“Your Secrets Become Leverage” - Scientology’s SHOCKING Manipulation & Blackmail Playbook EXPOSED
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
162.95874
Summary
In this episode, we discuss the difference between confession and auditing, and the differences between the two, and how confessions can be used in the business model of the Church of Scientology and the Catholic Church. We also discuss how confessions are often used as leverage in order to get inside information about one s personal life.
Transcript
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I've heard stories in the business model of when they get so much intel from you
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in your personal life, mistakes you made, that when you want to leave,
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But that business model of confession is a business model from the Catholic Church.
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It's actually, if you think about where does confessions go to?
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If you're a Catholic and you're confessing, there's a curtain.
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You don't know who the priest is on the other side.
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So a Catholic priest has ethical standards that he must adhere to.
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Yeah, but let's contrast that with what Scientologists do, which is auditing.
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And this is a form of what they call spiritual counseling.
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So you're sitting across the table from your confessor or your auditor.
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You are holding two metal cans connected by wires to a box called an e-meter,
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which is actually what could be seen as part of a polygraph.
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So you're being asked questions by the auditor about your personal life, your business life,
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And he has the advantage of not only looking you in the eye and reading your body language
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and so forth, but seeing on the e-meter when you are nervous.
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And so at that point, when he sees, oh, the needle's moving.
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So this is confessions with the use of technology.
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And then drilling down into whatever makes you nervous, supposedly to help you.
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But also this is revealing your secrets, revealing your inner life and your private life.
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And then they're taking notes that go into a folder that might be called your pre-clear folder
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And routinely, people that become involved in Scientology sign releases regarding their records
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So Scientology then, they've got the goods on you.
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It's organized in a methodical way, and there are copious notes and records that can be used
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It is confession, but I would call it more like an interrogation.
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I mean, confessions and interrogation, if they're asking you a question, you know, I understand.
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You can ask people that have left religions of what they were uncomfortable with, because
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there was a church in L.A. called the Los Angeles Church of Christ.
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And Los Angeles Church of Christ, a guy named Edward once came up to me, and I was introduced
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to it by a guy named Fernando, who was one of my groomsmen, a good guy.
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And he meets my girlfriend, and he starts asking me questions.
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He says, so when's the last of many guys had sex?
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And I said, probably 30 minutes ago, prior to meeting with you.
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He says, well, I'm just telling you, you're going to go to hell.
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Like, I'm trying to see if I have a shot at going to heaven.
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Anyway, so we start kind of going through the process, and it was such a controlled environment.
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And Fernando was dating a girl, I won't say the girl's name, that that relationship ended
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up very nasty, because she was fully in, that he had to do certain things that he didn't
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want to do, that he was forced to do, that he didn't.
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Anyways, long story short, can you find out who was the pastor?
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And eventually, he would step down from leadership.
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And he came up and he said, I've been wrong what I've been saying.
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Can you type in Los Angeles Church of Christ and type in Steve Sapp?
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But this was actually called the International Church of Christ, not to be confused, by the
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way, with the United Church of Christ, which is a mainline denomination, or the Independent
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Churches of Christ, which this group broke away from.
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So Kip McKean started this group back in the 70s with just a handful of people in Massachusetts.
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And at its highest point, it's estimated that there were about 250,000 members worldwide.
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Yeah, and it was all based on a concept of discipleship in which every member was assigned
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And there was an ascending hierarchy with Kip McKean at the top, the one person who wasn't
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And they worshipped him as a kind of prototype of the perfect Christian.
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And they also believed that every other Christian church was lost.
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The only way to go to heaven is through their church.
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And so when you see a Christian church that is saying, look, I'm not just saying that
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I'm saying that Christianity writ large is not the way.
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It is my organization that I run that you must belong to in order to be saved.
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And that is what Kip McKean taught until he stepped down.
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Now he has restarted recently, and he again has followers, not very many.
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And the ICOC, as it's often called, the International Church of Christ, is now greatly diminished.
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I don't know how many members, but I would speculate 50,000 or less.
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But when they were in their heyday, I was doing...
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This doesn't sound like a good church you're a part of.
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But this is why I don't want to go to church, because of churches like this.
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And I once did a news program with Fox News, and producers for Fox News infiltrated in the late 90s the church in Atlanta, Georgia.
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And they actually were able to get recordings of what that discipleship was like and how they would talk to you.
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And specifically, they're training and they're saying to someone, you need to consider leaving your boyfriend, they're telling a female producer at Fox.
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Because he isn't coming along with the program, and therefore you need to get rid of him.
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And that kind of inner discussion that is not heard by the general public and not known when you become involved with the church is what really makes it tick, that kind of control.
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And I can remember I was retained by Fox as an analyst and consultant, and the producers would actually call me to be debriefed.
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Because even though they knew that the group was a cult, they would say to me, Rick, I feel like I'm getting taken in.
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Well, if you take the three, the cash, the adulation, and the sexual, I didn't see the sexual.
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The adulation I saw, I know nothing about the cash.
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I was in my early 20s to see what was going on.
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Let me just say that when Kip McKean stepped down, he did so for sins in his life that remain undisclosed.
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And certainly, there were wonderful people that were involved in the ICOC.
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And I think that's part of the phenomenon or the situation you're in in a destructive cult.
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You're in this group, and the people around you are very idealistic.
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They're very positive because they believe that the group is good.
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And they're there feeling that they're promoting something that is positive, that is good for people.
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And so you are mistaken by these people around you.
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You look at them, and they're smiling, and they're loving, and they're kind.
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And you think to yourself, this is a great group.
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But if you sat with Kip McKean in a situation where he had to answer for himself, you probably would say, what the heck am I in here?
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And so many people, when they leave cults, they leave because something happened.
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There was something shocking that they witnessed that was not according to what the group said they were about.
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And they were disturbed by it, or they're just plain exhausted, worn out from working so hard for the group.
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And they leave, and I think that many people, when they leave, leave thinking, well, there's something wrong with me, I'm ashamed of myself, I failed, I let God down, et cetera.
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And they don't really understand, no, it wasn't about me doing something wrong or me being to blame.
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It was the group, and that the group had predatory practices, and that the group leadership wasn't ethical, and there were conflicts that I had as a person wanting to be ethical and reasonable with what I was being told to do in the group.
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And so I think for everyone that leaves a group, you have to go through a process of unpacking your experience, looking at it, understanding it.
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And I would say it's very similar to being in an abusive, controlling relationship.
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The person who is the abusive partner is very effusive, and they tell you how much they love you, and you go through this honeymoon period.
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But then comes the abuse, and you don't want to believe it.
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And your partner is telling you, it's your fault.
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And I know that people often say about women that are in abusive, controlling relationships, well, you know, love is blind.
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But when the perpetrator, the partner, is constantly manipulating you, and there's all this smoke and mirrors, how can you see clearly?
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How can you think clearly when they don't let you?
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I've seen guys also caught up with controlling women.
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I saw a guy that he lost himself, married a girl, and afterwards I'm like, buddy, you've lost yourself.
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But for about three years, nobody could recognize him.
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Of course, I've seen more stories with men than I've seen with women.
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It's two to one on a number of stories because men are more the aggressive, the assertive.
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But women have a way of controlling in a very different way.
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I just messaged my guy to see who we were talking about regarding to this Kip guy from Los Angeles Church of Christ.
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This is a clip from 1993 where he is a CBS reporter, a reporter is trying to interview him.
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Last month, we found out that the man who some followers call God's greatest living treasure
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would be coming to this New York hotel for an annual meeting with his world sector leaders.
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I believe you were talking to our researcher on the phone.
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Could you just maybe explain to us why so many of the ex-members of your church
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are suggesting that there was mind control involved in their time in the church?
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But the questions really are about you and your role in the leadership of the church.
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And many of the ex-members would like to know why these things happened to them.
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Well, I think you've talked to many of the ex-members, so you have the information.
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But they would like, and I think some questions are appropriate for you to answer,
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why are all these people suggesting that there was mind control being done to them while they were in your church?
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Hi, I'm Rick Allen Ross, cult expert, intervention specialist, author of the book Cults Inside Out.
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