00:52:52.000 You might laugh, but boy, when it's happened, it's serious shit. 1.00

00:52:54.000 Listen, I'm sure. 0.99

00:52:55.000 And if it's found out later that he said this to you and you didn't write a knowledge report, you are as culpable as he is for saying that.

00:53:03.000 And what happens to you?

00:53:05.000 You go in for interrogation.

00:53:06.000 Oh, what do they do?

00:53:08.000 They talk to me?

00:53:08.000 Sit you down in a meter.

00:53:10.000 Tell you what are your crimes.

00:53:11.000 What evil purpose do you have toward David?

00:53:15.000 What evil purpose do you have toward L. Ron Hubbard?

00:53:17.000 What thoughts have you had about leaving?

00:53:19.000 What thoughts have you had about destroying the organization?

00:53:22.000 Anything of a harmful nature. 1.00

00:53:24.000 But what if you say, man, fuck this place. 1.00

00:53:26.000 Do they kick you out? 1.00

00:53:28.000 No.

00:53:29.000 So how does that work?

00:53:30.000 What if you get there, what if someone writes a knowledge report and you go, you know what, man?

00:53:33.000 I've been thinking.

00:53:35.000 I got on Google.

00:53:36.000 I started reading a bunch of stuff. 1.00

00:53:37.000 I think it's all bullshit. 0.99

00:53:39.000 I don't even want to be here anymore, man. 1.00

00:53:40.000 And fuck all this working for 50 bucks a week. 1.00

00:53:43.000 This is stupid. 1.00

00:53:44.000 I don't want to do this anymore. 1.00

00:53:45.000 Why are we all doing this? 0.99

00:53:46.000 Why don't we just take the beginning parts of this and just get rid of all this stupid shit about, you know, separating from your children and make this thing better? 1.00

00:53:54.000 What do you say? 1.00

00:53:55.000 What would they do to you?

00:53:56.000 Well, first of all, you wouldn't dare do that if you were at a place like I was, at the international base, okay, which is Golden Air Productions in Hammett, California.

00:54:07.000 Wow, what would they do to you?

00:54:08.000 They'd seize you.

00:54:09.000 And then what happens?

00:54:09.000 And you'd be sequestered from the rest of the group, put into a place where you weren't associating with the rest of the group.

00:54:16.000 You'd go to lunch at a different time.

00:54:18.000 You'd have a security guard watching you morning, afternoon, and night.

00:54:21.000 And you can never leave?

00:54:22.000 That's right.

00:54:23.000 What if you say, I just want to go home?

00:54:26.000 I want to get out of here.

00:54:27.000 I want to get an apartment somewhere.

00:54:28.000 Can't do it, man.

00:54:29.000 You just can't do it.

00:54:30.000 You'd be kept. 0.99

00:54:30.000 It'd fucking physically keep you. 0.99

00:54:32.000 It'd physically, like, hold you down. 0.99

00:54:33.000 Physically hold you back.

00:54:34.000 Like, put you in a jail.

00:54:35.000 They'd put you in a jail.

00:54:36.000 And if the church...

00:54:37.000 Well, I'm sure they're going to have heard this.

00:54:38.000 But they're going to say, oh, Ron could have left any time he could. 1.00

00:54:41.000 That's bullshit. 1.00

00:54:42.000 That's complete bullshit. 1.00

00:54:43.000 If I would have been caught when I was trying to leave, which I'm going to get into. 1.00

00:54:46.000 I didn't forget we were talking about that.

00:54:48.000 If I would have been caught...

00:54:50.000 They would have taken me and Becky, taken the keys to my car.

00:54:54.000 I would have been sequestered from her, she'd been sequestered from me. 0.53

00:54:57.000 We would have both been security checked.

00:55:00.000 Sit down with the hands on an e-meter, which I'm sure you know what is.

00:55:03.000 Yeah, I did one of those once.

00:55:05.000 I don't really think it works.

00:55:06.000 You don't think it works?

00:55:09.000 Sometimes it does.

00:55:10.000 Okay.

00:55:11.000 But that's not the point.

00:55:12.000 You'd sit down with that and be interrogated.

00:55:15.000 And then you'd work maybe four or five hours away at some manual labor.

00:55:18.000 And when you weren't doing that, you'd be back on the cans again, as they say.

00:55:22.000 What if you don't work? 1.00

00:55:22.000 What if you're like, fuck you, I don't want to work. 1.00

00:55:25.000 Yeah, like a difficult bastard, right? 1.00

00:55:27.000 Yeah, like what's ever happened? 0.99

00:55:28.000 Has anybody ever rebelled?

00:55:29.000 I mean, it's human nature to rebel against authority.

00:55:31.000 Yeah, but...

00:55:32.000 A certain amount of human nature to succumb, but...

00:55:35.000 But when you're up at a place where you have three or four hundred people who feel differently, you're not that brave, okay? 0.95

00:55:42.000 But does anybody ever have the gumption or the notion to go, hey, what the fuck are we doing?

00:55:48.000 Does that ever happen? 0.89

00:55:50.000 Okay, maybe...

00:55:51.000 Well, no, what they do is they escape, like I did.

00:55:55.000 That's it?

00:55:56.000 Yeah.

00:55:56.000 They don't speak up?

00:55:57.000 Well, if they speak up, they know what they're in for.

00:55:59.000 Right.

00:56:00.000 They know what they're in for.

00:56:01.000 Here, there was a guy named Alex.

00:56:03.000 He wanted to route out. 0.99

00:56:04.000 It took him four fucking years to route out. 0.99

00:56:07.000 Route out? 0.99

00:56:08.000 That's what they call it.

00:56:09.000 That's the proper way to leave, where you sit down and you do this routing for him.

00:56:13.000 It's basically security checking you until you're...

00:56:18.000 You know, for years.

00:56:19.000 So once you...

00:56:19.000 Say if you sign a five-year contract.

00:56:22.000 Yeah.

00:56:22.000 Would you say there's...

00:56:23.000 Is that possible?

00:56:24.000 A five-year contract?

00:56:25.000 You would be at an outer org. 1.00

00:56:27.000 There, you just walk out of the fucking place and people do that. 1.00

00:56:30.000 An outer org. 0.99

00:56:31.000 But you can't do that at the Sea Org.

00:56:33.000 Well, you could in Los Angeles.

00:56:36.000 But at the international base, you're living on a compound.

00:56:40.000 You're surrounded with barbed wire, pointing in and pointing out.

00:56:43.000 You're not going to jump that fence or you'll really screw yourself up.

00:56:46.000 I understand.

00:56:47.000 But if you say, say if you sign a five-year contract, when the fifth year is up, you get to leave?

00:56:52.000 Yeah.

00:56:53.000 Okay.

00:56:53.000 They're going to try to get you to re-enlist, okay?

00:56:56.000 But if you're at, let's say you're working at one of the organizations in LA, okay?

00:57:01.000 Okay.

00:57:01.000 You can walk out in the street and say, hey, see you later.

00:57:04.000 What are they going to do?

00:57:05.000 Because you're in the free world.

00:57:07.000 You're in the free world.

00:57:08.000 You're not in the free world at the international base.

00:57:11.000 I understand.

00:57:11.000 All right?

00:57:12.000 So you had to plot some sort of an out.

00:57:14.000 So you had to think about it, and then you had to work with the wife, and you guys had to like hush-hush.

00:57:18.000 Yeah.

00:57:19.000 Right, and you asked me what led to that.

00:57:22.000 Well, there's one major thing that led to it and that was this.

00:57:25.000 We got a new music director.

00:57:27.000 I didn't want to have the post anymore.

00:57:28.000 I was getting old and got this young guy and I would write melodies All day, all week, months, every melody I ever wrote was rejected by him. 0.97

00:57:41.000 In other words, everything I was doing was a piece of shit, but I couldn't quit. 0.98

00:57:47.000 So this new guy was not fun to work with? 1.00

00:57:51.000 Terrible.

00:57:52.000 It was terrible.

00:57:53.000 I was the only one who had gotten a recording contract on my own steam.

00:57:59.000 Nobody gave it to me.

00:58:00.000 I didn't have a rich daddy or something.

00:58:02.000 A contract with Chappell's Publishing for my writing and asked to play on the BBC. Nobody had achieved that in that department.

00:58:10.000 Now, maybe my skills weren't up to how they write modern music, and I used to beg him, I said, listen, what do you want as an acceptable particle?

00:58:17.000 I'm a trained musician.

00:58:20.000 Give me some ideas what you want and I'll start writing that. 1.00

00:58:23.000 Fuck you, learn it just like I did. 1.00

00:58:25.000 This is how I was treated. 1.00

00:58:26.000 Well, this doesn't sound like a fun time. 1.00

00:58:28.000 So you couldn't talk to your son and say, hey, kid, listen, this fucking new guy sucks. 1.00

00:58:33.000 Wait a minute. 1.00

00:58:33.000 I did that. 1.00

00:58:34.000 I called him.

00:58:34.000 And I called him.

00:58:35.000 I wrote to him.

00:58:35.000 I said, Dave, you've got to get together with me.

00:58:38.000 Right.

00:58:38.000 So we got together.

00:58:40.000 I said, look, I'm working all day long and nothing I'm doing is being approved.

00:58:44.000 You've got to get me a different job.

00:58:45.000 I said, I don't care if you get me a job waxing cars in motor pool, but I want to do something so at the end of the day, you can say, here's what he did.

00:58:53.000 Okay.

00:58:53.000 Right, I get it.

00:58:54.000 He says, I'll look into it.

00:58:55.000 He never looked into it. 0.99

00:58:56.000 A couple months later, I said to Becky, look, we're getting the fuck out of here. 0.87

00:58:59.000 Then we started planning.

00:59:02.000 So what was your plan as far as, like, getting a job?

00:59:04.000 Because you had been working there for 25 years?

00:59:07.000 Well, I'm a good musician.

00:59:10.000 I'm not just a punk.

00:59:12.000 I mean, I play quite a bit of jobs in Milwaukee.

00:59:14.000 So you had skills.

00:59:16.000 I have skills.

00:59:17.000 I'm a good salesman, too.

00:59:19.000 I also...

00:59:21.000 Here's how I look.

00:59:23.000 Okay.

00:59:24.000 I'm 76 years old.

00:59:26.000 I want to spend the rest of my life suffering out every day. 1.00

00:59:29.000 Fuck this! 1.00

00:59:30.000 I'm getting out of here, okay? 1.00

00:59:32.000 Got it.

00:59:33.000 And Becky finally says, okay.

00:59:34.000 And she saw the writing on the wall that it wasn't going to get better.

00:59:38.000 Right.

00:59:39.000 So now, we don't want to leave and leave everything behind because what little possessions we had was what we had, all right?

00:59:49.000 So we started...

00:59:51.000 By the way, I mentioned a little earlier that my daughter sent me 75 gifts on my 75th birthday, right?

00:59:57.000 Yeah.

00:59:59.000 Becky came up with the idea.

01:00:00.000 My mother is going to celebrate.

01:00:02.000 By the way, my wife's younger than me. 0.99

01:00:03.000 My first wife, I divorced her and married a much younger woman.

01:00:07.000 So her mother is going to have her 70th birthday.

01:00:11.000 So we decide to send her mother 70 gifts.

01:00:15.000 Now, in order to do this, it has to go through the security guards.

01:00:19.000 So we would send her like a detailing kit for a car. 0.99

01:00:23.000 I mean, her chances of detailing a car as a gift We're nil to none, but they saw that, okay, we're sending her 70 gifts, so it got through them.

01:00:33.000 We sent her our L. Ron Hubbard library, books that we had, some other things, and we got a lot of stuff out of there that I couldn't fit in the car when we were going.

01:00:44.000 You see what I'm saying?

01:00:45.000 Smart.

01:00:46.000 And then, after all was said and done and we got everything out of there, we plotted it out, and I did this on Sunday mornings.

01:00:54.000 On Sunday mornings, You had breakfast at 9 o'clock.

01:00:58.000 Now, we lived on the southern side of the base.

01:01:03.000 And we lived in rooms.

01:01:06.000 You couldn't have a refrigerator.

01:01:07.000 You couldn't have a coffee maker there.

01:01:09.000 But across the street, on the north side, I worked in the studio.

01:01:13.000 There was a refrigerator there.

01:01:15.000 And I used to keep, like, Italian salami, maybe supersat, some Parmesan cheese, Romano cheese.

01:01:22.000 So early Sunday morning at 9 o'clock, And I planned this out because there's two gates.

01:01:27.000 There's one main gate where there's a security guard sitting in a booth and then down the road about 200 yards there's another gate where there's a little camera and they see you coming.

01:01:38.000 And they got used to me going across to the north side to go to the studio and I'd come back through the main gate and bring the security guards a piece of cheese or salami.

01:01:49.000 So they thought, hey, Sunday morning he's going to get his goodies.

01:01:53.000 In other words, I'm feeding the watchdogs.

01:01:54.000 This is set up.

01:01:55.000 Right.

01:01:57.000 So comes the day we're going to leave.

01:01:58.000 March 25th, 2012. We got up real early and I had a little notebook.

01:02:04.000 I must have checked it 20 times what I wanted to take, what I wanted to leave behind.

01:02:08.000 Like the night before, and by the way, my biggest cover on being able to get out of there was the fact that I was 76 years old and I was the father of the chairman of the board.

01:02:19.000 Nobody would suspect that I was going to leave unauthorizedly.

01:02:23.000 Alright?

01:02:24.000 Okay.

01:02:25.000 So I'm out with a mesh bag full of shoes, putting it in the car, and one of the security guards come by on his bicycle, an Italian guy, Sal.

01:02:33.000 Hey, Ronnie, how you doing?

01:02:34.000 Ah, good, you know.

01:02:35.000 And he sees me putting this in, but he justifies it in his mind.

01:02:38.000 Oh, he's putting stuff in his car.

01:02:40.000 Right.

01:02:40.000 Doesn't think twice why I'm doing it.

01:02:42.000 Of course.

01:02:43.000 Another guy's coming by, an old-time Scientologist.

01:02:45.000 I have a bag of clothes I'm putting in the car.

01:02:48.000 Ronnie, how's it going?

01:02:49.000 Good deal, Norm.

01:02:49.000 Yeah.

01:02:50.000 All right, you know, put it in the car.

01:02:51.000 So we got through all that.

01:02:53.000 Okay.

01:02:53.000 So now...

01:02:55.000 Sunday morning, 9 o'clock, we get in the car, we're loaded up, and we're driving down.

01:03:03.000 To get to that second gate is about a half mile down the road.

01:03:07.000 We go there, and I'm going past our mess hall where we would eat, and this is called Masco Canyon Inn.

01:03:14.000 Or MCI. It's where the crew would eat their meals.

01:03:17.000 And I see the chase car.

01:03:19.000 Like on Sunday morning, there's only two security guards on duty.

01:03:23.000 One is in the main boot, and the other one is in a car so he can rove.

01:03:28.000 And it's called a chase car.

01:03:30.000 Okay.

01:03:31.000 So the chase car is parked outside of the mess hall.

01:03:34.000 I knew Sal was in there.

01:03:36.000 So I go around another 100 yards down the road, get to the gate, and by the way, at this point, my heart is in my throat, alright?

01:03:44.000 Because when I hit that buzzer, if Juergen would have said, come up to the boot, that was it. 0.99

01:03:51.000 I was fucked. 1.00

01:03:52.000 Okay. 1.00

01:03:53.000 Hit the buzzer, didn't say anything, the gate opens.

01:03:56.000 I pulled out of the gate.

01:03:57.000 It says, Becky, we're turning left.

01:03:59.000 So I turned left, jammed the throttle, and I knew I had to make it down to these...

01:04:03.000 There's three roads.

01:04:04.000 One goes to Route 60. Straight ahead, rather.

01:04:08.000 The other one goes to Route 10, and if I turn left, I go in the hammock.

01:04:11.000 I knew by the time I'm going down the road, and he was trying to get me on the next hill, Ron, what the hell are you doing?

01:04:19.000 Then he'd call Sal.

01:04:20.000 Sal, get up to the booth pronto.

01:04:22.000 I know Sal would have to run out, get in the car.

01:04:24.000 I'd already be at those crossroads or the tree roads.

01:04:27.000 So I knew when Sal came, he'd either turn right or go straight ahead.

01:04:31.000 I turned left, went in the hammet.

01:04:33.000 We hit the boondocks and I was free.

01:04:35.000 Wow.

01:04:36.000 So what did you do then?

01:04:37.000 We drove to Wisconsin.

01:04:38.000 Did you have money on you?

01:04:39.000 Yeah, I had money on me.

01:04:41.000 And I paid for everything cash, Joe.

01:04:43.000 You only get 50 bucks a week.

01:04:44.000 How long did you save money?

01:04:46.000 Well, I was also getting Social Security, so I would salt that away.

01:04:49.000 Very low amount, by the way.

01:04:51.000 Right, because you weren't making much money. 1.00

01:04:53.000 Yeah, it's just bullshit. 1.00

01:04:55.000 Right. 0.99

01:04:55.000 But anyway, I paid for gas with cash. 0.99

01:04:58.000 We ate for cash.

01:05:00.000 We stayed in a motel two nights.

01:05:02.000 I paid cash.

01:05:02.000 Because you couldn't use your credit cards because they'd be able to track you.

01:05:05.000 Exactly.

01:05:06.000 So, when you finally surfaced, how'd you surface?

01:05:10.000 I went to her mother's place.

01:05:12.000 And then what happens then?

01:05:14.000 Do they try to get you?

01:05:15.000 How does that work?

01:05:15.000 Well, here's what happens.

01:05:17.000 No, believe me.

01:05:18.000 Do they try to bring you back?

01:05:19.000 You know, look, Ron, it's been a big misunderstanding.

01:05:22.000 Oh, here's how it went.

01:05:24.000 About two weeks later, we're sitting in her mother's house, and it's a split level where...

01:05:29.000 There's an upstairs, and downstairs in the kitchen, the window was almost level with the ground.

01:05:35.000 You know how a split level goes?

01:05:36.000 And I'm looking out the window, we're having breakfast coffee, and I see this girl outside, Marion. 0.98

01:05:42.000 And I thought, fuck, okay, they found me. 0.96

01:05:44.000 So I went through the garage outside, and there's Greg Woolhair. 0.98

01:05:49.000 And he says, ah, Ronnie, I guess you're surprised it took us so long to get here.

01:05:53.000 Ha, ha, ha.

01:05:54.000 We thought you were going to go to Lori's place.

01:05:56.000 We never thought you'd come here.

01:05:57.000 Ha, ha, ha.

01:05:57.000 Like nothing happened, you know?

01:05:59.000 Right.

01:06:00.000 So he says, okay.

01:06:01.000 So I said, Greg, listen, you're just wasting your time.

01:06:04.000 I'm not going back.

01:06:06.000 And he says, Ron, I said, hey, I don't want to live that life, man. 1.00

01:06:10.000 It was a terrible fucking life. 1.00

01:06:12.000 I'm not doing it again. 1.00

01:06:12.000 He says, you blew! 1.00

01:06:14.000 That's a term they use if you leave without authorization.

01:06:17.000 And he pulled out this policy.

01:06:20.000 It's called Leaving and Leaves.

01:06:22.000 And what it says...

01:06:23.000 Leaving and Leaves?

01:06:24.000 Leaving and Leaves.

01:06:26.000 That's the name of it.

01:06:27.000 And what it says in there substantially is this.

01:06:30.000 The only reason a person leaves a group is because they have committed harmful acts against the group.

01:06:38.000 And they want to remove themselves so they don't keep on committing harmful acts against the group.

01:06:44.000 How convenient. 1.00

01:06:45.000 No shit. 0.99

01:06:46.000 You can't just leave because you want to leave. 1.00

01:06:48.000 You have to be a bad guy.

01:06:49.000 Or the fact that, you know, you're working maybe 12, 14, 16 hours a day, sometimes not going to sleep for three days.

01:06:55.000 But you got that raise to 50 bucks a week.

01:06:57.000 I shouldn't have done it.

01:06:58.000 It's a nice raise.

01:07:01.000 So what do you do then when you say you're not going back?

01:07:04.000 Well, they try to convince me and it...

01:07:07.000 Got to the point and says, guys, you're wasting your time.

01:07:10.000 I am not going back.

01:07:12.000 And I went in town and I saw him a couple times.

01:07:14.000 And they says, come on, we'll take you out to a nice place to eat.

01:07:17.000 We'll take you to a movie.

01:07:18.000 Like they're going to schmooze me into going back to live that life.

01:07:22.000 Greg says to me, Ronnie, look, you can go to Flag.

01:07:25.000 You'll have your own apartment.

01:07:27.000 You have a kitchen.

01:07:27.000 We know you like to cook.

01:07:29.000 And then you can train some of the guys at a cell.

01:07:31.000 You can play with the band down there. 1.00

01:07:33.000 I said, Greg, you're out of your fucking mind. 1.00

01:07:35.000 You get me down there, it's gonna be the same thing. 1.00

01:07:36.000 No, it won't, Ronnie.

01:07:38.000 It went on. 0.96

01:07:39.000 So do you think they were just trying to bullshit you? 0.88

01:07:42.000 Not do I think. 0.97

01:07:43.000 Absolutely.

01:07:44.000 So if you got there, there'd be no apartment.

01:07:46.000 They'd punish you, write out a knowledge report.

01:07:49.000 You can't do this.

01:07:50.000 Yeah.

01:07:50.000 Why do they want you to stay?

01:07:52.000 Why do they give a fuck if you leave? 0.99

01:07:53.000 That's what I don't understand. 0.99

01:07:54.000 Because I would be what they consider to be a sensitive particle.

01:07:57.000 Like these guys that were following me.

01:07:59.000 Sensitive particle?

01:07:59.000 A particle.

01:08:00.000 Well, here's what I mean by that.

01:08:01.000 Like Dwayne Powell and Daniel Powell.

01:08:04.000 Well, I was the father of the chairman of the board.

01:08:06.000 Right.

01:08:06.000 That's a blight.

01:08:07.000 I mean...

01:08:09.000 Did you ever talk to your son after this?

01:08:11.000 I tried to call him once.

01:08:12.000 I tried to call him after I found out the PI's We're following me. 0.99

01:08:17.000 And after I heard that he got on the phone and said, if he dies, let him die. 0.65

01:08:21.000 Don't intervene. 0.92

01:08:22.000 Don't do anything.

01:08:22.000 This is what you heard, right?

01:08:24.000 Well, you can hear it, too.

01:08:26.000 There's a recording?

01:08:27.000 Tony Ortega.

01:08:28.000 Yeah, absolutely.

01:08:29.000 Tony Ortega, underground bunker.

01:08:30.000 You can hear these interviews, okay?

01:08:32.000 Okay.

01:08:33.000 They're as public as you're going to get.

01:08:34.000 But you don't hear his actual words.

01:08:36.000 No.

01:08:36.000 Okay.

01:08:37.000 But there'd be no reason that this guy would make up that story.

01:08:40.000 Yeah, but people do make things up, right?

01:08:43.000 Well, okay, let's put it this way.

01:08:45.000 But I'm just playing devil's advocate.

01:08:46.000 You can play devil's advocate.

01:08:47.000 The father was interrogated to begin with.

01:08:50.000 He told the same story.

01:08:51.000 The son came in later, didn't have a chance to talk to his father, told the same story.

01:08:55.000 Okay.

01:08:57.000 So you haven't had a chance to talk to your son?

01:08:59.000 I called and an attorney got on the phone and said, Ron, David won't talk to you.

01:09:05.000 He doesn't feel he could trust you.

01:09:06.000 Now, let me ask you this.

01:09:07.000 Yeah.

01:09:08.000 As a father, because I'm a father and you're a father...

01:09:12.000 The idea of being estranged from your kids in that way, where your kid hates you and your kid doesn't want anybody to save you if you die, do you feel any remorse? 0.97

01:09:24.000 Do you feel like in any way you fucked up?

01:09:26.000 Do you ever look at your life and go, how did I lose my connection with my son? 0.98

01:09:34.000 Listen, it's written in policy.

01:09:39.000 To do what David did.

01:09:42.000 There's a policy that says, listen, somebody who leaves...

01:09:45.000 I understand that entirely, but I'm talking about as a human being.

01:09:47.000 As a human being.

01:09:48.000 As a human being, I thought it was terrible because we had a good life together.

01:09:51.000 But do you feel any responsibility?

01:09:53.000 Do you feel like there's anything you could have done differently?

01:09:56.000 Yeah, not get him in Scientology.

01:09:57.000 That's it?

01:09:58.000 Yeah.

01:09:58.000 So you feel like once he got into Scientology, it's not your fault?

01:10:02.000 He lives his life.

01:10:03.000 He's the one who got the power to do all these things.

01:10:05.000 I understand, but you raised him, right?

01:10:07.000 I mean, whatever connection and bond that you developed with him.

01:10:10.000 Yeah, and we had a great life together when he was growing up, too.

01:10:12.000 That didn't carry forth in some way, you know what I'm saying?

01:10:15.000 I mean, obviously I'm not in Scientology, and obviously I was not in your situation, but I can't imagine that you must have gone over it And looked at your communications with him and wondered if maybe if you extended yourself more,

01:10:31.000 if you talked more, is there something you could have done that would have prevented any of this?

01:10:37.000 Joe, you're dreaming.

01:10:38.000 I don't mind telling you that, okay?

01:10:40.000 Please do.

01:10:40.000 I'm doing it with all respect, okay?

01:10:41.000 Because you do good interviews.

01:10:45.000 I've seen you do other interviews, and I'm happy you got me on the show.

01:10:49.000 No, I couldn't have done anything different except maybe not get him in Scientology.

01:10:54.000 So you feel like once he was corrupted.

01:10:56.000 Listen, there's policy that L. Ron Hubbard wrote, and David...

01:11:01.000 Loved L. Ron Hubbard and he applies the policy to a T. Does David believe all that stuff?

01:11:05.000 Does he believe in the- Well, he's got to.

01:11:06.000 There's a policy called fair game.

01:11:08.000 Are you familiar with that?

01:11:08.000 No.

01:11:09.000 What's that?

01:11:09.000 Fair game.

01:11:10.000 If somebody goes against the church or talks out against the church and they're declared a suppressive person, he can be lied to, tricked to, and destroyed with no punishment on the person who did it.

01:11:22.000 But that's not what I mean.

01:11:24.000 What I mean is the really crazy stuff.

01:11:27.000 Like the stuff that sounds like science fiction, about like the thetans and dropping them in a volcano and the hydrogen bomb and all that stuff. 0.74

01:11:34.000 Does everybody believe that stuff?

01:11:37.000 I think a lot of people do believe it.

01:11:38.000 Is it discussed?

01:11:40.000 No, you don't discuss that.

01:11:41.000 No one discusses it.

01:11:42.000 No one discusses it.

01:11:42.000 So when you're sitting around the seat org.

01:11:44.000 But no, let's get back to what's pertinent to this, and that's the policy, how to operate as a group.

01:11:50.000 That one, the fair game policy, is written.

01:11:53.000 And by the way, just to satisfy you, I'll send you soft copies if you can give me an email.

01:11:59.000 No, no, it's okay.

01:11:59.000 It's okay.

01:12:00.000 Okay, here's another one.

01:12:02.000 If a person does this, Find or manufacture data about the person.

01:12:08.000 Okay, so once you've become their enemy, you left them, you're the dad of the chairman of the board, you're a sensitive particle, you've got a real problem.

01:12:21.000 That's right.

01:12:22.000 So you said they took out a bunch of different website addresses?

01:12:25.000 Not a bunch, 500. In other words, they got 500 iterations of my name, variations.

01:12:31.000 So no matter what you put in, and by the way, I have a website, which I did just then, and it's called therealronmiscavage.com.

01:12:39.000 And you can see my website, but if you put any other thing in there, you're going to get a hate site that tells you things about me that You'd think I was the worst person who ever lived.

01:12:50.000 Did you write this book?

01:12:52.000 What was the motivation?

01:12:53.000 Did you want to make money?

01:12:55.000 Absolutely not.

01:12:56.000 I wanted to help.

01:12:57.000 But you did make money, right?

01:12:58.000 You made some money.

01:12:59.000 Yeah, but that isn't the reason of writing a book.

01:13:02.000 That's the only reason I'd write a book.

01:13:04.000 Well, not me.

01:13:06.000 The hundreds of families that are disconnected from their kids.

01:13:09.000 I understand. 0.88

01:13:10.000 And listen, I knew if I... And by the way, what led me to write it was not even him saying, if he dies, let him die.

01:13:17.000 I then took a CD with these interrogations on of Daniel Powell and Dwayne Powell.

01:13:26.000 And my wife and I drove down to Florida to see my daughters.

01:13:29.000 And I was going to play these for them.

01:13:31.000 Because now they're disconnected from me.

01:13:33.000 So I went to my daughter Lori's place.

01:13:36.000 She's not home.

01:13:37.000 I went to Denise's place.

01:13:38.000 Her husband Jerry answered the door.

01:13:41.000 Answered the door about that far, and he's talking to me.

01:13:43.000 I said, Jerry, I'd like to speak to Denise.

01:13:45.000 Well, you can't, because she's not here.

01:13:47.000 I said, well, look, where is she?

01:13:48.000 Because I've got to get in communication with her.

01:13:50.000 He says, no, you have to go to the church and handle it with the church.

01:13:53.000 I said, Jerry, for Christ's sake.

01:13:55.000 And Jerry's in as well.

01:13:56.000 Yeah, of course he is.

01:13:57.000 They are.

01:13:58.000 If your wife's in, you have to be in. 1.00

01:13:59.000 Is that how it works?

01:14:00.000 It basically is.

01:14:02.000 So he said, no, you've got to handle it with them.

01:14:04.000 And I said, it's a waste of time.

01:14:06.000 So I'm talking to him for about 20 minutes, and I finally said, Jerry, what's up?

01:14:09.000 What does this mean?

01:14:10.000 He's, well, I'll tell you why.

01:14:12.000 Denise and I are through with you and Becky forever.

01:14:16.000 That was it. 1.00

01:14:17.000 You know, fuck you. 1.00

01:14:19.000 I'm gonna do a book and I'm gonna expose what you do to people. 1.00

01:14:23.000 Because if I did a blog, who am I? I'm gonna get maybe a couple thousand people to look at this blog, but a book I knew that I could get, and I was on 2020, I was on a Megyn Kelly show, I was on Late Night with Seth Meyers, so we got a lot of exposure,

01:14:39.000 a lot of books, a lot of people are seeing what they did And I'm just hoping enough people do this so they're going to drop that disconnection policy.

01:14:50.000 Because that's a killer.

01:14:51.000 So do you think if they drop the disconnection policy, maybe a lot of the other policies would be more tolerable? 0.99

01:14:57.000 I think if they dropped the disconnection policy and allowed you to talk to your family, listen, if they wanted to do Scientology and I could still talk to them, I wouldn't give a shit. 0.93

01:15:08.000 I'd say, fine, do what you want to do. 0.95

01:15:10.000 But wouldn't it bother you that they can't leave?

01:15:13.000 No, they're public.

01:15:16.000 Because they're not in the Sea Org.

01:15:17.000 They're not in the Sea Org.

01:15:18.000 Okay.

01:15:19.000 But you can't really leave if you're public.

01:15:21.000 Like, was Leah Remini in the Sea Org?

01:15:23.000 No, she's a public Scientologist. 0.81

01:15:25.000 Right, but when she left, she experienced...

01:15:28.000 She took her whole family with her. 1.00

01:15:30.000 Right.

01:15:30.000 So they didn't get a chance to, you know, pick them out and say, lookie, you gotta disconnect from Leah.

01:15:36.000 That is like one of the things that is like a hallmark operation of problematic organizations, right?

01:15:42.000 They separate you from your family.

01:15:45.000 I think it's terrible.

01:15:47.000 I think it's the worst thing you can do to a person. 0.97

01:15:50.000 Look, and I'm not 45 fucking years anymore, okay? 0.94

01:15:53.000 I'm 81 years old in January. 0.96

01:15:55.000 I would like to see my family.

01:15:57.000 I would like to have some time.

01:16:00.000 We've got pictures of my great-grandchildren on their Facebooks.

01:16:03.000 I've never met these kids.

01:16:05.000 I don't even know what their names are. 1.00

01:16:07.000 Son of a bitch. 1.00

01:16:09.000 And you feel like your kids are going to be in there forever? 1.00

01:16:11.000 Yeah.

01:16:13.000 And they've never expressed any dissatisfaction?

01:16:17.000 Well, when I was in the Sea Org, I was not around them.

01:16:21.000 We would only communicate through letters or we'd send each other gifts on birthdays or Christmas or something.

01:16:27.000 I couldn't get leaves to see them.

01:16:29.000 At one point, my daughter Lori went to see David and said, listen, if Dad can't come to see us, we would like to go to see him.

01:16:37.000 So he exceeded.

01:16:38.000 Just imagine, she had to ask him if it's okay to come and see me.

01:16:43.000 And they came to Celebrity Center and we spent about four days together and just having a good time, me cooking, just enjoying their company.

01:16:52.000 It just, the whole scene is really bad.

01:16:56.000 It's just not okay.

01:16:58.000 And it's the way it's set up. 0.99

01:16:59.000 It's built into the fucking DNA as to how to control people. 0.99

01:17:03.000 And you have a threat, you have extortion, you have leverage, and that's what that is. 0.99

01:17:07.000 That is why I wrote the book.

01:17:08.000 When you look back on your life, joining this in the 1970s, 1970s?

01:17:13.000 1970. When you look back on your life and you think about that move, that initial move of joining, what goes on in your head?

01:17:27.000 I don't think about it because there's nothing I can do about it, but I can tell you this, I wouldn't have done it. 1.00

01:17:33.000 In other words, if I knew then what I knew now, I'd say, hey, you know, fuck you, man, I'm not doing this. 0.99

01:17:38.000 What do you think, I'm nuts? 1.00

01:17:40.000 Do new people join all the time?

01:17:43.000 I can't imagine there's very many new people joining right now.

01:17:46.000 You know, unless they're a shepherd or somebody like that or somebody who's never looked at the internet, you can't possibly, and this is what people do, To check something out, they'll Google it.

01:17:56.000 That's very common.

01:17:58.000 And you start looking at anything, oh, do I want to get involved in this, you know?

01:18:02.000 By the way, in the book, I give references to books that were written in the late 1800s, early 1900s.

01:18:12.000 The New Thought Movement.

01:18:13.000 And there's many, many, many datums about life that if you were a Scientologist and you see these, you say, wait a minute, L. Ron Hubbard used to say this, all right?

01:18:24.000 Talking about the reactive mind.

01:18:27.000 Remember that from Dianetics?

01:18:29.000 William Atkinson.

01:18:32.000 And the other guys, they talk about a subconscious mind.

01:18:35.000 It records 24 hours a day.

01:18:37.000 They're talking about the same thing he was.

01:18:39.000 Well, Lawrence Wright talked about that in Going Clear.

01:18:41.000 He said that it seems like at least some of what was going on was L. Ron Hubbard trying to self-medicate.

01:18:47.000 That he was writing things to try to cure his own ills.

01:18:50.000 Probably, yeah.

01:18:51.000 But these people, I mean, you can go on the Internet and get these books for 99 cents because it's past 75 years.

01:18:57.000 You can't copyright them.

01:18:59.000 Right.

01:19:00.000 And, of course, you wouldn't know, if you weren't a Scientologist, you wouldn't know which parts that he took out of that.

01:19:06.000 But I've run across many, many things in the books that he just lifted, almost copied and pasted it and put it into what he called Scientology.

01:19:16.000 Yeah.

01:19:17.000 Well, I mean, if he's trying to get a great collection of work on how to work the mind, how the mind works.

01:19:26.000 And it worked then, so he knew it would work now.

01:19:29.000 And so there is something to some of the principles.

01:19:33.000 That's what you've always said.

01:19:35.000 Not a question about it, Joe.

01:19:36.000 And you think to this day that if you could remove a lot of it...

01:19:39.000 If you could filter it down to those things that...

01:19:46.000 Are provably workable.

01:19:49.000 Do you think it's saveable?

01:19:51.000 Let's say this. 1.00

01:19:52.000 What if your son listens to this podcast and he's like, what the fuck? 1.00

01:19:56.000 This world, who knows? 0.99

01:19:59.000 This life is not going to last forever.

01:20:01.000 What am I doing?

01:20:01.000 I can't even talk to my dad.

01:20:03.000 Maybe I've lost my way.

01:20:05.000 Maybe I get together with him and we try to figure this out.

01:20:10.000 And he says, what can we do to make this better?

01:20:14.000 I know.

01:20:15.000 I'm talking crazy.

01:20:16.000 I know I'm talking crazy.

01:20:17.000 That's okay. 0.98

01:20:17.000 What the hell, you know? 0.98

01:20:18.000 Let's just, as an exercise, what would you do? 0.91

01:20:21.000 If he said, let's talk it out, I'd talk to him.

01:20:23.000 I'll talk to anybody, anytime, about anything.

01:20:26.000 If he said, listen, no new people are joining Scientology.

01:20:28.000 We've got a real problem.

01:20:29.000 What do you think is the beneficial aspects of it that we should keep?

01:20:32.000 And what should we get rid of?

01:20:34.000 And I think he would come up with the things that I come up with also.

01:20:37.000 And so you have wrote about those in this book?

01:20:39.000 I tell about four points you could do and you could salvage it.

01:20:43.000 But the chances of that happening are just so remote.

01:20:48.000 I wouldn't bet two cents on it.

01:20:49.000 Well, we're not even trying to bet on it.

01:20:51.000 But do you think that that is just what happens with people?

01:20:53.000 They get into these positions?

01:20:55.000 You create an ideology or you...

01:20:57.000 Well, no, it's the power.

01:20:59.000 It's the acquisition of power.

01:21:00.000 And then in order to keep that power, because I think power is almost like a drug.

01:21:05.000 That's almost like crack cocaine.

01:21:07.000 You get hooked on it.

01:21:08.000 You don't want to let go of it.

01:21:09.000 Right.

01:21:10.000 And now you have things going to hell around you.

01:21:12.000 You're going to do anything you can perceive to be beneficial to keep it going and start implementing that.

01:21:18.000 And like buying new buildings and just making them into these palaces for people to come and do services.

01:21:26.000 And then you drive by them and there's nobody in them.

01:21:30.000 Just nobody in them.

01:21:31.000 Where are they getting all the money to buy these buildings?

01:21:33.000 People donate it.

01:21:34.000 But there's only 20,000 people, right?

01:21:36.000 Yeah, but you have whales, man.

01:21:38.000 There are people.

01:21:39.000 Whales.

01:21:39.000 A whale is.

01:21:40.000 That's what you guys call them?

01:21:41.000 Well, I'm calling them a whale.

01:21:43.000 And as a matter of fact...

01:21:44.000 That's like a gambling term.

01:21:45.000 It is.

01:21:46.000 It's somebody who goes to Las Vegas and they got a lot of dough.

01:21:48.000 And they blow it all.

01:21:50.000 They get crazy.

01:21:51.000 Come on, Seven.

01:21:52.000 Right?

01:21:52.000 That's a whale.

01:21:54.000 Yeah.

01:21:54.000 Okay.

01:21:55.000 Well, you have people in there, and I feel no need to mention their names.

01:21:59.000 I'll tell you off the air, but I don't want to throw them...

01:22:02.000 But there's a lot of very wealthy people, and they donate a ton of cash.

01:22:06.000 One guy had a medical procedure.

01:22:08.000 He sold for something like $2.4 billion.

01:22:12.000 Who knows, he probably gave about 50 or 60 million dollars to the church.

01:22:16.000 And the church...

01:22:17.000 What does he get for that?

01:22:18.000 Do they take him around one of those things, like one of those old school king things?

01:22:23.000 No.

01:22:23.000 What are those things called?

01:22:24.000 They carry you around in those carts?

01:22:26.000 I don't know.

01:22:27.000 Get a bunch of dudes, they hold the poles. 0.74

01:22:29.000 Yeah, do you remember...

01:22:29.000 That'd be dope.

01:22:30.000 History of the World Part One, Madeline Kahn was on it.

01:22:33.000 Yeah, one of those things called?

01:22:36.000 They carry you around.

01:22:37.000 I don't know, but I'll check it out and I'll send you an email.

01:22:41.000 Jamie will look it up.

01:22:42.000 Look, no, they get a huge trophy.

01:22:44.000 Okay.

01:22:45.000 Oh, you get a trophy for $50 million?

01:22:47.000 Oh, I mean like six feet tall and you go on the stage and get your picture taken with David and he congratulates you.

01:22:52.000 What about those like big dinner plate gold medals that, is it called a litter?

01:22:57.000 Wow, like how weird.

01:23:00.000 A litter is a class of wheel-less vehicles, a type of human-powered transport. 0.78

01:23:04.000 A simple litter, often called a king carrier, consists of a sling attached along to lengths of poles or stretched inside a frame.

01:23:12.000 Interesting.

01:23:13.000 So it's called a litter.

01:23:14.000 I would have never guessed.

01:23:15.000 No, I wouldn't have either.

01:23:16.000 How weird.

01:23:17.000 What does Tom Cruise have to get to get one of those giant-ass gold medals that's bigger than the Olympics?

01:23:21.000 Oh, the Medal of Valor.

01:23:23.000 Oh, Valor.

01:23:25.000 Well, that's a different situation.

01:23:26.000 Let me tell you something.

01:23:27.000 Tell me something.

01:23:28.000 When you're a celebrity of his stature, there's no rules.

01:23:33.000 No rules?

01:23:33.000 No, you're catered to- What about a celebrity of my stature, like a minor league celebrity?

01:23:38.000 What kind of sweet perks could I get?

01:23:39.000 Yeah, you'd be pampered.

01:23:40.000 Ooh.

01:23:41.000 You'd be pampered, yeah.

01:23:42.000 Like good seats at a restaurant or something like that?

01:23:44.000 Well, good seats at an event.

01:23:46.000 Look at that juicy gold medal. 0.99

01:23:48.000 That's beautiful.

01:23:49.000 Yeah.

01:23:49.000 I might join just to get a nice medal.

01:23:51.000 Man, that's it.

01:23:53.000 Stand in front of that big globe.

01:23:55.000 Hmm.

01:23:56.000 And I tell you, that set is put together.

01:23:58.000 I bet.

01:23:59.000 That takes a lot of work.

01:24:00.000 I bet. 1.00

01:24:01.000 Look at that handsome bastard. 1.00

01:24:02.000 Perfect cheeks. 0.99

01:24:03.000 Good nose structure.

01:24:04.000 The guy's 55 years old.

01:24:06.000 He looks great.

01:24:07.000 How are they keeping him alive?

01:24:09.000 He looks great.

01:24:11.000 He's one of those guys that doesn't look like he's aging.

01:24:13.000 I don't know.

01:24:13.000 He probably works out.

01:24:14.000 I'm sure he works out.

01:24:15.000 He's got to work out.

01:24:17.000 He's a great actor, right?

01:24:18.000 Admit to that, right?

01:24:19.000 Yeah, he is.

01:24:20.000 The Edge of Tomorrow.

01:24:20.000 Did you ever see that?

01:24:21.000 Science fiction movie?

01:24:23.000 No one ever did. 0.99

01:24:24.000 That's a fucking great movie. 0.99

01:24:25.000 That's what it's called, right? 0.99

01:24:25.000 The Edge of Tomorrow? 0.99

01:24:26.000 The one where he keeps coming back to life again?

01:24:28.000 Yeah, Live, Die, Repeat. 1.00

01:24:29.000 That's a fucking great movie. 0.99

01:24:31.000 I think he's so wacky that a lot of his movies, they don't get the credit they deserve. 0.99

01:24:36.000 Yeah.

01:24:36.000 You know what I mean?

01:24:37.000 Because he's so wacky, people are like, oh, this motherfucker. 0.99

01:24:39.000 Well, no, he's a draw, and people enjoy watching him act. 0.99

01:24:43.000 There's no two ways about it.

01:24:44.000 That's not what I'm saying.

01:24:45.000 What I'm saying is I think that people don't respect the movie as much, like people that are real connoisseurs of film.

01:24:50.000 That's a fantastic science fiction movie.

01:24:52.000 And what's it called?

01:24:53.000 The Edge of Tomorrow.

01:24:54.000 When did it come out?

01:24:56.000 Three years ago, maybe four?

01:24:57.000 Something like that?

01:24:58.000 Wow.

01:24:59.000 It's a great movie, man.

01:25:01.000 But I feel like if someone with no controversy attached to them was the star of that movie, it would have been critically acclaimed.

01:25:07.000 It's an amazing film.

01:25:08.000 It doesn't have any holes in it.

01:25:09.000 It's really good.

01:25:10.000 Well, I tell you, there's controversy attached to him, isn't there?

01:25:13.000 There's a little bit.

01:25:13.000 Yeah.

01:25:14.000 If you said there wasn't, you'd be glib.

01:25:17.000 Don't be glib.

01:25:19.000 Well, I know he works out.

01:25:21.000 He got a house in...

01:25:24.000 Beverly Hills, I put the gym in.

01:25:27.000 I got the equipment for the gym in that house.

01:25:29.000 Well, he's a winner.

01:25:30.000 I mean, he's just a winner.

01:25:32.000 And he attributes a lot of those winning attitudes to Scientology.

01:25:36.000 Yeah.

01:25:36.000 I mean, a lot of his focus and the way he looks at things.

01:25:40.000 That's what I always think of, or used to think of, before I started researching it and finding all the wacky stuff.

01:25:46.000 But before I knew what Scientology was, I thought of it as being like, I thought of Dianetics, right?

01:25:53.000 I thought Dianetics was sort of like Anthony Robbins, unlimited power. 0.97

01:25:57.000 Like, oh, this is like a guideline for getting your shit together. 0.87

01:26:00.000 And that's what I've always wanted to do my whole life. 0.99

01:26:03.000 I've always felt like, ah, I wish I was more disciplined. 0.98

01:26:05.000 I wish I got my shit together more. 0.98

01:26:06.000 Maybe I need to read more books. 0.98

01:26:07.000 And so I'd read Anthony Robbins and then I read Dianetics.

01:26:10.000 I thought they were kind of the same thing.

01:26:12.000 Back in the day.

01:26:13.000 Well, Anthony Robbins did steal some things from Scientology.

01:26:17.000 There's no two ways about it.

01:26:18.000 No.

01:26:18.000 And there's also another thing called Est.

01:26:21.000 Yes, I've heard of that.

01:26:22.000 That used some of the Scientology.

01:26:23.000 I know a guy who's in that right now.

01:26:24.000 Is that a cult, too?

01:26:26.000 It is, but I mean...

01:26:28.000 They're a little bit more...

01:26:29.000 Look, I don't know too much about it, but I know that there are some people who've done it who felt they had a lot of good wins out of it, okay?

01:26:35.000 Well, that's the thing, right?

01:26:36.000 When you look at a guy like Tom Cruise, it's kind of undeniable that that guy is very successful, very driven, motivated, right?

01:26:44.000 Yeah, but don't forget, it wasn't just Scientology that did it for him.

01:26:47.000 He's got talent.

01:26:48.000 He is a talented individual.

01:26:50.000 I remember the first one he did about, he was a kid at the Valley Forge Military Academy, I forget what it's called now.

01:26:55.000 Yeah, Taps.

01:26:56.000 Taps, yeah.

01:26:56.000 And when I saw that at that, man, I like this guy.

01:26:59.000 He's in that Ponyboy movie too, right? 0.98

01:27:01.000 What the fuck was that called? 0.99

01:27:03.000 Outsiders. 0.99

01:27:04.000 Yeah, he's in that too.

01:27:05.000 He's a great actor.

01:27:06.000 Yeah, and he did one with Paul Newman where he was a pool shark.

01:27:09.000 Remember that?

01:27:09.000 Color of Money.

01:27:10.000 One of my favorite movies.

01:27:11.000 No, I mean, there's no toys about it.

01:27:13.000 And individually, I mean, I met him many times.

01:27:15.000 He's a nice guy.

01:27:17.000 So, does he have any knowledge of all this stuff when he sees all this disconnection? 1.00

01:27:22.000 And if he's a nice guy, why doesn't he step in and go, Hey, Dave, we're going to fucking cut this shit. 0.99

01:27:27.000 Listen, I can't imagine that he doesn't know about it. 1.00

01:27:31.000 I can't imagine that.

01:27:32.000 And so he just, like a guy like you, separated from your family, it's beyond his control.

01:27:36.000 It's with LRH wants.

01:27:37.000 He would never do anything to go against Dave.

01:27:40.000 Why is that?

01:27:41.000 He considers David to be the top spiritual being on this planet.

01:27:45.000 Look at this, saluting each other.

01:27:46.000 Yep.

01:27:47.000 Jesus.

01:27:49.000 That's at the event.

01:27:50.000 Are they in the military?

01:27:51.000 Pardon me?

01:27:52.000 Are they in the military?

01:27:54.000 Are they?

01:27:54.000 Yeah.

01:27:55.000 No, this is...

01:27:55.000 So why are they saluting each other?

01:27:57.000 I'm just curious. 0.99

01:27:58.000 What the fuck's going on there? 0.99

01:27:59.000 Jamie, when I see you in the morning, we're saluting from now on. 1.00

01:28:02.000 We're going to salute each other. 1.00

01:28:03.000 Fuck it. 1.00

01:28:04.000 If he could do it. 1.00

01:28:05.000 Yeah.

01:28:06.000 How does that work?

01:28:07.000 Could anybody salute anybody or is that rude?

01:28:08.000 Is it like cultural appropriation?

01:28:10.000 It's like a person walking around with a Pocahontas outfit on. 1.00

01:28:12.000 Can people get mad at you?

01:28:14.000 No, anybody can salute another person.

01:28:16.000 You might see somebody going off from the plane and say, hey, have a good trip.

01:28:19.000 Yeah, but you would do it like almost in tongue-in-cheek, a jest. 1.00

01:28:22.000 Hey, you fucking animal, you, I love you. 0.99

01:28:24.000 Okay, so the sea organization is a military-type organization, and you would salute people in the military. 1.00

01:28:32.000 But it's just non-ironic saluting outside of the military just seems awful odd.

01:28:37.000 Yeah.

01:28:38.000 And, you know...

01:28:41.000 Well, there's a lot of things odd about it, but for whatever reason, it's kept on going.

01:28:46.000 Yeah.

01:28:46.000 Well, I think that's one of the reasons why.

01:28:48.000 That man right there, Tom Cruise.

01:28:50.000 Oh, yeah.

01:28:51.000 People look at him and go, this guy's in it.

01:28:52.000 He's a winner.

01:28:53.000 Well, now, here's what L. Ron Hubbard said, that we should get...

01:28:58.000 Celebrities in.

01:28:59.000 Because they are opinion leaders.

01:29:02.000 And what do you do with an opinion leader?

01:29:04.000 You want to be like that person.

01:29:06.000 And if an opinion leader is a Scientologist, I'm going to try this out.

01:29:11.000 I'm going to try out Scientology.

01:29:12.000 What's John Travolta like?

01:29:14.000 Very nice guy.

01:29:15.000 Seems like a nice guy.

01:29:16.000 I met him once.

01:29:16.000 He's literally a nice guy.

01:29:20.000 So there's something those guys are getting out of it.

01:29:23.000 Yeah, John Travolta and Kirstie Alley and people like that, they get auditing and they get pampered and they don't have to follow money rules.

01:29:29.000 So for them, it's almost like they're a part of a gang or something.

01:29:35.000 You're in a click.

01:29:37.000 Everybody kisses your ass. 1.00

01:29:39.000 It's nice. 1.00

01:29:39.000 Nobody wants to piss you off. 1.00

01:29:40.000 If you get pissed off like Leah. 1.00

01:29:42.000 Well, with Leah, she saw shit go on. 0.99

01:29:46.000 And Shelly was not there with David when he was at Tom Cruise's wedding. 0.98

01:29:49.000 And she said to Tommy Davis, where's Shelly? 0.99

01:29:53.000 And Tommy Davis says, listen, you don't have the fucking rank to ask that question. 0.99

01:29:57.000 Ooh, you gotta get a higher rank? 0.99

01:29:59.000 Well, that was a figure of speech.

01:30:00.000 No, that was a figure of speech.

01:30:02.000 If he would have said, look it, Shelly's off doing a correction program, that's why she's not here. 0.98

01:30:08.000 Leah might still be in Scientology. 0.97

01:30:10.000 Oh, so a correction program is Shelley fucked up? 1.00

01:30:13.000 That's right. 0.96

01:30:13.000 And everybody in Scientology knows sometimes Sea Org member isn't seeing. 0.96

01:30:18.000 If you say, well, doing a correction program, they'd go, oh, okay.

01:30:21.000 And that would be it.

01:30:22.000 So the mistake was they disrespected Leah.

01:30:28.000 She's very fiery.

01:30:29.000 Not a little bit.

01:30:30.000 Really fiery.

01:30:31.000 Yeah.

01:30:31.000 She's from Brooklyn.

01:30:32.000 She's very fiery.

01:30:33.000 She's a great person, too, I tell you.

01:30:35.000 She's... 1.00

01:30:36.000 You know how I met Leah?

01:30:37.000 How'd you meet her?

01:30:39.000 I was in Celebrity Center in what's called the President's Office, and I was there for some event many years ago.

01:30:45.000 Is there an election?

01:30:48.000 No.

01:30:48.000 So how does someone get to be president?

01:30:50.000 No, it's just you're given the post of the president of that organization.

01:30:53.000 Oh, okay.

01:30:54.000 Yeah, it's just granted.

01:30:56.000 Now, Leah comes walking out of this room, and she said, I got the part.

01:31:02.000 I said, what do you mean you got the part?

01:31:03.000 She said, I got the part.

01:31:06.000 I says, who are you?

01:31:07.000 She says, my name is Leah.

01:31:09.000 I got the part in this new show called The King of Queens.

01:31:12.000 Hey, congratulations.

01:31:13.000 You gave her a hug.

01:31:14.000 That's how I met her.

01:31:15.000 The day she got the part.

01:31:17.000 And we've been good buddies ever since.

01:31:19.000 I met her real close to that time as well.

01:31:22.000 Yeah?

01:31:22.000 I'm good buddies with Kevin James.

01:31:24.000 Oh.

01:31:25.000 And Kevin James was, you know, obviously the lead of the King and Queens, and he's a stand-up comic.

01:31:29.000 We came up together.

01:31:31.000 And, you know, I'd always, I was like, she's, what is she, a Scientologist or something?

01:31:36.000 I was like, yeah, she's all focused. 1.00

01:31:38.000 She does all the Scientology shit. 1.00

01:31:39.000 He goes, ah, get the fuck out of here. 1.00

01:31:41.000 Yeah, but he's a funny man. 0.99

01:31:42.000 He's a very funny guy.

01:31:43.000 Very funny guy.

01:31:44.000 He's hilarious.

01:31:44.000 Yeah.

01:31:45.000 And he just was like, oh, I don't know what the fuck's going on. 0.99

01:31:48.000 And that was it. 0.99

01:31:49.000 Like, he didn't talk about it.

01:31:50.000 She didn't talk about it.

01:31:51.000 I know.

01:31:52.000 And the show went on no matter what.

01:31:54.000 Yeah.

01:31:54.000 They're both professionals.

01:31:55.000 Oh, great show.

01:31:56.000 I enjoy it and I've watched very little TV, but that was a show and I could pick it up anytime and watch it.

01:32:02.000 Another thing I can watch is the Eagles beating the Giants from Meltdown at the Meadowlands.

01:32:06.000 I don't know.

01:32:07.000 You ever see that?

01:32:07.000 No.

01:32:09.000 Well, the Eagles are down three touchdowns.

01:32:10.000 They come back and win in the last 13 seconds.

01:32:13.000 I'm originally from Pennsylvania.

01:32:15.000 Okay, you're reminiscing now?

01:32:16.000 Is that what's going on here?

01:32:18.000 Yeah.

01:32:19.000 A little change of pace, you know, to break the tension here, you know.

01:32:22.000 There's no tension.

01:32:23.000 I know that.

01:32:24.000 So listen, Ron, good luck with this book.

01:32:26.000 It's called Ruthless.

01:32:28.000 People can get it everywhere.

01:32:29.000 You know, I'm an eternal optimist, and I would hope that one day you'd be able to speak to your kids, and one day you'd be able to speak to your son, and everybody could work this out.

01:32:38.000 I would hope for the same thing, and I guess...

01:32:42.000 I'm starting to lose hope on that matter because the years are going by now.

01:32:48.000 I've been out for like five years and I don't know what's going to change it other than maybe enough people speaking out and them dropping that disconnection policy.

01:32:56.000 Talk to Tom Cruise.

01:32:57.000 Tom Cruise, holler at me.

01:32:58.000 Let's do a podcast, buddy.

01:33:00.000 Come on in here. 0.99

01:33:00.000 Let's straighten this whole bullshit out. 0.99

01:33:03.000 Thank you, Ron. 0.99

01:33:03.000 Appreciate it, buddy. 0.99

01:33:04.000 Okay.

01:33:05.000 Thank you.

01:33:05.000 Hey, thanks a lot for having me on.

01:33:06.000 I appreciate it.

01:33:13.000 We're good to go.

The Joe Rogan Experience - April 18, 2017

Joe Rogan Experience #947 - Ron Miscavige

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