The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 413. Raised by Thetans in a Galactic Gulag ｜ Aaron Smith-Levin

00:00:00.940 Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.

00:00:06.480 Dr. Jordan Peterson has created a new series that could be a lifeline for those battling depression and anxiety.

00:00:12.740 We know how isolating and overwhelming these conditions can be, and we wanted to take a moment to reach out to those listening who may be struggling.

00:00:20.100 With decades of experience helping patients, Dr. Peterson offers a unique understanding of why you might be feeling this way in his new series.

00:00:27.420 He provides a roadmap towards healing, showing that while the journey isn't easy, it's absolutely possible to find your way forward.

00:00:35.360 If you're suffering, please know you are not alone. There's hope, and there's a path to feeling better.

00:00:41.780 Go to Daily Wire Plus now and start watching Dr. Jordan B. Peterson on depression and anxiety.

00:00:47.460 Let this be the first step towards the brighter future you deserve.

00:00:57.420 Hello everyone. Today I'm talking to Aaron Smith-Levin, and he has a YouTube channel called Growing Up in Scientology,

00:01:15.180 where he discusses, as you might guess, growing up in Scientology.

00:01:18.980 And he left the organization after a number of decades, and we talk a fair bit about why he did that,

00:01:28.660 why he came to the realization that this was a sterile route.

00:01:33.340 But more importantly, the conversation allowed us to delve into a problem that we all face,

00:01:38.980 which is the fundamental problem of distinguishing truth from falsehood, especially organized falsehood.

00:01:44.980 The difficulty that we face in determining what organizations, which are clearly necessary, can be trusted,

00:01:54.400 and what metaphysics are reliable, how you distinguish bitter fruit from sweet fruit in that regard,

00:02:00.720 or separate wheat from chaff.

00:02:02.380 And so our discussion is very interesting in that regard,

00:02:07.620 enabled us to take those abstract considerations and to nail them down to something very specific.

00:02:12.300 You know, the events of Aaron's own life and the particular cult-like nature of Scientology,

00:02:17.540 which is one cult among many.

00:02:19.500 And so, well, welcome aboard for the trip.

00:02:23.700 I've been writing a fair bit in this new book I'm finishing up.

00:02:27.460 It's called We Who Wrestle with God.

00:02:29.460 It'll be the subject of my next tour.

00:02:31.900 I've been writing a lot about the manner in which we come to distinguish truth from falsehood.

00:02:39.100 In general, in our lives, in the scientific enterprise, and then let's say in matters of faith, you know.

00:02:45.680 Now, the scientist types would say, well, all faith is delusional,

00:02:49.580 but I'm afraid we can't move forward without faith, so that's not a helpful objection.

00:02:56.680 But it does raise us, the fact that that is an objection at all indicates the existence of a very serious underlying problem,

00:03:04.680 which is, well, how do we distinguish truth from falsehood, especially in relationship to religious claims,

00:03:10.700 which in some sense, by definition, aren't amenable to scientific analysis or proof.

00:03:15.460 One answer is we just throw out the entire religious domain.

00:03:19.300 That's actually not even technically possible.

00:03:21.980 So, I thought it'd be interesting to talk to you today about Scientology specifically,

00:03:28.080 because I think that it's not unreasonable whatsoever to regard it as an outright cult.

00:03:33.340 And that will enable us to use a very specific example to delve into a more general problem,

00:03:39.020 which is how do you separate wheat from chaff or bitter fruit from good fruit in the pursuit of the truth,

00:03:45.080 or even what is the truth, and it's always better to ground an abstract analysis in something concrete and real.

00:03:55.360 And so, talking to you about your experiences and what you've learned should enable us to get a long ways in this discussion.

00:04:01.580 Then we can more broadly flesh it out into the issue of, you know, truth versus falsehood and issues of faith.

00:04:08.340 So, let's start right at the beginning.

00:04:10.040 Dang, why don't we just, why don't you tell everybody a little bit about yourself personally,

00:04:15.820 about where you come from, about your background, your employment.

00:04:19.220 Let everybody get to know you a bit, and then we'll turn to the Scientology issue more specifically.

00:04:24.300 I'll do my best.

00:04:26.360 How about I start from present time, and then I backfill a little bit.

00:04:29.500 Sure.

00:04:30.340 So, one of the things I spend most of my time on right now is my YouTube channel, Growing Up in Scientology.

00:04:35.140 And so, that alludes to the fact that I was essentially born and raised in Scientology.

00:04:38.940 I was actually four years old when my mom got into Scientology as a single mom of two young boys.

00:04:46.480 And I was 12 years old, maybe just 13 years old, when I was taken out of school and started working for Scientology full-time.

00:04:56.920 Full-time, not day job.

00:04:58.900 You know, 100 hours a week, 110 hours a week.

00:05:01.600 And so, you know, my first employment history was Scientology.

00:05:09.380 And I've had employment history.

00:05:11.820 After getting into Scientology, I've had employment history after leaving Scientology.

00:05:17.020 But just probably most relevant to the conversation that we're having is, you know, by the time I was 30 years old, I'd spent half my life working for Scientology as a staff member.

00:05:26.960 And what they call a C organization member.

00:05:29.080 Those are the guys who signed the billion-year contracts.

00:05:32.900 So, yeah.

00:05:35.040 I mean, we can go deeper in that if you want, but that's the nutshell.

00:05:38.480 Well, okay, I think there's two directions we could go there.

00:05:41.140 The first is, well, let's start when you were four, even.

00:05:46.260 So, what do you think it was that attracted your mother to Scientology?

00:05:50.800 Like, you said she was a single mother.

00:05:52.360 And so, it's easy for single mothers to be preyed upon because they're quite isolated, generally speaking.

00:05:58.260 And so, that's a problem.

00:05:59.700 What do you think?

00:06:00.860 And what has she told you about what pulled her in that direction to begin with?

00:06:04.920 And what was her structure of belief or background, you know, say metaphysically, before the blandishments of Scientology were laid out in front of her?

00:06:15.300 So, she was raised a Christian.

00:06:16.860 She was raised in a very religious household, going to church every Sunday.

00:06:21.320 I don't know exactly to what degree she would describe herself as having been a true believer.

00:06:25.840 But I know the way she's explained it to me, it was just this feeling, this understanding that there is something more, something greater, something outside ourselves, but not necessarily having bought in to the traditional religious story.

00:06:42.880 She always, there was that.

00:06:43.980 She was meant for something greater.

00:06:45.340 She was here for some reason.

00:06:46.900 There was some greater value to life than is, you know, just a parent in this mortal realm.

00:06:52.300 And for her, Scientology answered that question that, you know, it filled that hole.

00:06:59.180 Whatever shape that hole was, it was a Scientology-shaped hole, apparently.

00:07:03.720 She was introduced to Scientology by a woman her same age, roughly, who had just had her own son just a few weeks before my brother and I were born.

00:07:13.880 She was not a single mother.

00:07:15.200 But that relationship between my mom and this woman named Cheryl who got her into Scientology, that's how my mom was introduced, was through her friend Cheryl.

00:07:25.180 That's how most people are introduced to Scientology, is through some friend or associate, you know, business associate or acquaintance or something like that.

00:07:32.340 Now, the thing about Scientology, particularly at the lower levels, is Scientology is something that bills itself as requiring no belief, no faith.

00:07:42.080 Scientology does not see itself as a faith, even though it does see itself as a religion.

00:07:48.800 Now, and the distinction between those things, if there is one, might be an interesting thing for us to discuss.

00:07:53.140 But Scientologists do not believe that you have to believe in Scientology.

00:07:59.200 They believe it is a technology.

00:08:00.340 It is something you apply.

00:08:02.580 It can be measured.

00:08:03.980 The results can be measured.

00:08:05.580 You know, they have this device, the e-meter, that they believe assists with this measurement.

00:08:12.140 And so, it's this kind of two-sided coin where my mom's looking for some greater meaning, looking for some greater purpose, looking for a way to help others.

00:08:21.360 Scientology doesn't, you know, she comes across Scientology and she goes,

00:08:23.920 Oh, it's something that will give me greater purpose and greater meaning, but isn't asking me to believe in X, Y, and Z.

00:08:30.680 We can just do.

00:08:32.460 There's a very kind of like self-helpy, applied, practical aspect to Scientology, which, by the way, is why they call themselves an applied religious philosophy, is how a Scientologist would describe Scientology.

00:08:45.580 Okay, well, there's a bunch of things to delve into there.

00:08:48.620 So, let's list out some of them and we can pursue them.

00:08:51.440 So, your mother was raised religiously.

00:08:54.140 And so, there's two interpretations of that in the realm of possibility that spring to mind.

00:09:00.660 And one is that that prepared her to be subsumed into an alternate cult, right?

00:09:07.780 Because you might say, well, because she was raised in a religious family, she was in the belief that you should turn to some sort of religious belief system was inculcated into her.

00:09:17.880 You could also say that she needed that initial religious belief like everyone does, but it lacked something that she required, which is something you alluded to, which is the sense not only of a higher purpose that's specified for her, but a higher purpose that can be practically worked towards.

00:09:37.340 And then you also mentioned, and this has more broad implications, that Scientology was attractive to her because it claimed, at least at the outset, to be part of the technological enterprise, the scientific enterprise, you might say, that you didn't need faith.

00:09:54.400 There was a technology that was at hand.

00:09:56.540 It had that, at least, the facade of scientific acceptability.

00:10:00.900 We can talk about the e-meters in a while.

00:10:03.220 And that it was practical.

00:10:05.500 And so it seems to me that the most logical conclusion with regard to your mother isn't so much that her previous religious training had prepared her to be subsumed into a cult, but that the lack, that there were lacks in her previous religious training, for example, the specification of a particular destiny for her and the provision of practical, what would you say, practical guidelines for how she might act to bring the world into a higher harmony, all of that was attractive to her.

00:10:35.380 Does that seem, does that seem, does that seem about right?

00:10:37.580 Yeah, I would agree with that.

00:10:39.920 Okay, okay.

00:10:40.700 And we'll talk about the e-meter.

00:10:42.460 From my understanding of the e-meter is that it's a galvanometer.

00:10:46.320 And of course, that measures skin conductance changes in people's hands.

00:10:49.920 And, you know, when I did my PhD, we used a galvanometer, essentially.

00:10:56.180 It was a bit more sophisticated, but same basic idea back in the 1960s or thereabouts.

00:11:02.400 This was done even before then.

00:11:04.320 I think reaching all the way back to the 1920s, it was shown that, you know, you could ask people questions while they were having the skin conductance of their skin surfaces, usually their fingers measured.

00:11:14.920 And if something produces emotional arousal when it's touched upon, your skin conductance increases because you sweat a little bit and that makes electricity flow more easily.

00:11:26.980 And so you can use galvanometers to get at underlying complexes.

00:11:31.680 And I know that the Scientologists have capitalized on that idea and the overlap between what they do with the e-meter, if I understand it properly, and what psychophysiologists have done for 100 years with the galvanometer also adds a layer of scientific credibility to it.

00:11:49.620 So, you know, and there is some utility in trying to get to the bottom of things.

00:11:53.320 So let's unpack that a bit later.

00:11:55.460 Okay, so now she got introduced, invited, let's say, by a friend.

00:11:59.920 Now, if you're an avid adherent of the Scientology discipline, let's say, or cult, is it incumbent on you to try to bring other people into the faith and how is it, or into the enterprise, how is it that that's done and how is that also developed and fostered or trained?

00:12:23.540 So it's something that's highly encouraged.

00:12:25.580 It's not mandatory.

00:12:26.720 It's not required.

00:12:28.500 There's an incentive to do it because when you bring someone into Scientology, you're called their field staff member, their FSM, and that person is called your selectee.

00:12:38.780 And as an FSM, you get 10% or 15% commission on every dollar that person pays to Scientology for courses or auditing or straight donations.

00:12:48.820 So there's a financial incentive to bring people into Scientology in addition to the incentive.

00:12:55.300 Right, so there's a pyramid.

00:12:56.660 Is there a pyramid scheme element of that, or does it only go to one person?

00:13:03.300 Like, if your person brings in more people, is that also a benefit to you?

00:13:07.300 It's one level deep.

00:13:10.720 It's one level deep.

00:13:11.620 So you don't get overrides on your downline.

00:13:13.620 You only get credit for the people you directly bring in.

00:13:17.340 And once you bring them in, you have to continue to be sort of their personal coach and mentor on their way up Scientology's bridge to total freedom.

00:13:25.320 Or another Scientologist can swoop in and become that person's FSM and get commissions for them. 0.54

00:13:31.640 Oh, I see.

00:13:32.140 So there's a competition for that as well, an ongoing competition.

00:13:35.600 Yes, it's definitely a zero-sum game.

00:13:38.320 Okay, let's start out by giving the devil his due, you know.

00:13:42.460 Obviously, your mother was attracted by this, and it's reasonable to assume that by hook or by crook,

00:13:48.400 something that was genuine or at least significantly attractive was offered to her.

00:13:54.480 What do you think Scientology did for her that filled the void that had opened up inside of her?

00:14:04.600 At the lower levels, Scientology gives you an explanation for what's wrong with you.

00:14:10.120 Or, you know, anything that you could, in an insecure way, feel is wrong with you.

00:14:14.620 Indecisiveness, not living up to your full potential, self-doubt, insecurity, all these things.

00:14:21.500 That the cause of this is called the reactive mind.

00:14:25.840 And that's kind of L. Ron Hubbard's version of the Freudian subconscious.

00:14:31.040 And that the reactive mind is a collection of all the recordings of pain and unconsciousness.

00:14:36.740 And these recordings are called engrams.

00:14:39.320 And these engrams compose your reactive mind.

00:14:42.300 And you're not to blame for the fact that you have a reactive mind.

00:14:47.400 It's not your fault.

00:14:48.680 The engrams are the source of all of this wrongness and negativity.

00:14:53.340 And Scientology and Dianetics give you the tools to resolve your reactive mind.

00:14:58.160 So there's an attractiveness to this, which is saying you're someone who always has wanted to do better than how you've been doing.

00:15:06.240 This thing called your reactive mind is holding you back.

00:15:08.680 It's not your fault.

00:15:09.820 And we have the technology through our procedures and our processes.

00:15:14.180 We can get rid of your reactive mind.

00:15:16.240 And that will leave you, once you shed your reactive mind, that basically leaves you as a perfect computing, analyzing, leaves you with a perfectly computing and analyzing mind.

00:15:27.760 That's the pitch in the beginning.

00:15:29.080 So it's kind of solving a lot of problems at once and shifting responsibility to something outside of yourself.

00:15:35.740 Right.

00:15:36.260 Now, is that clearing?

00:15:38.360 Yes.

00:15:38.820 The procedure of getting rid of your reactive mind is called clearing.

00:15:42.480 And then you achieve the state of clear.

00:15:44.160 And if you ever hear a Scientologist say, our goal is to clear the planet, that's actually what they mean.

00:15:49.200 It's getting the majority of the population of Earth up to Scientology's state of clear.

00:15:54.020 Okay, okay.

00:15:54.660 So we're going to give the devil his due on that front, too.

00:15:57.640 So, you know, obviously Hubbard pulled his ideas from the broader, like, intellectual body that was popular and developing during his time.

00:16:10.660 And all of what you just described is analogous to psychodynamic complex theory.

00:16:17.180 And so, and you can see, so let me give you an example of that.

00:16:21.160 So, if you're sitting with a client and they communicate a dream to you and you want to analyze the dream, you can look for corresponding literary motifs the same way you would when you're trying to understand any story and analyze it, thinking of a dream as a story.

00:16:42.880 But the association technique that Freud developed is predicated on the idea that you can flesh out the meaning of a dream or any thought, for that matter, any thought, by analyzing the pattern of associations that surround that thought or story.

00:17:01.880 So, for example, if there's an image in a dream, imagine that you were dreaming and you dreamt that you pulled a boot out of a rampaging river and there was a diamond inside of it.

00:17:15.020 So, you know, the first thing I would ask you is, well, what comes to mind, and you have to watch this, what comes to mind when you think of a river?

00:17:23.300 And then maybe a person will tell you a couple of stories about a river and then you can ask them about a boot and you can ask them what a diamond means.

00:17:29.500 And you try to flesh out the whole expanse of ideas that surrounds those images.

00:17:34.380 And what you're doing is investigating the structure of the associated ideas that gave rise to the images to begin with.

00:17:42.460 And what you'll find when you do that is that, and Freud laid this out first, is that if you pursue that with enough seriousness,

00:17:55.040 you'll find something at the bottom of it that's often an unsolved problem.

00:17:59.180 And that would be, so the engrams are memories, that's a good way of thinking about them.

00:18:04.580 And there are obstacles to people's progress that are implicit assumptions that they bring to bear about particular situations that are invisible impediments to their progress.

00:18:18.300 So, for example, I had a client who had a very traumatic experience in a hospital when she was about five.

00:18:27.300 She fell into the hands of a, she had kind of a dreadful accident.

00:18:31.940 She was in a shopping cart that actually rolled down a hill and it dumped her and hurt her quite badly.

00:18:36.700 And when she was put in the hospital, she fell into the hands of a very sadistic nurse who was kind of tormenting her behind the scenes.

00:18:43.780 And at that time, the hospitals didn't let parents visit because they felt that the continual introduction of a parent and the separation was harder on children than just the absence of the parents,

00:18:56.600 which is an absolutely preposterous, absurd, and cruel theory.

00:19:00.460 But that was the case. 0.94

00:19:01.840 And so she felt simultaneously betrayed, hurt, betrayed, and then she fell into the hands of this sadistic nurse. 0.99

00:19:09.720 And so when we were investigating some of the dream imagery associated with her memories, that story arose.

00:19:16.560 And she'd actually developed an entire complex of paranoia and suspicion in relationship to all establishments of authority.

00:19:26.480 Because when she was five, she had been betrayed by her parents who abandoned her in the hospital.

00:19:32.740 That's how she felt when she was five.

00:19:34.420 And then, of course, she fell into the hands of this psychopathic nurse who was basically torturing her behind the scenes. 0.99

00:19:40.720 And so it's often the case that—so what would happen to her as a consequence of that was that because she developed such a deep distrust of institutions,

00:19:52.360 every time she was involved with an institution, she got herself in trouble.

00:19:56.020 Because she was, you know, she was like a little puppy that growled, you know, when someone leaned down to pet it because it had been kicked too many times.

00:20:04.340 And her paranoia just got her in constant trouble with institutions.

00:20:08.440 And, of course, that fostered her belief that institutions were basically bad news.

00:20:12.820 The reason I'm going through all that is because the notion that there are invisible impediments to your progress that are nested inside your systems of memory, that's true.

00:20:23.600 And it's also true that clearing those—now, you don't clear them just by recognizing them.

00:20:29.560 You clear them by reconfiguring them, you know.

00:20:31.800 So with her, what we did was a pretty lengthy analysis of under what conditions a mature person would trust institutions and under what conditions you should be skeptical.

00:20:42.800 You know, we tried to generate a more mature viewpoint of institutions per se rather than this reflexive distrust, which was too unsophisticated and low resolution.

00:20:52.900 Now, the reason I went through all that is because that explanation is actually quite credible.

00:20:59.500 And even the alliance of the galvanometer with that explanation, that's derived directly from early psychoanalytic work in the 1920s because that's when all that started.

00:21:10.360 And psychologists, social psychologists and personality psychologists, psychophysiologists still use psychophysiological measurements of various sorts to infer the existence of these complexes that lurk behind the scenes.

00:21:26.180 It's a very integral part of psychology.

00:21:28.160 So you can understand, well, first of all, where those ideas actually came from, but even more importantly, why they would be attractive to people.

00:21:35.060 Now, you added another thing that was of interest.

00:21:37.500 I want to ask you more about this.

00:21:39.360 You said that the Scientologists also insist that this isn't your fault.

00:21:46.860 Now, the classic Christian attitude towards your complex of problems is that the degree to which it's your fault is open for dispute. 0.64

00:21:59.960 So let me give you an example of that.

00:22:01.820 So imagine that you have a mother who's kind of overbearing and overprotective, and you're a six-year-old kid, and you didn't do your homework one day, and so you decide to feign illness to skip school.

00:22:15.760 And your mother, who's overbearing and overprotective, also hasn't pursued her own life, and she's lonesome. 0.99

00:22:22.380 And so you tell her you're sick, but you're not, and she doesn't think you are, but she is just as happy if you're at home.

00:22:30.020 And so you might say, well, that's the mother's fault because she's so damn overbearing, but it's also, to some degree, the kid's fault because he's looking for an easy out.

00:22:39.660 And so, and this is what you do in good psychotherapy, too.

00:22:42.820 You know, like if I found out that you had a complex, the first thing I'd try to do is think, okay, well, what were the situational conditions that gave rise to that?

00:22:51.980 Like maybe you had a very overbearing father, but I'd also want to find out, well, what temptations did you fall prey to, let's say, that increased the probability that you would develop that complex for reasons of your own?

00:23:06.660 Those are called secondary gain.

00:23:08.160 So, for example, this is the secondary gain issue I'm curious about.

00:23:12.080 You said that these, what did you call them?

00:23:16.880 Engrams.

00:23:17.360 These engrams, these engrams in the reactive mind, they're not your fault.

00:23:22.380 See, you can see why that would be attractive, right?

00:23:24.640 Because it enables you to place the responsibility for your suffering on someone else's, on someone or something else.

00:23:32.220 And so I'm wondering what you think about that.

00:23:34.620 Like, is that one of the things about Scientology that's particularly manipulative?

00:23:38.120 Or there's a mercy in it, you know, and I mean, lots of people are abused by their parents and abused by society.

00:23:44.440 And it's not surprising they're hurt and it's not exactly their fault.

00:23:48.200 So what do you think about that?

00:23:50.500 Going online without ExpressVPN is like not paying attention to the safety demonstration on a flight.

00:23:55.980 Most of the time, you'll probably be fine.

00:23:57.860 But what if one day that weird yellow mask drops down from overhead and you have no idea what to do?

00:24:03.780 In our hyper-connected world, your digital privacy isn't just a luxury.

00:24:07.560 It's a fundamental right.

00:24:08.860 Every time you connect to an unsecured network in a cafe, hotel, or airport,

00:24:13.160 you're essentially broadcasting your personal information to anyone with a technical know-how to intercept it.

00:24:18.180 And let's be clear, it doesn't take a genius hacker to do this.

00:24:21.040 With some off-the-shelf hardware, even a tech-savvy teenager could potentially access your passwords, bank logins, and credit card details.

00:24:28.820 Now, you might think, what's the big deal? Who'd want my data anyway?

00:24:32.420 Well, on the dark web, your personal information could fetch up to $1,000.

00:24:37.040 That's right, there's a whole underground economy built on stolen identities.

00:24:41.080 Enter ExpressVPN.

00:24:42.840 It's like a digital fortress, creating an encrypted tunnel between your device and the internet.

00:24:47.120 Their encryption is so robust that it would take a hacker with a supercomputer over a billion years to crack it.

00:24:53.180 But don't let its power fool you.

00:24:55.000 ExpressVPN is incredibly user-friendly.

00:24:57.340 With just one click, you're protected across all your devices.

00:25:00.360 Phones, laptops, tablets, you name it.

00:25:02.540 That's why I use ExpressVPN whenever I'm traveling or working from a coffee shop.

00:25:06.680 It gives me peace of mind knowing that my research, communications, and personal data are shielded from prying eyes.

00:25:12.400 Secure your online data today by visiting expressvpn.com slash jordan.

00:25:17.120 That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash jordan, and you can get an extra three months free.

00:25:23.680 ExpressVPN dot com slash jordan.

00:25:27.900 The appeal and the attractiveness of being told that everything that's wrong with you is because of this thing,

00:25:33.400 and you are not to blame for this thing,

00:25:37.120 the attractiveness of that is why that is the message Scientology gives you at the introductory lower levels.

00:25:43.960 That's so it's the bait.

00:25:45.120 The switch is that as you progress in Scientology, you come to realize that actually, as a spiritual being,

00:25:53.720 everything that happens to you, by you, by others, to others, is actually your fault.

00:26:00.520 And to assume full responsibility, you have to understand how you are actually the prime cause for everything that has ever happened,

00:26:07.580 including happened to you.

00:26:09.840 And so, this is the difference between Dianetics and Scientology, actually.

00:26:16.400 Dianetics is supposed to be a mental science, and it's supposed to be the process of getting rid of these engrams.

00:26:22.240 And then, fast forward a couple years after L. Ron Hubbard started Dianetics, and then he started pursuing the spiritual angle, the religion angle.

00:26:30.140 And so, instead of trying to recall moments of pain and unconsciousness as early as, you know, prenatal incidents in the womb,

00:26:37.020 all of a sudden, people were remembering painful incidents of pain and unconsciousness from previous lives.

00:26:42.200 And that opened the door to, oh, previous lives, what's happening here, the introduction of an immortal spiritual being.

00:26:49.500 And then L. Ron Hubbard continued on with the religion angle and said, well, actually, as a spiritual being,

00:26:55.360 you were the one creating your own reactive mind.

00:26:59.020 And once you've gotten rid of your own reactive mind, L. Ron Hubbard introduces you to the confidential upper-level materials,

00:27:06.520 which is, by the way, you as a spiritual being, in Scientology, they call you a thetan.

00:27:11.740 You have now gotten rid of your own reactive mind.

00:27:14.320 But now, the reason why there's still things wrong with you is you have tens of thousands of other thetans, 1.00

00:27:20.960 spiritual beings, stuck to you as parasites, as entities on your body, all over your body. 0.98

00:27:27.760 And those beings all have their own reactive mind. 0.75

00:27:31.680 And those beings are, through some sort of, you know, spiritual connection, projecting onto you.

00:27:38.740 You are experiencing their pains.

00:27:40.740 You are experiencing their neuroses, psychoses, whatever, you know, anything that could be wrong with you.

00:27:46.240 And so now you have to go through a years-long process of telepathically counseling,

00:27:54.120 using the Scientology procedures,

00:27:55.480 these entities, these beings, these thetans,

00:27:59.400 to basically exercise them off of your body, wake them up,

00:28:03.180 so that they'll realize who they are, what they are,

00:28:05.820 and go and pick up a new body at the local maternity ward, 1.00

00:28:08.680 and grow up to be a cleared individual, and likely join Scientology.

00:28:14.440 So this idea of getting rid of your reactive mind is something that's introduced to you at the very lowest levels,

00:28:20.120 and applies all the way up to the highest levels.

00:28:22.940 It just switches from getting rid of your own reactive mind to getting rid of these entities' reactive minds.

00:28:30.280 Okay, okay.

00:28:31.020 So let me take that apart in a couple of ways.

00:28:33.440 So the first question I have there is,

00:28:37.580 how is the switch from it's not your fault to it's your responsibility,

00:28:44.500 how does that come about, and what's the rationale for that?

00:28:47.700 It comes about when you introduce the immortal spiritual thetan, 0.99

00:28:56.400 the immortal spirit into the equation,

00:28:58.640 and L. Ron Hubbard's version of that is that about 65 trillion years ago,

00:29:05.340 there was some sort of spiritual big bang when all spiritual entities that exist came into existence.

00:29:12.960 You'd think he would talk a little bit more about this in Scientology,

00:29:15.500 but he really doesn't, and that these spiritual entities are all natively godlike.

00:29:24.500 And I'm not like the Christian god, but like, you know, ripping atmospheres off of galaxies, 1.00

00:29:34.040 creating planets, destroying planets, creating universes,

00:29:37.400 like that each spiritual entity here on Earth, me, you, we are natively godlike,

00:29:43.980 and we've basically, we basically got so bored with our power that we wanted a more interesting game.

00:29:51.620 So we decided to handicap ourselves in various ways,

00:29:54.660 and then just choose to forget that we had handicapped ourselves.

00:29:58.020 We used to not even exist in a physical universe.

00:30:00.160 There used to not be a physical universe.

00:30:01.680 So we created a physical universe to have something that we could then trap ourselves in,

00:30:05.800 to have some sort of a game that we could try to,

00:30:08.540 some sort of a trap that we could try to get out of,

00:30:10.460 to have this, you know, interesting experience.

00:30:11.980 And without being too long-winded about this,

00:30:16.960 it's basically when L. Ron Hubbard makes the jump from just trying to be

00:30:22.160 a poor man's mental health care, like a mental therapy, 0.85

00:30:27.300 Dianetics was supposed to be a mental therapy, 0.89

00:30:29.420 to going, okay, we're going to slightly jump off from what we're pretending is a science.

00:30:34.960 Now we're going to get into religion and spiritual philosophy.

00:30:40.520 We're going to, and honestly, that was introduced by going into past lives.

00:30:45.140 When you start going into past life memories,

00:30:46.800 you have to talk about some entity that transcends death,

00:30:50.300 and that becomes Scientology's thetan, the soul, the spirit.

00:30:53.260 Right, well, okay, so there is, he is introduced, see,

00:30:57.420 part of the reason that cults have such attractiveness is that they do harness archetypal ideas,

00:31:04.120 right, eternal religious ideas, that's a good way of thinking about it,

00:31:07.420 or patterns of attention and action that are intrinsic to what it means to be human.

00:31:15.100 And there's clearly the introduction of a karma-like idea there, right,

00:31:19.700 that your destiny is a consequence of your past choices.

00:31:24.800 I mean, that's a tenet of Hinduism, obviously,

00:31:28.100 and that you're playing out the consequences of this infinite array of choices

00:31:32.340 extended over the longest possible period.

00:31:35.220 And it's also the case that, see, and this is a very tricky issue.

00:31:38.960 So Dostoevsky said, for example, that you're not only responsible for everything that you do

00:31:43.960 and that everything that happens to you, but for everything that everyone else does

00:31:47.460 and everything that happens to them, right?

00:31:49.200 And that's, well, that's a doctrine that's associated with the broadest possible conception of responsibility.

00:31:54.920 And then the Buddha, now, when the Buddha hits enlightenment under the bow tree,

00:32:01.060 he's offered the opportunity to stay in paradise forever, but, you know, eternally.

00:32:06.860 And he rejects that because he believes that it would be inappropriate for him

00:32:11.840 to occupy the paradisal state unless everyone was brought into the same state.

00:32:18.280 You know, and so in many religious systems, there is a transition point

00:32:22.640 that you might consider equivalent to the initiation into the religious enterprise

00:32:27.840 that brings people beyond their local concerns, let's say, with their own destiny,

00:32:33.080 and provides them with the insight, let's say, that they are, in some sense,

00:32:37.340 it's ultimately responsible, right?

00:32:39.340 And then God only knows what that ultimate responsibility means.

00:32:42.460 Now, Hubbard concretized that and added a level of, you know,

00:32:46.820 a variety of levels of strange narrative overlay, including the idea of these thetans.

00:32:53.960 But let's take that apart a little bit, too.

00:32:57.000 You know, you might think that you have your act together quite well.

00:33:02.040 You know, let's just assume that you do as an autonomous individual.

00:33:05.800 But then, you know, you're home for Christmas and you go see your family members

00:33:09.800 and there's all sorts of unresolved issues around that within your family.

00:33:15.200 And those are definitely affecting you in all sorts of ways, right?

00:33:18.840 And then in the broader social community, you're going to be interacting with people

00:33:22.280 who are possessed by one idea or another,

00:33:24.580 and that's going to interfere with your movement forward.

00:33:27.220 And so, in some sense, there is no redemption for you in an absolute sense

00:33:33.380 in the presence of the pathology, unresolved pathology of the past and of other people.

00:33:40.200 And so, it sounds to me like Hubbard concretized that idea with the notion of these thetans.

00:33:46.060 And so, you said that there, he conceptualized them as sort of stuck to you.

00:33:51.460 And so, can you elaborate a little bit more on that?

00:33:53.720 Like, how did he conceptualize these phaeton-like beings?

00:33:58.800 And what does it mean that they're intimately associated with you

00:34:03.980 and that you have to also clear them?

00:34:07.460 And how do you go about doing that?

00:34:09.680 So, this gets, you know, into some things that have been widely ridiculed,

00:34:14.620 fairly so in places like South Park and other places on the internet.

00:34:18.400 So, at the lower levels of Scientology, the non-confidential levels,

00:34:23.320 everyone's considered a thetan.

00:34:26.000 A thetan is the primary animator of the body. 1.00

00:34:27.960 It is the, basically the prime mover, unmoved.

00:34:30.840 We are, I'm a thetan, you're a thetan. 1.00

00:34:32.500 A thetan is something you are, not something you have. 1.00

00:34:35.140 Okay.

00:34:37.380 It's not until you get to the upper confidential levels of Scientology

00:34:43.120 that L. Ron Hubbard introduces this concept of a body thetan and a thetan cluster.

00:34:49.680 And his explanation for what this is and how it came about is that,

00:34:54.060 and by the way, Scientology's conception of life in the galaxy is very much like Star Wars.

00:34:57.880 Every planet or every star system has intelligent biological life.

00:35:02.820 Okay.

00:35:02.940 So, L. Ron Hubbard discussed this thing called the Galactic Federation,

00:35:07.860 however many, in this galaxy of however many planets that was composed of.

00:35:12.380 There was this politician, Hubbard decided to give him a name.

00:35:15.480 It's Xenu or Xemu.

00:35:18.020 And he decided his system was too populated.

00:35:22.640 So, his plan to get rid of, you know, a good portion of the population

00:35:26.540 was to call everybody in for tax audits under false pretense.

00:35:29.660 And then when they showed up, to freeze them in glycol and load them up on space planes

00:35:34.040 and fly them to Earth and drop these people into volcanoes 0.81

00:35:37.840 and blow them up with hydrogen bombs. 0.99

00:35:39.740 Now, this incident was so severe. 0.98

00:35:42.340 This was such an engram for them.

00:35:45.200 And this happened about 76 million years ago.

00:35:47.720 Of course, the volcanoes on Earth didn't exist 76 million years ago,

00:35:50.520 but don't think about it too deeply.

00:35:52.380 And this incident for these beings was so,

00:35:55.900 you can't kill a thetan, but it came about as close to it as you could. 1.00

00:36:00.740 That it's basically left these beings in this half-dead, unconscious, you know, crazy state.

00:36:07.340 And they're just blowing in the winds of Earth for the last 76 million years.

00:36:11.360 And so then when, you know, the human body evolved through natural selection,

00:36:16.380 which Scientologists are not opposed to necessarily,

00:36:19.440 Hubbard had his own spin on evolution,

00:36:22.000 but it doesn't necessarily contradict with natural selection.

00:36:25.860 That when human bodies arrived here on Earth, 0.65

00:36:28.680 a fresh set of thetans that were not exposed to the volcano incident,

00:36:33.320 a fresh set of thetans were rounded up and dropped off to this planet 1.00

00:36:37.280 so that this planet could be a prison planet.

00:36:39.700 And L. Ron Hubbard says that if you're on this planet,

00:36:42.680 you were a troublemaker, you were a rebel, you were an artist,

00:36:46.780 you were someone who couldn't be controlled,

00:36:48.420 the system wanted to, didn't like you,

00:36:51.340 thought you were going to help overthrow the system one day.

00:36:53.820 You're like the hippies, spiritual hippies.

00:36:56.940 And so L. Ron Hubbard creates this explanation that this is a prison planet,

00:37:03.140 that we are basically doomed to live lifetime after lifetime after lifetime,

00:37:08.520 with our memories being wiped in the between-lives implant station.

00:37:12.060 And that the fact that we live, we believe we live single lives,

00:37:17.860 for the most part, most people on Earth are not spiritual or religious.

00:37:20.740 We believe we came from mud.

00:37:22.940 L. Ron Hubbard was very much, he hates psychiatry,

00:37:27.360 psychiatrists, psychology, Darwin, you know,

00:37:30.860 anything opposed to spirituality,

00:37:33.000 Hubbard, you know, later on claimed to be absolutely against.

00:37:36.060 And so, and even, Hubbard would even say that the religious people on Earth,

00:37:43.120 who, according to Hubbard, have been pre-programmed by our alien captor overlords,

00:37:49.360 sort of spiritually programmed to invent these stories,

00:37:53.240 the world's major religions, to sort of keep us occupied,

00:37:57.300 and to keep us from realizing that Earth is a prison,

00:38:01.260 and to keep us from seeking a way to get out of the prison,

00:38:05.060 and that even the religions of Earth serve the purpose of helping to keep the population of Earth

00:38:11.540 trapped, trapped spiritually.

00:38:15.040 Why, why is it, what's the explanation for the motivation to trap us spiritually

00:38:21.520 and to put us on the prison planet?

00:38:23.120 Like, what's his, so basically he's trying to conjure up an explanation

00:38:27.700 for the fallen state of man, speaking, let's say, from a Judeo-Christian perspective.

00:38:32.440 Yeah, and we have to address that, because people do feel that,

00:38:36.280 well, people do feel that the world is a veil of tears,

00:38:41.920 and that that requires an explanation.

00:38:43.760 So, why, and you associated that to some degree with the fact that

00:38:48.180 the Thetan spirits who were trapped on Earth were there 1.00

00:38:51.180 because they were rebels, or because they were artists?

00:38:53.600 Starting a business can be tough, but thanks to Shopify,

00:38:58.600 running your online storefront is easier than ever.

00:39:01.560 Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business,

00:39:05.820 from the launch your online shop stage, all the way to the did we just hit a million orders stage,

00:39:10.780 Shopify is here to help you grow.

00:39:12.880 Our marketing team uses Shopify every day to sell our merchandise,

00:39:16.080 and we love how easy it is to add more items, ship products, and track conversions.

00:39:20.180 With Shopify, customize your online store to your style with flexible templates and powerful tools,

00:39:26.200 alongside an endless list of integrations and third-party apps,

00:39:29.420 like on-demand printing, accounting, and chatbots.

00:39:32.420 Shopify helps you turn browsers into buyers with the internet's best converting checkout,

00:39:36.740 up to 36% better compared to other leading e-commerce platforms.

00:39:40.800 No matter how big you want to grow, Shopify gives you everything you need

00:39:43.900 to take control and take your business to the next level.

00:39:46.560 Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash jbp, all lowercase.

00:39:53.080 Go to shopify.com slash jbp now to grow your business, no matter what stage you're in.

00:39:58.400 That's shopify.com slash jbp.

00:40:03.380 So there's a, there's, but rebelling, rebelling against what exactly?

00:40:08.300 So Hubbard doesn't spend a lot of time talking about this, but it would just essentially be that,

00:40:15.940 just think of Earth as the gulag of the Galactic Federation.

00:40:19.500 Anyone who's speaking out, anyone who might become popular enough to gather enough power in society

00:40:28.260 to be a thought leader, an opinion leader, maybe one day lead a revolt,

00:40:33.020 that anyone that Xenu or anyone like Xenu, I mean, his name could have been Bob for all that it matters,

00:40:39.060 that this is just a dumping ground, a dumping ground, a prison where no one's,

00:40:43.940 people are going to forget that we were ever even sent here.

00:40:46.720 No one will be coming to break us out.

00:40:49.080 And it's really only L. Ron Hubbard and Dianetics and Scientology that for the first time ever

00:40:53.060 has offered the solution to free everyone from this trap.

00:40:56.140 Now you mentioned Buddha.

00:40:56.980 Buddha, you might be interested to know that L. Ron Hubbard claimed to have been Buddha

00:41:01.060 and claimed that as Buddha, the state that he thought he created,

00:41:06.380 and you'll know better than I, is it Bodhi? Is it Bodhi?

00:41:09.780 Do you know? I mean, I don't know.

00:41:11.120 Bodhi, yeah.

00:41:11.640 Okay. That he thought Bodhi was a permanent state,

00:41:15.060 but afterwards he learned it was only temporary and he had to come back

00:41:19.120 and create Dianetics and Scientology to create a permanent state that you would not...

00:41:24.220 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That makes sense.

00:41:25.840 Yeah.

00:41:26.540 Well, I'd say, okay, so it's so interesting, eh?

00:41:28.440 Because Hubbard was a science fiction writer and this is such an interesting meld of

00:41:33.800 archetypal religious idea and science fiction presumption.

00:41:37.120 And it is also the case, by the way, that, you know, science fiction is very,

00:41:41.040 and fantasy associated with it, is extremely popular among atheistic materialist people like engineers

00:41:47.860 and the more technically minded.

00:41:49.700 Like, they get a tremendous amount of their religious education and motivation through science fiction and fantasy.

00:41:57.580 And you can see that manifest itself in the, you know, absolute cult-like followings of shows like Star Trek and Star Wars.

00:42:07.520 And Hubbard was certainly part of that dynamic complex.

00:42:11.460 I mean, I don't remember how many science fiction books he wrote, but plenty.

00:42:15.040 And so you can see this, you can see this as a more religious manifestation of a much broader cultural proclivity

00:42:24.040 to turn this kind of mythologizing into something approximating a belief set.

00:42:28.880 And that's certainly the case with Star Trek and Star Wars.

00:42:32.220 You even see it to some degree in the Marvel universe, right, with the notion that the galaxy is populated by these cosmic beings.

00:42:38.240 It's a recreation of the divine hierarchy of the Greeks and the Romans, essentially.

00:42:47.360 It's a recreation of the same ideas.

00:42:49.340 And so how much, okay, so I can see the archetypal rationale for many of these ideas.

00:42:56.760 Now, there's a couple of things you touched on that are, again, temptations, I would say.

00:43:01.900 But they also rely on archetypal structuring.

00:43:04.540 So you don't get initiated into the mysteries until you've demonstrated your commitment to the religion.

00:43:12.400 That's not something unique to Scientology.

00:43:15.820 And it's confidential, so that makes it into a mystery religion.

00:43:20.120 But there's also a really interesting appeal to narcissism embedded in it.

00:43:24.940 Because from what I've been able to derive from what you've told me,

00:43:28.440 Hubbard is also essentially describing, he's presenting to his higher-level acolytes the possibility that they're truly remarkable divine beings, right,

00:43:39.100 marked out by their ability to become potentially dangerously charismatic and to pose a threat to the cosmic tyrannical order.

00:43:48.920 And you can imagine that that's also, you know, it's certainly the case that the typical sort of nerdy engineer who's a Star Wars acolyte, let's say,

00:43:57.920 likes to style himself in his fantasies in the image of Mark Hamill's character, right, and to look for a mentor like Obi-Wan Kenobi.

00:44:08.280 I mean, and so the notion that Hubbard could, because you might ask yourself, well, what's enticing people farther down the rabbit hole once they've hit that threshold of confidentiality and the higher mysteries are revealed?

00:44:21.100 And the revelation that you have this infinite responsibility to set the world right, but that you're also this sort of being that has that capacity because of your intrinsic specialness,

00:44:31.480 you can understand that that's a pretty potent and heady offering, especially once you're in it.

00:44:37.420 Why? Like, you were in it for a long time, and I mean, you said you were born into it, so, you know, that makes it more complicated.

00:44:43.300 But what element of ego do you think was present in what Scientology offered you that was psychologically attractive to you?

00:44:53.300 So, for me, and the experience of someone who was put into it, brought into it, pushed into it as a child is greatly different than someone who chose to join as an adult.

00:45:04.820 I truly believed in the most fundamental level of the Scientology story, that we are eternal spiritual beings, that these bodies are actually a prison of their own type,

00:45:17.600 and that with enough Scientology auditing, you can get to the point where you can causatively and stably exterior at will with full perceptions, go in and out of your body at will.

00:45:29.040 You could create this to remote viewing. That is essentially what Scientologists are hoping to accomplish, is to get to a point spiritually where you can be fully, stably exterior of your body at will and with full perception.

00:45:44.620 So, it's not some vague sense or feeling. It's like, as clearly as I'm looking at you from behind my eyeballs right now, I would be able to pop out over here and do the exact same thing and look at myself from behind.

00:45:56.440 And that might seem like an interesting little parlor trick that people are hoping they're going to attain, except that the ability to do that would be evidence that you are completely free from the pins that are holding you to this prison, this mortal flesh.

00:46:12.380 And that you'd think that once you achieve that ability, you should be able to stop, keep reincarnating here on Earth.

00:46:20.240 You should be able to go out to, you know, visit all the other, get born on another planet somewhere or something.

00:46:25.360 And L. Ron Hubbard said, no, no, no, no, you don't want your fellow mankind on your conscience.

00:46:29.140 So, if you get to that level in Scientology, it's incumbent upon you to come back, reincarnate, grow up again in a new body, and help get more people into Scientology and up Scientology's bridge to total freedom.

00:46:41.640 Because, keep in mind, becoming this natively all-powerful spiritual being doesn't inherently give you the power to help your fellow mankind.

00:46:50.760 You can still only help your fellow mankind by using Scientology's technology.

00:46:54.820 And so, Scientologists are hoping to get to the point where they achieve this spiritual ability and also are able to bypass, I mentioned this word before, but I didn't describe it, the between-lives implant station.

00:47:07.280 So, these are literal, you know, maybe a combination of physical and metaphysical locations that Scientologists believe exist on the moon and Mars and Venus and whatever.

00:47:16.080 And that we're programmed as beings, as a part of our sentence to be, you know, to this prison planet.

00:47:21.080 We're programmed that once our body dies, we, you know, flash over to the implant station, get our memory wiped, or fate and memory wiped, flash back down, beamed back down to Earth into a new baby body, and you live a brand new life with full amnesia of your prior life and lives.

00:47:39.560 And Scientologists believe that with enough auditing, you can achieve this skill of being fully, stably exterior at will with full perceptions, and also the awareness and the ability to bypass the between-lives implant station, so that when you come back next lifetime, you'll have full and total recall of everything you learned in Scientology.

00:47:56.120 You won't have to get trained on how to be a Scientology auditor again.

00:47:59.300 You'll retain that knowledge, and you can just hit the ground running as, you know, I don't know, a 12-, 13-, 14-year-old Scientology auditor, helping to move more people up to the state of clear.

00:48:08.100 Achieving this state of clear, getting rid of your reactive mind, is everything Scientology is supposed to be about.

00:48:16.880 Now, in modern times, it's become nothing but a real estate fundraising scam.

00:48:20.360 But, you know, if we're talking about back when L. Ron Hubbard was actually running things, achieving the state of clear and getting at least half the population of Earth to achieve the state of clear is the day-to-day mission of Scientology.

00:48:35.240 Okay, okay, so let's parallel two things here.

00:48:38.880 So, I think we've done a good job of giving the devil his due.

00:48:42.520 Now, what we might ask ourselves is, well, Hubbard obviously had a talent for tapping into the archetypal fantasy substrate.

00:48:51.260 He wouldn't have been a successful science fiction author if he hadn't been able to do that, so he certainly had some talent in that regard.

00:48:56.880 Now, you made, I guess I would ask, like, so then, given all this, its attractiveness on the ethical front, its explanatory power, why, and the fact that you were born into it,

00:49:12.760 why in the world did you start to become skeptical?

00:49:18.180 On what grounds did you manifest that skepticism?

00:49:21.700 And how is that associated with your kind of off-the-cuff comment there at the end that, you know, this is degenerated into nothing but a giant real estate scam?

00:49:31.160 Right, and this brings us back to the beginning of our discussion.

00:49:34.280 It's like, well, we need to live in a metaphysical realm.

00:49:37.880 We need to live in a story that, what would you say, offers food for the craving we have for a metaphysical explanation to round out our lives.

00:49:51.840 And Hubbard provided a very Baroque and elaborate explanation, which isn't without its internal logic.

00:49:57.980 Now, but you obviously decided at some point that this wasn't for you or maybe for anyone else.

00:50:04.080 And so, apart from the, you know, science fiction preposterousness of the entire account, which, as I said, is grounded in a set of archetypal ideas,

00:50:13.960 what is it that, well, let's say, what bounced you out of the Scientology conceptual world?

00:50:21.880 All right, let me take a whack at this.

00:50:25.500 Because it's never just one thing, but I'm going to try not to get too far into the weeds on this.

00:50:29.160 And let me first make sure I fully answered your previous question, which was, even as a person being born into it, what was it that appealed to the ego of it?

00:50:39.180 And so, for me, it was actually believing that this is a prison.

00:50:45.500 We do all need to be free from the prison.

00:50:47.600 And that these upper confidential levels, which I had never done.

00:50:50.560 I did not know what was on them.

00:50:52.040 These upper confidential levels really did deliver that result.

00:50:55.880 And that basically, we're in the matrix here.

00:50:57.560 And by doing Scientology, you get unplugged from the matrix.

00:51:01.780 And nothing could possibly be more important than that.

00:51:04.800 And even though I could see people in my environment as a young, little, good Scientology staff member,

00:51:11.120 I could see people who had done all of Scientology's auditing levels.

00:51:14.280 And I could see that they were no more special in any way than I was, not having done any of the levels.

00:51:20.440 That was evident to me at a very young age.

00:51:22.260 I still let the belief in what Scientologists call the upper unreleased OT levels.

00:51:29.800 See, in Scientology, you can only go up to OT 8.

00:51:32.920 Well, there's this story that L. Ron Hubbard went off for the last six years of his life and created OT 9 through 15.

00:51:38.640 And that when he dropped his body in 1986, he didn't die.

00:51:42.840 He didn't have a stroke.

00:51:44.060 He causatively shed his body after finishing up through OT 15.

00:51:49.480 And he shed his body so that he could continue on with upper OT level research that his body was preventing him from being able to do.

00:51:55.200 So, the myth that I believed as a Scientologist is the myth of the upper unreleased OT levels, OT 9 through OT 15.

00:52:04.640 Okay?

00:52:05.100 That simple little idea that the real magic is still in the vault.

00:52:11.120 And if we can only expand Scientology's current organizations up to a certain level based on the instructions L. Ron Hubbard left behind,

00:52:17.940 these levels will be able to be released and we'll finally be able to have auditing that allows us to become fully, stably exterior at will with full perception.

00:52:26.380 That, for me, was the linchpin.

00:52:27.960 That, for me, was like my version of believing in a heaven.

00:52:31.300 In today's chaotic world, many of us are searching for a way to aim higher and find spiritual peace.

00:52:37.180 But here's the thing.

00:52:38.420 Prayer, the most common tool we have, isn't just about saying whatever comes to mind.

00:52:42.560 It's a skill that needs to be developed.

00:52:44.900 That's where HALO comes in.

00:52:46.300 As the number one prayer and meditation app, HALO is launching an exceptional new series called How to Pray.

00:52:52.600 Imagine learning how to use scripture as a launchpad for profound conversations with God,

00:52:57.560 how to properly enter into imaginative prayer,

00:53:00.300 and how to incorporate prayers reaching far back in church history.

00:53:04.540 This isn't your average guided meditation.

00:53:06.720 It's a comprehensive two-week journey into the heart of prayer,

00:53:10.100 led by some of the most respected spiritual leaders of our time.

00:53:13.240 From guests including Bishop Robert Barron, Father Mike Schmitz, and Jonathan Rumi,

00:53:18.280 known for his role as Jesus in the hit series The Chosen,

00:53:21.320 you'll discover prayer techniques that have stood the test of time,

00:53:24.520 while equipping yourself with the tools needed to face life's challenges with renewed strength.

00:53:29.280 Ready to revolutionize your prayer life?

00:53:31.540 You can check out the new series, as well as an extensive catalog of guided prayers,

00:53:35.380 when you download the HALO app.

00:53:37.540 Just go to HALO.com slash Jordan and download the HALO app today for an exclusive three-month trial.

00:53:43.400 That's HALO.com slash Jordan.

00:53:45.760 Elevate your prayer life today.

00:53:49.740 Right?

00:53:50.420 Right.

00:53:51.000 Okay.

00:53:51.440 Well, did that also help to explain to you

00:53:54.020 why the people who had gone through the clearing process

00:53:57.440 were still not sufficiently special?

00:54:00.660 It's because, well, they'd gone a long ways,

00:54:02.400 but there was still much more to be discovered.

00:54:04.520 Yes, exactly.

00:54:06.680 Exactly.

00:54:07.240 And so what do you think, okay, so let's look into that a bit.

00:54:10.100 Like, what do you think, what do you think made you find that appealing?

00:54:15.840 Like, it was the knowledge of, I guess it was the knowledge

00:54:18.820 that there were still things you could discover that would enlighten you,

00:54:22.960 that were still part and parcel of the process

00:54:25.840 that you'd already invested a fair bit of your life into,

00:54:28.740 and that also had, like, encapsulated your mother.

00:54:31.460 I mean, because to step outside of that, you have to let go of a lot, right?

00:54:35.260 You have to think, oh, my God, my mother was far off the beaten track,

00:54:39.400 and that's a really complicated thing to come to terms with.

00:54:41.860 And then you have to come to terms with the fact

00:54:43.860 that you were sort of arbitrarily placed in a position at your birth

00:54:47.360 where you were engaged, you know, involved in this cult,

00:54:50.920 which seems to be kind of unfair at a cosmic level,

00:54:53.300 and then you have to reevaluate all of your own beliefs.

00:54:55.800 Like, there's a lot that you have to let go of before you can escape from this,

00:54:59.980 so that's a problem on the anxiety side,

00:55:02.380 but then it also beckoned to you with the promise of knowledge yet,

00:55:07.080 not yet attained, that you could get to with sufficient discipline.

00:55:11.540 Well, that's a heady mix, you know?

00:55:13.140 And not knowledge, but ability.

00:55:18.260 Okay, right, right, right.

00:55:19.460 And I would argue that it's not that there was an aspect of this that I found appealing.

00:55:24.420 It's that this is what I was told was true.

00:55:27.640 It didn't matter if it was appealing.

00:55:29.160 That I said, this is what's true, and this is a prison planet.

00:55:32.600 And it'd be like, you know, you're familiar with the movie The Matrix, I assume?

00:55:36.240 Oh, yes.

00:55:36.960 Well, you live in The Matrix.

00:55:38.200 They can make your life amazing, and the steak tastes great,

00:55:41.320 and the women, and the everything. 0.95

00:55:43.200 But reality, if you get unplugged from The Matrix, reality is not as nice.

00:55:47.580 It is not as fun, it is not as comfortable, but it's reality.

00:55:52.040 And Scientologists, you know, as a Scientologist, what I was told is,

00:55:55.560 look, this might be a great lifetime, right?

00:55:59.800 We might have trappings of wealth, and great weather, and vacations,

00:56:03.500 but that's the prison.

00:56:05.720 Don't be distracted by The Matrix.

00:56:08.080 We need to unplug ourselves from The Matrix,

00:56:10.280 and we need to unplug everyone else.

00:56:12.120 So, in a sense, it's not appealing.

00:56:13.960 In a sense, it's just the burden of the responsibility that we have

00:56:17.680 if this is the version of reality we subscribe to.

00:56:20.680 Right, Oka, that's so interesting,

00:56:22.240 because that means that it's not appealing in the narrowly hedonistic manner,

00:56:27.180 but that it's actually a call, strangely enough,

00:56:30.320 to adopt something like a higher-order ethical responsibility, right?

00:56:34.660 Adherence to the truth, and then participation in this process of universal salvation.

00:56:39.440 Okay, well, again, that sounds pretty good.

00:56:41.200 So, why did you stop with your adherence?

00:56:46.240 So, the experience of being a staff member in Scientology

00:56:50.540 and being a Sea Org member in Scientology,

00:56:52.560 it's a very hectic, chaotic, high-stress experience.

00:56:56.660 And as a good little Scientology staff member,

00:56:59.300 I always believed that at Scientology's secret management base,

00:57:05.240 now I know it's in Gilman Hot Springs, California,

00:57:07.380 but at the time, in Scientology, no one was allowed to know

00:57:09.760 where the secret international management base was,

00:57:12.260 where David Miscavige and all of his staff worked.

00:57:15.540 In order, what I believed of Scientology led me to believe

00:57:19.020 that if Scientology were true,

00:57:21.840 if L. Ron Herbert's technology was true and accurate

00:57:24.300 and worked all the time when applied correctly,

00:57:26.420 the international Scientology base would be a utopia.

00:57:29.640 It would be like a perfect existence of people working in harmony,

00:57:33.880 in coordination, in affinity with one another,

00:57:36.180 no stress, no anxiety, no anger, no temper,

00:57:39.060 none of the trappings of the reactive mind, you might say.

00:57:45.000 In 2009, the Tampa Bay Times did a series of articles

00:57:48.300 called The Truth Rundown.

00:57:50.060 And for the first time ever,

00:57:51.560 some of these Scientology executives,

00:57:53.140 high-level Scientology executives,

00:57:54.960 who had recently departed,

00:57:57.060 but Scientologists didn't know these people had departed,

00:57:59.780 not only had these people left the management ranks,

00:58:01.820 they had left Scientology altogether.

00:58:04.060 These people were celebrities in Scientology.

00:58:06.580 These were the international managers

00:58:07.880 that all Scientologists would see at the international events

00:58:10.900 five, six times a year.

00:58:13.440 These people started speaking out

00:58:15.500 about what a unmitigated hellhole

00:58:18.940 the international Scientology management base was

00:58:21.700 working under David Miscavige.

00:58:23.940 That, for me, was the first crack in the dam.

00:58:26.560 It just caused me to immediately question and reframe

00:58:29.000 things, like, hold on, hold on, hold on.

00:58:32.000 At the international base,

00:58:33.140 they don't even have to deal with Scientology public.

00:58:35.460 They don't even have to deal with anyone demands.

00:58:37.660 They don't have to deliver services to anyone.

00:58:39.880 All they have to do is get along with each other.

00:58:41.760 How could it be so bad?

00:58:44.340 Why did you believe the accounts, do you think?

00:58:47.200 No, because they were people who I had famous figures in Scientology.

00:58:55.060 I see, I see.

00:58:56.020 Five, six, seven, eight of them.

00:58:57.360 You had regarded as credible.

00:58:57.840 The highest level managers working under David Miscavige.

00:59:00.180 Okay, okay.

00:59:00.940 So it was hard to reconcile.

00:59:02.960 Well, that's right.

00:59:03.800 And so, up until then,

00:59:05.660 any horrible experiences I had in Scientology

00:59:09.540 working as a staff member or a CERC member,

00:59:11.380 in my mind, I was like,

00:59:13.500 it's only bad at this level

00:59:15.100 because we're too far away from David Miscavige.

00:59:17.760 He hasn't, there's too many filters between us and him.

00:59:21.120 But one of the things that kept me believing

00:59:23.480 was that the closer you got to David Miscavige,

00:59:25.600 the better things were.

00:59:27.320 And once I was exposed to information

00:59:30.260 that allowed me to credibly conclude

00:59:32.260 that the actual opposite was true,

00:59:35.300 the closer you got to David Miscavige,

00:59:37.380 the worse it was.

00:59:38.240 And what I was experiencing at the lower levels

00:59:40.500 was just the trickle-down effect

00:59:42.320 of his horribly abusive and psychotic behavior.

00:59:46.580 Right, right.

00:59:47.420 So now the higher echelons are contaminated

00:59:49.820 rather than pure.

00:59:51.180 That's right.

00:59:52.360 And so that's the first thing that got me going,

00:59:54.460 hold on, something is not as I thought it was.

00:59:59.180 Okay, but that wasn't it.

01:00:00.740 That wasn't it.

01:00:01.280 The following item is what did it for me.

01:00:03.620 There was a particular CERC member

01:00:05.460 that I knew of by the name of Dan Kuhn.

01:00:08.360 And he had a particular job at international management

01:00:11.420 where I knew that if anyone knew

01:00:14.160 what L. Ron Hubbard left behind, it was this guy.

01:00:17.120 Like the job that he had was to compile

01:00:19.540 everything L. Ron Hubbard had left behind

01:00:21.620 and figure out what of that material,

01:00:24.580 how it could be organized and released

01:00:26.040 as services that Scientologists could do.

01:00:28.820 He was one of the former executives

01:00:31.240 that left and was speaking out.

01:00:32.940 And when I heard from him

01:00:35.620 that these upper unreleased OT levels

01:00:38.520 were a myth,

01:00:41.500 they don't exist.

01:00:42.900 L. Ron Hubbard did not leave behind any notes.

01:00:45.040 There is nothing in the vault

01:00:46.340 that no one in upper Scientology management

01:00:49.580 has any clue whatsoever

01:00:52.180 what was supposed to be on these upper OT levels.

01:00:55.080 I said, you should have told me that 20 years ago.

01:00:58.400 I'm done.

01:01:00.540 I said, that's all I needed to hear.

01:01:02.720 I said, that was the keystone

01:01:04.060 that was holding it all in place for me anyway,

01:01:06.240 was this belief

01:01:07.680 that that's why Scientology was important.

01:01:11.120 Because these unreleased OT levels

01:01:13.120 is what would unplug all humanity from the matrix.

01:01:15.860 And then we would go off to another planet

01:01:17.420 and unplug everyone on that planet

01:01:19.200 and off to another planet.

01:01:21.180 And so, honestly, Jordan,

01:01:22.580 it was just that one piece of information.

01:01:24.640 There are no upper unreleased OT levels.

01:01:26.920 Well, that's a major piece.

01:01:28.280 Well, there's a gospel insistence

01:01:32.140 that you have to evaluate the spirits

01:01:35.500 to see if they're of God, right?

01:01:38.000 Because you can have a revelation,

01:01:39.800 you can encounter information

01:01:41.280 that seems credible,

01:01:42.320 but that is perverse in some manner.

01:01:44.880 And so then the question is,

01:01:46.200 how do you distinguish, again,

01:01:47.420 truth from falsehood?

01:01:48.400 And by their fruits,

01:01:49.960 you will know them is a good one.

01:01:51.320 So let me give you a concrete example of that.

01:01:53.440 So I worked in the 90s at Harvard.

01:01:55.840 And that was a very interesting place to work.

01:01:58.900 They claimed the pursuit of excellence.

01:02:02.280 And when I went there,

01:02:03.520 that was the case.

01:02:05.220 Like everything at the university,

01:02:06.860 virtually everything was subordinated

01:02:08.360 to the pursuit of excellence.

01:02:09.600 So when the undergraduates arrived there,

01:02:12.600 they weren't disciplined harshly.

01:02:14.940 It wasn't a rule-bound tyranny.

01:02:17.000 It was a place that was extremely competitive,

01:02:20.360 but it was competitive

01:02:21.100 because everyone was doing everything they could

01:02:23.660 to work as hard as they possibly could.

01:02:25.640 And so it was very intimidating

01:02:26.640 for the undergraduates

01:02:27.700 because they came there

01:02:28.620 with all these other very smart kids.

01:02:30.640 And they were generally valedictorians

01:02:33.940 and so forth in their own class.

01:02:35.460 But when they got to Harvard,

01:02:36.560 they were kind of average on average.

01:02:38.820 And so it was a very intense place.

01:02:40.380 But that also was true

01:02:41.560 of the assistant professors,

01:02:43.780 the junior professors.

01:02:44.600 It was true of the associate professors.

01:02:47.280 It was true of the full professors.

01:02:49.500 And the administrators served that enterprise

01:02:52.620 and were bound by the same ethos.

01:02:54.800 And so not only was excellence worshipped at the top,

01:02:59.380 you know, as a principle,

01:03:01.260 that ethos saturated the entire organization.

01:03:05.400 Okay.

01:03:05.620 Now I left Harvard

01:03:06.560 and I went to the University of Toronto.

01:03:08.820 And the University of Toronto

01:03:10.200 is a pretty good university,

01:03:11.720 but it wasn't as good a university as Harvard

01:03:14.640 by any stretch of the imagination.

01:03:16.780 And it did a lot of mouth service

01:03:18.720 with regard to excellence.

01:03:20.520 In fact, you couldn't walk anywhere

01:03:22.620 at the University of Toronto

01:03:24.880 without, you know,

01:03:25.940 being berated about excellence.

01:03:27.380 But in the details,

01:03:29.360 that just wasn't the case.

01:03:30.620 Like the pursuit of excellence

01:03:31.680 was frowned upon often and punished.

01:03:34.400 Now, not universally.

01:03:36.020 I'm not saying that,

01:03:37.280 but in contrast to Harvard,

01:03:39.040 which, you know,

01:03:39.780 was arguably the preeminent university

01:03:41.580 in the world at the time.

01:03:43.580 And so you could tell the difference

01:03:46.940 between the two organizations

01:03:48.320 in the actual details

01:03:50.540 of day-to-day interaction, right?

01:03:52.620 So there was a fractal relationship

01:03:54.360 between what was being claimed,

01:03:57.560 excellence,

01:03:58.620 and its distribution at Harvard,

01:04:00.560 which was obvious.

01:04:01.540 And then at the University of Toronto,

01:04:03.440 where, you know,

01:04:04.540 any deviation in the direction of excellence,

01:04:06.600 you might say this about Canada in general,

01:04:08.780 by the way,

01:04:09.460 was just as likely to be met with punishment

01:04:11.960 as reward.

01:04:14.100 And so that is one of the ways

01:04:15.680 that people can calibrate the truth, right?

01:04:17.880 It's not the only way,

01:04:19.100 and it's not sufficient.

01:04:20.740 But you can go to an organization.

01:04:22.940 This is one of the reasons, by the way,

01:04:24.140 I'd like to work with The Daily Wire.

01:04:26.060 You know, I had no idea what would happen

01:04:27.480 when I started a partnership with them.

01:04:29.920 But my experience has been that

01:04:32.380 they're very open to creative ideas.

01:04:36.600 And not only do they leave me the hell alone,

01:04:39.040 if I have an idea,

01:04:40.180 they try real hard to help me

01:04:41.880 put it into practice,

01:04:43.240 and it's actually helpful.

01:04:45.920 Right, so as far as I'm concerned,

01:04:48.120 that adds to their credibility, right?

01:04:50.120 Because they're practicing what they preach.

01:04:51.860 Now, what you pointed out

01:04:53.240 was that you had a belief

01:04:54.640 that at the higher levels of effort,

01:04:58.520 there would be a commensurate reward,

01:05:00.420 that the whole enterprise was predicated

01:05:02.360 on the pursuit of something

01:05:03.480 approximating excellence.

01:05:04.580 And that was one of the things

01:05:06.240 that kept you going.

01:05:07.180 And then when you found out

01:05:08.120 that that wasn't the case,

01:05:09.420 that the fruits were bitter,

01:05:10.880 that was enough to collapse

01:05:12.280 the enterprise for you.

01:05:13.200 Now, you laugh about that now,

01:05:15.040 kind of ruefully,

01:05:15.840 but that, like,

01:05:17.540 I can't imagine that discovery

01:05:19.100 was anything approximating pleasant for you.

01:05:21.500 Like, why didn't you collapse completely?

01:05:23.500 I think it's because to a certain level,

01:05:26.920 what I did in Scientology

01:05:29.320 was I was really just as a child

01:05:32.460 put on this path,

01:05:34.040 given tasks,

01:05:35.400 and at some point decided

01:05:36.860 that my goal was just going to be

01:05:39.720 the absolute best

01:05:40.660 at doing what it was

01:05:42.240 I was being asked to do.

01:05:44.200 And it didn't necessarily require

01:05:46.540 a huge commitment on my part

01:05:47.940 other than getting really good at my job.

01:05:50.980 I did not every day have to buy in

01:05:54.340 to this entire story

01:05:56.440 of the prison planet.

01:05:57.960 It was only when I would be struggling,

01:06:00.280 when I would, you know,

01:06:01.160 feel underappreciated,

01:06:02.220 if I was feeling I was receiving

01:06:03.320 an injustice,

01:06:04.080 that I didn't want to do this anymore,

01:06:05.940 that I would go,

01:06:06.800 now, hold on a second.

01:06:08.040 There was a really good reason

01:06:09.380 I'm spending my entire life

01:06:11.080 dedicated to this cause.

01:06:12.340 Now, what was that reason?

01:06:13.480 Because I seem to have forgotten it.

01:06:14.960 And then I'll go,

01:06:15.740 oh, prison planet.

01:06:17.620 Prison planet's the reason.

01:06:18.880 Oh, I feel so much better

01:06:20.200 now that I've reminded myself

01:06:21.460 that the reason I'm suffering

01:06:22.640 in this way is

01:06:23.440 for the cause of freeing everyone

01:06:25.440 from the prison planet.

01:06:26.620 And then I would rededicate myself

01:06:27.980 to very much doing my job

01:06:29.420 in the best possible way.

01:06:30.640 Right.

01:06:30.980 Are you a conscientious person?

01:06:33.440 Well, I mean,

01:06:34.480 I don't know if I'm qualified

01:06:35.320 to say that.

01:06:37.500 Well, you said you,

01:06:38.740 well, I'm asking

01:06:39.480 because you said

01:06:40.440 that you found it meaningful

01:06:42.060 to be dedicating yourself

01:06:44.240 to your job

01:06:44.840 and attending to the details,

01:06:46.280 you know?

01:06:46.480 And there is a moral striving in that.

01:06:48.580 Like, I'm going to use this example

01:06:50.320 and I'm not saying

01:06:51.080 it characterizes you,

01:06:52.180 but it's a good example.

01:06:53.260 Like, many of the functionaries

01:06:55.780 in extraordinarily pathological states,

01:06:58.520 so we could take

01:06:59.280 the National Socialists,

01:07:00.560 for example,

01:07:01.880 were very good

01:07:03.120 at their local jobs.

01:07:05.140 You know, and they tried to,

01:07:06.400 now there would be

01:07:06.920 some striving upward

01:07:07.980 and some ego competition there

01:07:09.700 and some struggling for power,

01:07:11.120 but lots of times

01:07:12.280 people were just,

01:07:13.260 as they say,

01:07:14.020 following orders.

01:07:14.800 But to make that more realistic

01:07:16.800 is that they had

01:07:17.540 a bounded world

01:07:18.520 where they had their tasks

01:07:19.860 and they were micro-tasks

01:07:21.500 in some ways,

01:07:22.540 and there was no reason

01:07:23.600 for them to lift their heads up

01:07:25.260 above those micro-tasks

01:07:26.660 and ask where the whole 0.99

01:07:27.960 damn ship was going. 0.99

01:07:29.560 And you said, you know, 1.00

01:07:30.380 essentially that characterized

01:07:31.600 your life.

01:07:32.300 That is part of being

01:07:33.300 in the matrix,

01:07:34.180 in a sense.

01:07:35.300 But it's also the case

01:07:36.320 that people generally,

01:07:37.480 that is generally

01:07:38.180 how people run their lives.

01:07:40.000 Like, once you decide

01:07:40.960 you're going to be

01:07:41.420 a school teacher,

01:07:42.340 you concentrate on teaching

01:07:44.580 rather than assessing

01:07:45.880 the validity

01:07:46.620 of the entire

01:07:47.480 educational enterprise, right?

01:07:49.120 Even if you're playing soccer,

01:07:51.420 if you're out on the field,

01:07:52.720 you don't be berating yourself

01:07:54.320 because you're not

01:07:54.900 playing basketball, right?

01:07:56.280 You're concentrating

01:07:56.920 on trying to get

01:07:57.580 the ball and the goal.

01:07:59.960 So it's not surprising

01:08:02.140 that you took refuge

01:08:03.520 in the, you know,

01:08:04.600 the microcosm

01:08:05.500 that you inhabited.

01:08:06.480 And what did you find

01:08:07.820 that was locally

01:08:09.580 rewarding about that?

01:08:10.880 Like, what in your job

01:08:13.460 day-to-day kept you going?

01:08:15.220 You know, I know you had

01:08:15.900 to remind yourself

01:08:16.640 of the metaphysics

01:08:17.480 from time to time,

01:08:18.420 but what kept you going

01:08:19.360 day-to-day?

01:08:20.380 You know, there's a lot

01:08:21.040 of great people

01:08:21.500 in Scientology.

01:08:22.700 Scientologists are motivated,

01:08:23.840 are good people.

01:08:24.600 They're motivated

01:08:25.140 by an intent to help.

01:08:26.360 They think Scientology

01:08:27.300 is the best tool

01:08:28.060 by which to help people.

01:08:29.860 And my job in Scientology

01:08:31.640 was always to help people.

01:08:34.720 This is interesting

01:08:35.260 to think of it this way.

01:08:36.780 My job was to help people

01:08:38.680 who someone else

01:08:40.140 had already convinced

01:08:40.940 to pay for the course.

01:08:43.060 And yet another person

01:08:44.500 had convinced them

01:08:45.240 to come in

01:08:45.800 and take the course.

01:08:47.080 And my job was to help

01:08:48.580 get them through the course.

01:08:50.000 So I was,

01:08:51.440 in my own way,

01:08:52.200 as a good Scientology staff member,

01:08:53.980 helping people

01:08:54.860 who wanted to be helped.

01:08:56.840 And that's just

01:08:57.360 a rewarding experience,

01:08:58.520 no matter what the,

01:09:02.680 however it is you're helping.

01:09:05.020 If you're doing something

01:09:07.120 that's appreciated

01:09:07.740 by someone

01:09:08.560 who you think

01:09:09.880 is a valuable person.

01:09:11.580 And Scientologists,

01:09:13.140 this is the irony

01:09:13.720 of the whole thing.

01:09:14.860 Scientologists really

01:09:15.840 are the ones

01:09:17.880 who believe it

01:09:18.340 and are in it.

01:09:18.900 They genuinely believe

01:09:20.300 they're saving

01:09:21.700 all mankind.

01:09:25.340 Tom Cruise believes that.

01:09:26.760 I promise you.

01:09:27.600 It's not a show.

01:09:29.900 Well, you know,

01:09:30.700 it's interesting too.

01:09:31.660 One of the things

01:09:32.160 I've thought about Tom Cruise

01:09:33.440 that's quite, you know,

01:09:35.320 rather striking is

01:09:36.480 one of my friends

01:09:37.780 in Hollywood

01:09:38.260 informed me recently

01:09:39.340 that there's maybe

01:09:40.600 only one star now

01:09:42.000 who's left

01:09:42.600 that can guarantee

01:09:43.380 boss office success

01:09:44.660 on the basis of his name

01:09:45.860 and that's Tom Cruise.

01:09:47.120 And I've liked

01:09:47.800 Tom Cruise's movies

01:09:48.780 and one of the things

01:09:49.960 you can say about Cruise

01:09:51.100 that's very,

01:09:52.120 it's preposterous in a way

01:09:53.460 but it happens to be the case

01:09:54.740 is that his commitment

01:09:55.740 to Scientology

01:09:56.600 has protected him

01:09:57.500 from woke nonsense.

01:09:59.420 So, you know,

01:10:00.440 that's very interesting

01:10:01.340 for me to see that.

01:10:02.380 And I would say, like, 0.99

01:10:03.740 you're a lot crazier 0.96

01:10:04.660 if you're woke 1.00

01:10:05.300 than you are

01:10:05.780 if you're a Scientologist.

01:10:07.000 And so, you know,

01:10:08.060 it's a lot more destructive

01:10:09.180 a discipline as far,

01:10:10.340 or an endeavor

01:10:10.880 as far as I can tell.

01:10:12.160 But, so the reason

01:10:14.000 I'm saying that

01:10:14.600 is because, you know,

01:10:15.640 people can be in error

01:10:17.480 in fundamental elements

01:10:19.420 of their metaphysical commitment

01:10:21.140 and still be in truth

01:10:23.620 in some elements

01:10:24.460 of the way they're acting

01:10:25.360 and behaving.

01:10:26.100 And, you know,

01:10:26.520 that's essentially

01:10:27.120 what you were pointing out

01:10:28.020 to yourself,

01:10:28.800 for yourself.

01:10:29.460 But, so that begs

01:10:30.800 the question still

01:10:31.560 is, like,

01:10:32.020 why did you decide

01:10:33.300 not to just ignore

01:10:34.740 that evidence?

01:10:35.560 Like, you could have

01:10:36.260 twisted yourself

01:10:37.360 into knots

01:10:38.060 and said that these people

01:10:39.680 who were now

01:10:41.460 sort of heretics

01:10:42.480 and who were criticizing

01:10:43.620 the organization 0.85

01:10:44.400 were corrupt

01:10:45.180 or that they were part

01:10:45.980 of a background conspiracy

01:10:47.200 or something like that.

01:10:48.100 Like, you could have

01:10:48.680 written that evidence off.

01:10:50.160 That's terrible.

01:10:50.620 So, you must have been

01:10:52.680 at a point

01:10:53.220 in your own

01:10:53.880 psychological development

01:10:54.960 where, for other reasons,

01:10:56.980 you figured it was easier

01:10:58.600 to accept what they had

01:10:59.800 to say as truth

01:11:00.620 rather than, you know,

01:11:01.680 to go through

01:11:02.180 all the shenanigans

01:11:03.040 you would have had to

01:11:03.780 to justify their deviation

01:11:06.500 from the true path.

01:11:08.340 To believe them

01:11:09.220 was very easy

01:11:10.420 because they were there

01:11:12.280 at the highest levels.

01:11:13.840 So, even if they were lying

01:11:15.700 about the existence

01:11:17.120 of the upper OT levels,

01:11:18.220 meaning even if they were lying

01:11:19.160 to me by saying

01:11:19.840 they didn't exist,

01:11:20.400 then they really did exist,

01:11:22.420 there would clearly

01:11:23.240 be something,

01:11:25.000 I'll take half a step back.

01:11:27.820 If we use this matrix analogy

01:11:29.600 and if someone

01:11:31.500 can credibly convince you

01:11:33.200 that the matrix is real,

01:11:35.120 being unplugged

01:11:36.160 from it is real,

01:11:37.020 only Scientology can do it

01:11:38.440 and nothing could ever

01:11:39.540 be more valuable than that.

01:11:40.700 And if you experience

01:11:41.840 the truth of that

01:11:42.540 for yourself,

01:11:44.060 nothing could ever

01:11:44.920 get you to leave.

01:11:46.100 Nothing.

01:11:47.340 Nothing.

01:11:47.720 And so,

01:11:49.400 these people,

01:11:50.440 and it was,

01:11:51.220 Dan Kuhn is only one person

01:11:52.520 I mentioned

01:11:52.880 because I knew

01:11:53.640 that out of all the people

01:11:54.760 speaking out,

01:11:55.880 he would know

01:11:56.620 even more than the others

01:11:57.940 about the upper unreleased

01:11:59.200 OT levels.

01:11:59.920 But the others would also know.

01:12:01.780 Just due to their proximity

01:12:03.040 to David Miscavige

01:12:04.280 and his entire staff,

01:12:06.160 these people would know

01:12:07.500 if Scientology

01:12:08.600 provided so much,

01:12:10.800 offered the promise

01:12:11.860 of so much

01:12:12.880 spiritual enhancement

01:12:15.040 that you could put up

01:12:16.380 with any amount

01:12:17.100 of abuse.

01:12:18.360 Obviously,

01:12:18.740 I mean,

01:12:18.980 if we try to switch

01:12:19.620 the conversation

01:12:20.220 to, you know,

01:12:21.260 Christians saving people

01:12:22.720 to go to heaven,

01:12:23.700 and I don't want to talk

01:12:24.780 above my pay grade here,

01:12:25.920 but it's like

01:12:26.320 if you truly believe

01:12:27.480 that you're salvaging

01:12:28.880 spirits for eternity,

01:12:31.420 nothing could get you

01:12:32.420 to stop.

01:12:33.380 And I knew

01:12:34.040 that these people

01:12:34.760 at the highest levels

01:12:35.820 all having left

01:12:37.180 and all saying

01:12:38.400 the same thing,

01:12:39.500 the fact that they

01:12:40.320 could even bring

01:12:41.180 themselves to leave

01:12:42.920 was already

01:12:43.960 a hell of a lot

01:12:44.680 of evidence

01:12:45.200 that whatever

01:12:46.660 was being offered

01:12:47.440 at the top

01:12:48.140 wasn't enough.

01:12:50.940 Right, got it.

01:12:51.660 So either way,

01:12:52.540 even if they were lying,

01:12:53.940 the fact that they

01:12:54.660 had got that far

01:12:55.620 and would then lie

01:12:57.740 was even then

01:12:58.820 that was indication

01:12:59.580 that something

01:13:00.100 wasn't right.

01:13:00.980 Okay, got it, got it.

01:13:02.400 Okay, so how?

01:13:04.840 I'd like to know

01:13:05.680 two things

01:13:06.280 as we go forward.

01:13:07.260 I want to talk

01:13:07.920 about the material

01:13:09.580 corruption

01:13:10.180 of the Scientology

01:13:11.220 enterprise,

01:13:11.700 because you referred

01:13:12.500 to it as a,

01:13:13.260 you know,

01:13:13.680 a real estate scam

01:13:15.020 and I want to delve

01:13:15.760 into that.

01:13:16.340 But I also want to know

01:13:17.360 the mechanics

01:13:18.620 of how you freed yourself

01:13:20.020 because you weren't

01:13:21.360 only metaphysically

01:13:22.280 committed,

01:13:23.000 which is a big deal,

01:13:24.840 and born into it,

01:13:25.900 which is a big deal,

01:13:26.840 but you were also

01:13:27.520 practically committed

01:13:28.400 because it was your job.

01:13:29.980 And so that's a lot of,

01:13:31.340 like, so for you to leave,

01:13:32.620 that's a more intense

01:13:34.040 psychological transformation

01:13:35.400 than even a divorce,

01:13:36.880 which would be,

01:13:37.540 you know,

01:13:37.740 that's up there,

01:13:38.680 that's about as bad

01:13:39.380 as it gets for people

01:13:40.260 in terms of that death.

01:13:42.360 And so how did you

01:13:44.540 manage to step out?

01:13:46.080 Where did you step to?

01:13:48.660 Why didn't you despair

01:13:50.920 or deceive yourself?

01:13:52.400 And, you know,

01:13:53.400 what belief did you manage

01:13:55.720 to orient yourself with

01:13:57.140 as an alternative?

01:13:58.820 So the answer

01:13:59.520 to that question

01:14:00.060 starts in 2006,

01:14:01.980 when my wife and I

01:14:03.120 were both working

01:14:03.800 in the C organization

01:14:05.480 of Scientology

01:14:06.440 out in Los Angeles.

01:14:07.980 And we were getting

01:14:09.020 sort of fed up

01:14:09.700 with our day-to-day experience.

01:14:11.140 And in the C organization,

01:14:11.940 you're not allowed

01:14:12.640 to have children.

01:14:13.300 If you're going to have children,

01:14:14.180 you have to leave

01:14:14.720 the C organization.

01:14:17.360 And so we basically

01:14:19.600 got pregnant

01:14:22.240 so that we could have

01:14:23.320 a very easy route

01:14:24.460 out of the C organization.

01:14:25.520 Now, we still believed

01:14:26.260 in Scientology.

01:14:27.720 We just no longer

01:14:29.100 wanted to,

01:14:30.240 you know,

01:14:30.700 be basically working

01:14:32.300 on a billion-year contract,

01:14:34.020 365,

01:14:35.320 18 hours a day.

01:14:37.200 And you both

01:14:38.060 agreed on that?

01:14:39.460 On leaving

01:14:40.100 the C organization?

01:14:41.240 Yeah.

01:14:41.840 It was very evident.

01:14:43.120 So you're not allowed

01:14:44.060 to talk with your spouse

01:14:45.740 about leaving

01:14:46.140 the C organization.

01:14:47.160 Yeah, I bet.

01:14:47.900 But with a wink here

01:14:48.460 and a nod there,

01:14:49.440 we were like,

01:14:50.420 we're ready to be done

01:14:51.400 with this.

01:14:52.860 I see.

01:14:53.540 I see.

01:14:53.940 So you had an ally.

01:14:55.140 You had a real ally.

01:14:56.300 That's real helpful.

01:14:57.320 Okay.

01:14:57.680 Yeah, all right.

01:14:58.540 So when we verified

01:14:59.180 she was pregnant,

01:14:59.980 we each went to

01:15:00.760 our respective ethics officers

01:15:02.340 at our organizations

01:15:03.260 that we worked for.

01:15:04.140 And we said,

01:15:04.920 we're pregnant.

01:15:05.340 We're not getting

01:15:06.200 an abortion.

01:15:07.300 We're leaving.

01:15:08.580 And that was our

01:15:09.480 fairly easy route

01:15:10.800 out of the Sea Org.

01:15:11.940 That was 2006.

01:15:13.380 We didn't officially

01:15:14.000 leave Scientology

01:15:14.680 until 2014.

01:15:17.100 Now,

01:15:17.460 so when we leave

01:15:18.520 the C organization,

01:15:19.680 at that point,

01:15:20.740 we are what they call

01:15:21.640 in Scientology

01:15:22.180 public Scientologists.

01:15:24.340 We are now people

01:15:25.080 who pay

01:15:25.700 to do Scientology.

01:15:26.920 We don't work

01:15:27.340 for Scientology.

01:15:28.020 So from 2000,

01:15:31.120 my wife and I

01:15:31.820 moved from Los Angeles

01:15:32.540 to Clearwater, Florida.

01:15:33.740 She had a lot of family here,

01:15:34.920 a great place

01:15:35.340 to raise a family.

01:15:37.080 And I start working

01:15:38.220 at jobs

01:15:39.420 making a good living

01:15:40.460 for various Scientologists,

01:15:41.940 different companies.

01:15:45.100 2009

01:15:45.520 is when the

01:15:46.620 Tampa Bay Times

01:15:47.480 newspapers come out,

01:15:49.140 stories come out

01:15:49.880 called

01:15:50.060 The Truth Rundown.

01:15:51.020 So that's three years

01:15:52.040 after I left

01:15:52.540 the Sea Organization.

01:15:54.240 Now information

01:15:54.980 is coming out publicly.

01:15:55.980 That's making me question

01:15:57.360 the entire

01:15:58.880 Scientology paradigm.

01:16:01.300 I start,

01:16:02.140 I secretly start

01:16:03.080 getting in touch

01:16:03.640 with some of these

01:16:04.160 former executives.

01:16:05.260 Now this puts me

01:16:06.140 in a very

01:16:06.800 dangerous situation

01:16:08.280 because speaking

01:16:09.620 to people that

01:16:10.300 leave Scientology

01:16:11.100 is something that

01:16:11.620 can get you

01:16:11.980 kicked out of Scientology.

01:16:13.380 But I was still,

01:16:14.400 my entire existence,

01:16:15.460 I was still dependent

01:16:16.160 on the Scientology

01:16:17.000 ecosystem for

01:16:18.080 my friends,

01:16:19.560 my income,

01:16:21.920 my children's friends,

01:16:23.260 my kids' schooling,

01:16:24.240 all connected

01:16:25.080 to the world

01:16:25.600 of Scientology.

01:16:27.340 So interestingly

01:16:28.280 enough,

01:16:29.000 from 2009,

01:16:30.340 as we described,

01:16:31.260 that's when

01:16:31.840 my whole

01:16:32.440 belief in Scientology

01:16:34.120 started to dwindle.

01:16:35.720 Even when I

01:16:36.520 no longer believed

01:16:37.560 in any part

01:16:38.040 of Scientology,

01:16:39.000 I did not want

01:16:40.440 to get kicked out.

01:16:41.980 I did not want

01:16:42.880 to have to disconnect

01:16:43.380 from my friends.

01:16:44.420 I did not want

01:16:45.260 my wife's family

01:16:46.060 to disconnect.

01:16:46.820 I didn't want

01:16:47.320 my family to disconnect.

01:16:48.720 I was willing

01:16:49.600 to continue

01:16:50.960 to exist

01:16:51.580 in this ecosystem

01:16:52.540 and not speak out,

01:16:55.620 not spread

01:16:56.460 around negative

01:16:56.940 information

01:16:57.400 to other Scientologists.

01:16:59.860 I decided

01:17:00.700 that how I was

01:17:01.460 going to add value

01:17:02.320 was I was going

01:17:03.100 to be someone

01:17:03.440 on the inside

01:17:04.340 who shared

01:17:05.680 information

01:17:06.220 about the current

01:17:07.240 status of things

01:17:08.240 with former members

01:17:09.780 who were now

01:17:10.960 on the outside

01:17:11.540 and are reporting

01:17:13.060 on such things

01:17:13.740 to the world.

01:17:14.300 So you're a double agent.

01:17:15.440 I wanted to be

01:17:16.080 a double agent.

01:17:17.260 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:17:18.560 Unfortunately,

01:17:19.140 I'm just way too sloppy

01:17:20.660 to succeed at that

01:17:21.440 for more than

01:17:21.900 a few years

01:17:22.460 at a time.

01:17:23.300 So eventually,

01:17:25.220 and at this time,

01:17:25.840 my mom had gotten

01:17:26.660 kicked out

01:17:27.240 for spreading

01:17:27.840 around information

01:17:29.220 about David Miscavige

01:17:30.200 that they considered

01:17:30.900 to be negative.

01:17:31.920 And they told me

01:17:32.760 I had to disconnect

01:17:33.580 from my mom.

01:17:35.300 Well,

01:17:35.820 or I was going

01:17:36.560 to be kicked out,

01:17:37.380 but I didn't want

01:17:37.980 to be kicked out,

01:17:38.800 but I was never

01:17:39.380 going to disconnect

01:17:39.920 from my mom.

01:17:40.560 So I just lied 0.97

01:17:42.000 my butt off to them 0.82

01:17:42.900 for two years 0.95

01:17:43.500 about this.

01:17:44.140 I had disconnected

01:17:45.340 from my mom,

01:17:46.160 but in reality,

01:17:46.720 I didn't.

01:17:48.060 In Scientology,

01:17:48.920 they have a very strong

01:17:49.700 snitching culture.

01:17:50.800 People are reporting

01:17:51.660 on each other

01:17:52.360 all the time.

01:17:53.700 And I was just getting

01:17:54.640 lazier and lazier

01:17:56.500 and more careless

01:17:57.260 while I was hiding

01:17:58.720 all of this.

01:17:59.720 So that's something

01:18:01.800 we shouldn't just

01:18:02.580 jump over.

01:18:03.320 We'll go back

01:18:03.720 to the story here

01:18:04.360 right away.

01:18:05.740 In terms of the fruits

01:18:07.300 by which you might

01:18:08.320 know an organization,

01:18:09.360 that's another

01:18:10.560 good one.

01:18:11.660 So we already

01:18:12.580 talked about hypocrisy.

01:18:14.040 People claim

01:18:14.580 to be pursuing

01:18:15.200 one thing,

01:18:15.880 but their actions

01:18:16.840 indicate that

01:18:17.500 they're not.

01:18:18.560 That's a performative

01:18:19.520 contradiction

01:18:20.200 philosophically,

01:18:21.800 when you claim

01:18:22.720 an explicit belief,

01:18:24.080 but your actions

01:18:24.700 belie it.

01:18:25.700 But then that

01:18:27.060 snitching culture,

01:18:28.300 that's a really

01:18:29.080 bad sign,

01:18:30.040 right?

01:18:30.360 Because one of

01:18:31.020 the things you see

01:18:31.720 that's absolutely

01:18:32.620 100% characteristic

01:18:34.440 of totalitarian states

01:18:35.860 is that they insist

01:18:38.580 upon the ethical

01:18:39.580 duty of their

01:18:40.600 participants to

01:18:41.660 inform on other

01:18:43.080 people to the

01:18:44.420 authorities.

01:18:45.680 And you really

01:18:46.840 can't think of

01:18:47.520 anything that

01:18:48.160 poisons the

01:18:49.340 relationship between

01:18:50.280 people more thoroughly

01:18:51.260 than that, right?

01:18:52.160 Because not only

01:18:53.200 are you in danger

01:18:54.580 of being informed

01:18:55.440 on at any moment,

01:18:57.180 you're also in danger

01:18:58.200 of being informed

01:18:59.020 on by the worst

01:19:00.040 sort of person

01:19:00.960 who lies about you

01:19:02.300 to inform on you

01:19:03.240 to do nothing

01:19:03.920 but redound

01:19:05.260 to their own

01:19:05.940 credit.

01:19:06.880 Plus, you don't

01:19:07.740 know who you

01:19:08.220 can trust

01:19:08.680 and who you

01:19:09.080 can't trust,

01:19:09.740 in which case,

01:19:10.760 you know,

01:19:11.340 you have a

01:19:11.740 proclivity not

01:19:12.420 to trust anyone.

01:19:13.800 So, the snitch

01:19:15.840 culture, how in

01:19:16.880 the world did

01:19:17.320 that develop

01:19:17.980 within Scientology

01:19:19.120 and what were

01:19:20.240 its manifestations

01:19:20.920 as far as you

01:19:21.820 were concerned?

01:19:23.020 Oh, my goodness.

01:19:24.000 How it developed,

01:19:24.960 I mean, L. Ron

01:19:25.360 Hubbard explicitly

01:19:26.240 laid down various

01:19:28.840 sets of quite

01:19:29.720 draconian rules

01:19:30.660 and then created

01:19:31.340 another policy

01:19:32.180 that says

01:19:33.300 if someone

01:19:34.800 is found

01:19:35.160 to have done

01:19:35.540 something

01:19:35.920 and you were

01:19:36.820 found to have

01:19:37.420 known about it

01:19:38.020 and to not

01:19:38.780 have submitted

01:19:39.440 a report

01:19:40.080 on that activity

01:19:41.060 and behavior,

01:19:41.480 you would be

01:19:41.820 penalized to

01:19:42.940 the same degree

01:19:43.920 as the person

01:19:44.500 who actually

01:19:44.880 committed the crime.

01:19:45.800 So, in Scientology,

01:19:47.020 there's something

01:19:47.320 called a knowledge

01:19:47.960 report and all

01:19:49.300 Scientologists are

01:19:50.440 expected to submit

01:19:51.360 knowledge reports

01:19:52.000 on other Scientologists.

01:19:53.360 It's considered

01:19:53.860 the individual group

01:19:55.300 members putting in

01:19:56.260 ethics on each other,

01:19:57.880 not leaving it up

01:19:58.680 to the executives

01:19:59.340 to put in ethics

01:20:00.060 on everyone under them,

01:20:00.960 but people putting in

01:20:02.140 ethics on each other.

01:20:03.560 L. Ron Hubbard says

01:20:04.340 So it's a distributed

01:20:05.240 tyranny.

01:20:05.980 That's right.

01:20:06.440 He says a productive,

01:20:07.360 easy to live with

01:20:08.080 and work with group

01:20:08.820 is a group that

01:20:09.620 enforces the discipline

01:20:10.800 member to member

01:20:11.580 on each other

01:20:12.120 and doesn't leave it

01:20:12.840 up to the higher ups.

01:20:14.440 And so,

01:20:15.000 the snitching culture

01:20:16.660 is such an important

01:20:17.660 part of Scientology.

01:20:19.320 And I remember

01:20:19.860 way back when,

01:20:21.080 back in like 1998,

01:20:22.020 I saw this movie

01:20:24.220 called,

01:20:25.080 oh my God,

01:20:25.600 it was about

01:20:26.140 Swing Kids.

01:20:27.820 And it was about

01:20:28.520 people in Nazi Germany

01:20:29.560 and the swing dancing.

01:20:31.680 And this is when

01:20:33.040 I still believed

01:20:33.560 in Scientology,

01:20:34.400 but this should have

01:20:34.820 been a red flag for me

01:20:35.580 way back when.

01:20:36.220 I remember seeing

01:20:37.260 the snitching culture

01:20:38.860 portrayed in this movie

01:20:39.920 about Nazi Germany.

01:20:41.700 And I remember

01:20:42.920 sitting there going,

01:20:44.120 that's Scientology.

01:20:47.240 That's Scientology.

01:20:48.940 I mean,

01:20:49.160 it might seem like

01:20:49.860 it's a stretch there,

01:20:50.560 but it's like the idea

01:20:51.880 that the only,

01:20:53.220 the only good Scientologist

01:20:54.840 is the one who's reporting

01:20:55.880 on all of his fellow

01:20:56.700 Scientologists.

01:20:57.740 Oh yeah, boy.

01:20:58.420 That's not,

01:20:59.000 that's bad.

01:20:59.800 That's bad.

01:21:00.580 Yeah, yeah.

01:21:01.200 Well, that's also,

01:21:02.360 you know,

01:21:02.800 that's the one of the ways

01:21:04.340 that totalitarian systems

01:21:05.700 really get a grip.

01:21:07.660 You know,

01:21:08.060 one way is that

01:21:09.140 everybody in a

01:21:10.080 totalitarian system

01:21:11.080 lies about everything

01:21:12.040 all the time.

01:21:12.860 But the other one is

01:21:13.960 they inform on each other

01:21:15.680 to,

01:21:16.100 to the so-called

01:21:17.920 higher authority,

01:21:18.740 right?

01:21:18.940 And then they make that

01:21:19.740 into a moral virtue.

01:21:21.180 Yeah, that's really,

01:21:22.060 that's really,

01:21:22.680 really,

01:21:22.980 that's really bad.

01:21:23.880 So that,

01:21:24.280 that's a bad one.

01:21:25.360 Okay, so you're,

01:21:26.920 you're being told

01:21:27.880 that you have to leave

01:21:28.600 your mother,

01:21:29.060 but you're not going

01:21:29.640 to do that.

01:21:30.200 You don't want

01:21:30.620 to alienate her.

01:21:31.940 Your wife and you

01:21:32.940 have already decided

01:21:33.860 that you're going

01:21:34.280 to have a child.

01:21:34.980 You've left the,

01:21:35.880 the specifics of your job

01:21:37.480 and,

01:21:38.360 and,

01:21:39.520 and,

01:21:40.060 and you,

01:21:42.620 and now you're kind

01:21:44.080 of living a double life,

01:21:45.220 eh?

01:21:45.820 Now I'm going to,

01:21:46.600 I'm going to try to cover

01:21:47.700 this superficially and quickly

01:21:49.040 because if I get into

01:21:49.780 the details,

01:21:50.380 I'm going to get emotional

01:21:51.200 and I'm going to

01:21:53.120 try not to do that,

01:21:56.500 okay?

01:21:56.720 Okay.

01:21:56.780 what did you remember

01:22:15.220 that,

01:22:15.740 that produced that

01:22:16.880 emotional response?

01:22:17.920 It's the answer 0.77

01:22:18.720 to this question.

01:22:19.340 That's an engram, eh?

01:22:21.300 That's an engram for sure.

01:22:23.500 Yeah.

01:22:23.920 And the story

01:22:24.600 that I'm going to tell you

01:22:25.320 here is why,

01:22:26.900 why I do my YouTube

01:22:29.500 channel and,

01:22:30.420 and very much relish

01:22:31.940 exposing Scientology

01:22:33.200 every single day

01:22:34.520 on my YouTube channel.

01:22:35.980 You could say I'm motivated

01:22:36.880 by pure revenge

01:22:37.880 and that's okay with me.

01:22:40.140 So,

01:22:41.240 by the time they realize

01:22:42.280 I'm not going to

01:22:43.120 disconnect from my mom,

01:22:44.640 they officially kick me

01:22:47.380 out of Scientology.

01:22:49.000 And then they go

01:22:49.840 to my wife

01:22:50.620 and they say,

01:22:52.140 well,

01:22:52.320 you have to divorce

01:22:53.060 your husband.

01:22:54.940 Now,

01:22:55.320 at this point,

01:22:55.720 we have three daughters.

01:22:58.460 So,

01:22:58.860 you have to divorce

01:22:59.440 your husband

01:22:59.980 or you're going to

01:23:01.620 get kicked out

01:23:02.160 of Scientology.

01:23:03.840 And she says,

01:23:04.520 that's not going

01:23:05.000 to work for me.

01:23:07.700 So, 0.53

01:23:08.080 they kick her 1.00

01:23:08.480 out of Scientology.

01:23:10.640 And so,

01:23:11.180 then they go

01:23:11.520 to her parents

01:23:12.420 and they say,

01:23:14.860 you have to disconnect

01:23:15.560 from your daughter

01:23:16.400 and your three

01:23:17.080 granddaughters

01:23:17.820 or you're going 0.99

01:23:19.440 to get kicked

01:23:19.880 out of Scientology.

01:23:21.740 But my wife's parents

01:23:23.080 have three other kids

01:23:24.720 who have spouses

01:23:27.920 that are Scientologists,

01:23:29.460 who have kids,

01:23:30.740 you know,

01:23:31.280 whose spouse's parents

01:23:33.000 are Scientologists.

01:23:37.160 And I felt like

01:23:38.340 my mom had a choice 1.00

01:23:39.800 that she could have

01:23:40.600 made for herself.

01:23:41.520 I felt I had a choice

01:23:42.540 I could have made

01:23:43.020 for myself.

01:23:43.900 I felt my wife

01:23:44.820 had a choice

01:23:45.260 she could have made 0.94

01:23:45.920 for herself.

01:23:46.540 But by the time

01:23:47.560 you get to her parents,

01:23:48.940 they're basically going,

01:23:50.600 which kids

01:23:51.380 do we want to lose?

01:23:53.460 Which grandkids

01:23:54.420 are we never

01:23:54.960 going to see again?

01:23:57.620 So,

01:23:58.320 my wife's parents

01:23:59.340 disconnect

01:24:00.500 from her

01:24:01.420 and the grandkids

01:24:02.700 even though they live

01:24:03.320 five minutes

01:24:03.900 down the road.

01:24:06.000 Brutal.

01:24:07.060 And then,

01:24:07.860 my wife never

01:24:08.840 saw her dad again

01:24:10.780 until the day

01:24:11.380 he died.

01:24:13.320 Oh, yeah.

01:24:14.460 That's a rough one,

01:24:15.540 all right.

01:24:15.860 And so,

01:24:16.840 my kids,

01:24:17.880 you know,

01:24:18.140 when my wife

01:24:19.100 and I were

01:24:19.760 officially kicked out,

01:24:21.340 we had both

01:24:22.860 been working

01:24:23.240 for Scientologists,

01:24:24.460 so we lost

01:24:25.200 our jobs.

01:24:26.520 Our kids

01:24:27.200 had been going

01:24:27.680 to private

01:24:28.380 Scientology schools,

01:24:29.380 so they were

01:24:29.840 kicked out

01:24:30.220 of their schools.

01:24:32.640 And,

01:24:33.080 we live

01:24:34.640 in Clearwater,

01:24:35.240 Florida,

01:24:35.560 which is the

01:24:36.320 home of the

01:24:36.960 largest Scientology

01:24:38.120 organization

01:24:38.680 in the world.

01:24:39.300 so the vast

01:24:40.740 majority

01:24:41.120 of all

01:24:41.460 of our

01:24:41.780 friends

01:24:42.260 severed all

01:24:43.820 ties with us,

01:24:44.920 including

01:24:45.300 our best

01:24:46.320 friends.

01:24:48.680 And so,

01:24:50.020 that type

01:24:52.960 of

01:24:53.700 family

01:24:55.100 destruction

01:24:56.640 is what I

01:24:58.340 personally find

01:24:59.320 most objectionable

01:25:00.260 about Scientology.

01:25:01.600 Whether it's

01:25:02.500 coercing women 1.00

01:25:03.060 to get abortions, 0.87

01:25:04.020 to keep serving

01:25:04.800 Scientology instead

01:25:05.700 of starting

01:25:06.100 families.

01:25:07.200 I mean,

01:25:07.640 I challenge

01:25:09.800 anyone to name

01:25:10.480 one other

01:25:11.220 quote-unquote

01:25:11.740 religious organization

01:25:12.760 that weekly

01:25:13.920 buses its

01:25:15.100 clergy members 0.99

01:25:15.700 to the abortion 0.59

01:25:16.340 clinic.

01:25:17.460 I don't think

01:25:17.960 you'll be able

01:25:18.280 to find one.

01:25:19.060 Oh, yeah.

01:25:19.660 That's a rough

01:25:20.300 one.

01:25:20.800 That's a rough

01:25:21.320 one.

01:25:21.900 And those

01:25:23.000 women have 0.95

01:25:23.760 a lot of

01:25:24.140 pressure applied

01:25:24.820 to them to

01:25:25.220 convince them

01:25:26.140 that they have

01:25:27.160 to get an

01:25:27.560 abortion because

01:25:28.780 it's so much

01:25:29.960 more valuable

01:25:30.440 to save the

01:25:31.640 planet than

01:25:32.320 it is to

01:25:33.100 raise a family.

01:25:34.440 Well, there's

01:25:34.760 plenty.

01:25:35.080 There's plenty

01:25:35.860 of that going

01:25:36.600 on in the

01:25:37.120 broader public

01:25:37.760 at the moment

01:25:38.400 too.

01:25:39.920 Yeah.

01:25:40.760 All right.

01:25:41.140 Well, look,

01:25:41.500 let's do this.

01:25:42.480 Let's do this

01:25:43.220 because we're

01:25:44.020 coming up on

01:25:44.560 our hour and

01:25:45.040 a half.

01:25:46.000 I want to

01:25:46.580 talk to you

01:25:47.280 more about

01:25:48.360 what happened

01:25:49.220 to you

01:25:49.540 personally

01:25:50.080 after you've

01:25:51.440 left and

01:25:52.020 about, I

01:25:52.800 know, for

01:25:53.300 everyone who's

01:25:54.160 watching and

01:25:54.700 listening,

01:25:55.120 there is a

01:25:55.520 website.

01:25:57.140 There is a

01:25:57.980 website

01:25:58.340 associated

01:25:59.320 with Aaron

01:26:01.020 that is

01:26:02.700 hosted by

01:26:03.980 people who

01:26:05.000 aren't very

01:26:05.500 happy with

01:26:06.060 him and

01:26:07.120 we haven't

01:26:08.000 had a chance

01:26:08.460 to talk

01:26:08.820 about that

01:26:10.280 at all.

01:26:10.720 And so what

01:26:11.080 I think I'll

01:26:11.560 do, we've

01:26:12.280 gone through

01:26:12.840 some of your

01:26:13.400 autobiography,

01:26:14.160 which is often

01:26:14.660 what I do in

01:26:15.420 the additional

01:26:15.900 half an hour

01:26:16.540 that I speak

01:26:17.120 to my guests

01:26:17.720 on the Daily

01:26:18.280 Wire Plus

01:26:18.740 side, but I

01:26:19.740 think we'll

01:26:20.160 do that there.

01:26:21.480 And so for

01:26:21.880 all of you who

01:26:22.400 are watching

01:26:22.860 and listening,

01:26:23.740 thank you very

01:26:24.520 much for

01:26:25.120 persevering with

01:26:26.220 us through

01:26:26.580 this part of

01:26:27.060 the story.

01:26:27.460 If you want

01:26:27.860 to hear that

01:26:28.400 part, which is

01:26:29.480 extraordinarily

01:26:29.980 interesting, it's

01:26:30.880 the backlash

01:26:31.440 against Aaron

01:26:32.320 and what's

01:26:32.840 happened to

01:26:33.260 him publicly

01:26:33.920 as he's

01:26:34.820 come out as

01:26:35.740 a critic of

01:26:36.480 the Scientology

01:26:37.520 movement.

01:26:37.940 We're going to

01:26:38.400 delve into all

01:26:39.580 that on the

01:26:40.200 Daily Wire Plus

01:26:40.820 side.

01:26:41.840 And so before

01:26:43.500 we do that,

01:26:44.260 I'll thank

01:26:44.780 everybody who

01:26:45.380 are watching

01:26:45.940 and listening

01:26:46.420 for their

01:26:46.820 attention and

01:26:47.520 the Daily

01:26:47.980 Wire Plus

01:26:48.480 people for

01:26:49.680 facilitating this

01:26:51.740 conversation.

01:26:52.480 I'm way up

01:26:52.920 here in

01:26:53.200 Northern Alberta.

01:26:53.940 We got a

01:26:54.320 crew gathered so

01:26:55.080 we could do

01:26:55.480 this today, so

01:26:56.200 that's really

01:26:56.660 good.

01:26:56.940 And so we'll

01:26:58.820 delve into all

01:26:59.560 that for another

01:27:00.360 half an hour.

01:27:01.120 You guys can

01:27:01.620 join us on the

01:27:02.280 Daily Wire Plus

01:27:02.820 side if you want

01:27:03.500 to do that.

01:27:04.080 And I'm going to

01:27:05.020 thank you for

01:27:05.800 walking through

01:27:06.740 this.

01:27:07.120 I learned a lot

01:27:07.660 about Scientology

01:27:08.520 today and it

01:27:10.020 was very

01:27:10.560 interesting to

01:27:11.840 see what it

01:27:13.860 is that it

01:27:14.460 offers that's

01:27:15.340 so seductive,

01:27:16.760 both on the

01:27:17.680 plus side,

01:27:18.620 the fact that

01:27:19.600 it provides

01:27:20.240 people with a

01:27:21.200 framework within

01:27:21.880 which their

01:27:22.400 life takes on

01:27:23.220 an enhanced

01:27:23.720 meaning, and

01:27:24.640 then on the

01:27:25.000 negative side,

01:27:25.780 the punishments

01:27:26.420 that are

01:27:26.720 associated with

01:27:27.500 any deviation

01:27:28.240 from the

01:27:28.680 true path.

01:27:29.800 And so we'll

01:27:30.280 delve into that

01:27:30.920 more on the

01:27:31.400 Daily Wire Plus

01:27:31.940 side.

01:27:32.800 So thank you

01:27:33.380 very much,

01:27:33.860 sir, for your

01:27:34.320 time and

01:27:34.740 attention and

01:27:35.300 for everyone

01:27:35.760 else who's

01:27:36.440 participating and

01:27:37.500 watching and

01:27:38.020 the film crew

01:27:38.580 here in

01:27:39.200 Sexsmith,

01:27:39.920 Alberta, which

01:27:40.520 is where we

01:27:40.960 are today.

01:27:41.540 And we'll

01:27:42.260 take 10 and

01:27:43.560 then we'll get

01:27:44.300 together and

01:27:44.940 finish this off.

01:27:46.680 Sounds good.

01:27:47.280 Thank you.

01:27:48.080 Thank you very

01:27:48.640 much, sir.

01:27:56.720 much lower.

01:27:58.680 Thank you.

01:28:01.320 Thank you.

01:28:05.920 Thank you.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - January 11, 2024

413. Raised by Thetans in a Galactic Gulag ｜ Aaron Smith-Levin

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript