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Scientology, Allegedly · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  You're listening to Why we Do what we Do? Welcome to Why We Do
• 0:16
  what we Do. I am your clear host, Abraham, and I'm your
• 0:20
  auditing host Shane. Where a psychology podcast. We talk about the things that
• 0:24
  people do and why they do them, and sometimes we talk about animals.
• 0:27
  We talk about all kinds of stuff. It's really great, it really is.
• 0:31
  I mean, I feel like this podcast and being on the show is
• 0:33
  scratched so many itches of curiosity for me, like what is this? Right?
• 0:36
  Like I feel like a porky from Toy Story four. It's like,
• 0:39
  oh, yeah, what is this? And then that's what this whole the
• 0:42
  whole preface of the show is about. I love that we get to learn
• 0:44
  so much and all the things that we do, and we have been doing
• 0:47
  this for some time. Do you know, in fact, why today's episode
• 0:50
  is so special? I don't know why is today's episode so special? Well,
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  for one, because it's about scientology and you did a lot of research
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  to prepare in a awesome discussion about this that I'm really looking forward to.
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  But for two, it's because this just happens to fall on the exact date
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  of our six year anniversary of doing this show. So this episode comes out
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  on May seventeenth, and on May seventeenth, twenty seventeen was the very first
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  episode of Why We Do what We Do? And six years later, here
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  we are the linear path to scientology. Yeah, that's what I mean.
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  This was the expected outcome, is that we started with psychology ended with taking
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  Tom Cruise down. Yeah. And if you just look back, it all
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  makes perfect sense. Yeah, all the synchronicities are there. Yeah. And
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  as I said, it is May seventeenth, and although it is now unofficially
• 1:42
  Why we Do what we Do Day, there are some other more official days
• 1:46
  that we could celebrate too. Yes, it is International Day against Homophobia,
• 1:49
  transphobia, and Biphobia, which I am a strong advocate for. Like that,
• 1:53
  yeah, huge supporter. Hooray. Also against those phobias. Yes,
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  yes, for the day that supports being against those phobias. Yes, I
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  appreciate you clear find that we want to make sure that we go clear in
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  our escon. It's also National Cherry Cobbler Day, like a good cobbler.
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  It's also National Mushroom Hunting Day even bigger mm yeah, bigger, but whatever
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  mushroom you prefer. My favorites are like hedgehog mushrooms a lot, big fan
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  of morals. Yeah, okay, I don't know. I don't know that
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  I have a mushroom preference, but I do just enjoy a good mushroom.
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  Yeah, that's fair. Woody ear mushrooms are really good. Recommend those,
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  okay, yeah, yeah, earlier in dation. I like that, although
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  I will say, just as a quick side for people, it is National
• 2:44
  Mushroom Hunting Day. You want to go and do that, that's great,
• 2:46
  be very very careful. There are lots of poisonous mushrooms that look like not
• 2:50
  to poisonous mushrooms. So if you're going to do this, or maybe you're
• 2:53
  an experienced person, in which case great, have fun, but otherwise do
• 2:55
  it with an experienced person. Do not eat mushrooms that you find growing out
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  of the ground. Yes, do not. It is National pack rat Day,
• 3:02
  which sounds like my nightmare, but it is actually more the days in
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  celebration of getting rid of the NICKNACKI things that you've collected that you know that
• 3:09
  you don't want or need, and so in that case I am in support.
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  Yeah, I like that. It's also National Walnut Day, which is
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  a really great substitute for like different proteins and vegan meals. So man,
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  there's a lot of good food on today. We've got a cherry cobbler with
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  mushroom and walnut. All sounds really good to me personally, It's really great
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  day to celebrate. Maybe that's just telling us that we need to celebrate with
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  desserts. Maybe that is a good way to interpret that. And then of
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  course, as I said, it is happy birthday. Why we do what
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  we do? Turn six? Our podcast is going to first grade, hooray,
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  yay, so all the things. But yeah, let's get into our
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  discussion for today. Yes, So, as we were going into this,
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  and as I did some research, I wanted to ask the question what does
• 3:53
  the American Rocketry program, the movie Grease, the Band at the Drive In,
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  and the Starship Troopers have in common? Well you will find that the
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  answer is scientology. So I don't know why I wanted to do this,
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  but it was one of those ones where I was like, this is the
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  thing that's like I feel like it's ever present, And as we kind of
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  got into it, we're like, ah, this makes sense. It's tracks
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  with the show. So your first question is we'll get in some background as
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  of history, but we have to ask the question of what is scientology,
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  and that in itself is nearly impossible to unpack. Before we dive too much
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  into exactly getting into this, I want to make sure that we are really
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  clear that we are not out in this discussion to attack the beliefs of the
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  religious aspect of the beliefs about scientology or any religion really, and I think
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  the way that I would equate this discussion and what we're going to have today,
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  because we are definitely going to take a skeptical scientific, psychological lens to
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  this, and we would do that with any religion, right, we would,
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  I think, look at it from that perspective and not and like we're
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  not ever saying don't believe in God or don't believe in aliens, or don't
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  believe in whatever you sort of course, like we can't do that. You
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  don't. You have the right to believe in whatever you want, Just like
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  if we were looking at something like let's take for example, the Catholic Church
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  that has had priests that have molested children, like that's something that we would
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  criticize, and that doesn't mean that anything about your faith is wrong that means
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  that something has happened inside of the organization that sanctioned behavior that we're not okay
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  with, that people are understandably and rightfully upset about. And that is sort
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  of similar to what we're talking about in this discussion. Where you can believe
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  whatever you want to believe about scientology, that's fine, but there are things
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  that we need to address in here that require a critical lens, a critical
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  talk through. Since the word lens too many times. Yeah, the way
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  to boil that down is like, you are allowed to believe what you believe
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  as long as it's not harming anybody. And what we're finding is that in
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  larger organized systems there's quite a bit of harm. And you'll see as we
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  get into it where this harm is occurring and why it's worth kind of discussing
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  this thing because it is a set of behavior to people engage in. So
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  your personal beliefs, you're personal beliefs, when they become harmful to other people,
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  that's when it becomes an issue. So yeah, all right, So
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  at the time of this writing, on the surface, when we talk about
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  the scientology, it appears that scientology is considered a modern religion where Others argue
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  that it's a cult, an alleged cult, I will say. Others will
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  state that Scientology is a quote, a multifaceted transnational corporation, only one element
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  of which is religious. And that quote comes from Stephen A. Kent,
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  who's a professor of sociology at University of Alberta. He specializes in new religious
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  movements and has conducted studies on groups like Scientology, but also the Children of
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  God, which is very clearly a cult. Right, yeah, yeah,
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  there are definitely real cults that have existed and do exist. So anyway,
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  point being and talking about Scientology, it's one of those things where the name
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  kind of catches you off guard, and I think on purpose. I think
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  the intention was you take something like science that has done a lot to try
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  and instill a reputation of being a trustworthy endeavor that produces meaningful outcomes and that
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  people can rely on for philosophical investigations as well as actual clinical outcomes and productive
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  results in that sort of thing, and that term then got sort of co
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  opted to scientology, which has nothing to do with science at all. It
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  is not even remotely in the same realm. And so don't let that confuse
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  you. It was just taking something that was familiar in basically applying repackaging it
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  so that it would be appealing. You could simply call it z News tribe
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  of meeting emeter reading enthusiasts, and that would be a perfectly good name for
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  it. That would be more accurate, probably, But anyway, scientology was
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  created in the nineteen forties, and as many people will have heard, this
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  is based on the writings of one l. Ron Hubbard. And if that
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  name sounds familiar, you may be familiar with the box office smash hit no
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  sorry, box office bomb that was Battlefield Earth starring John Travolta, And this
• 7:59
  was Hubbard's work. He wrote that. So there's your grease reference. That's
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  how that's side in. But John Jabalta is a pretty prominent figure in the
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  scientology church. Now. In nineteen forty nine, the first official work on
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  dionetics was published, titled Tarat Incognita the Mind. Now, dionetics is like
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  another phrase for kind of like the workings of scientology. So you're gonna hear
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  the term dionetics used sometimes interchangeably with like scientology, but really it's kind of
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  like the belief system, the kind of the processes that occur within the scientology
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  realm. Yeah, as you can see that. And this is as far
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  as religions go, very new with like nineteen forties. Nineteen forty nine was
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  Dionetics. A year later, in nineteen fifty Hubbard published Dianetics The Modern Science
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  of Mental Health, and things moved very quickly from there, with the Hubbard
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  Association of Scientologists International being created in just two years later again in nineteen fifty
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  two, and the creation of the E meter, which we'll talk about a
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  little bit later, and then eventually the Church of Scientology becomes incorporated and is
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  the universally recognized religious stamp of approval the tax exempt status which had achieved in
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  nineteen fifty four. Yeah, So from nineteen fifty and nineteen fifty four this
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  went from being kind of a published work to an organized religion in the United
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  States. Yeah. The church also would go on to form other organizations like
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  Narconon, which is like an narcotics anonymous type of program, the c Organization,
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  the Freedom magazine Criminon, which is like a criminal anonymous type of work
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  group like therapy group, as well as the Personal Spiritual Freedom's Foundation. What
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  you're going to find and why scientology gets so complicated is it has like a
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  bunch of organizations that are Scientology like backed a little bit like alcoholics Anonymous,
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  like AA is a religious group that backs it. It's a religious process.
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  Yeah, they've kind of taken the template from other organized religions and kind of
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  made this work for them. I really like the name of Freedom magazine.
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  It does make me think of something completely different than scientology, though it does
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  right all right. So Hubbard he's still around at the time. He'd been
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  the person in charge of the church for pretty much since its inception and for
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  some time, and he passed away a few decades later in nineteen eighty six.
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  So Shane and I are both now in the world, yes, but
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  just just entered the world as as l Ron Hubbard is leaving it coincidence and
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  David Miscavige Miss cavena Miscavage, David, Misscavage, thank you for your help
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  with that. That seems a lot more like how I would say that.
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  Although you can imagine those of you who are not looking at the text in
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  front of you, because this is an audio medium, in fact, you
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  can imagine how it might be spelled. Then anyway, so David Misscavage is
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  named the head of the church, and this ushers in a new era of
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  Scientology practices, and I would imagine this is where I mean, obviously it
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  had been building momentum up to this point, but I think there probably kicks
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  in the high gear right about now. Yeah, it kicks in the high
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  gear. It gets a little bit more violent than like allegedly. Okay,
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  and I'm gonna say alleged, because the Church of Scientology is highly litigious,
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  so just be mindful of that. But there are many, many, many,
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  many, many anecdotal stories of David Miscavage like literally getting into arguments with
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  people and diving across boardroom tables and crossbody blocking people and meetings and just beating
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  them up, which is like weird because he's like kind of like a he's
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  got like a wolverine figure, Like he's kind of short and like just like
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  solid muscle. It's like he's one of those guys. Cool. Yeah,
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  there's a lot going on there. So throughout this time and kind of up
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  until current day, We're not going to give like too much of a history
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  on this, but the organization has been a center of multiple controversies, including
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  blockmail coercion, as well as violence towards members who have spoken out or attempted
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  to leave the organization. There are lots of kind of very public celebrities who
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  have done documentaries against the church and have spoken out against the church, and
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  there have been threats of harm and stuff like that along with that. Multiple
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  lawsuits have been filed either against the Church of Scientology or by the church for
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  various reasons, including gaining tax exemption status and threats that went along with that,
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  silencing former members, addressing tax issues, all kinds of stuff, and
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  it's it's a real mess to try to figure out kind of the history of
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  it. And that's why I think it's less important to kind of talk about
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  that part and more about like what their core beliefs are and how that impacts
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  people around them. Do we need to say that they were alleged controversies and
• 12:15
  alleged silencing and alleged tax issues or something allegedly should The thing is is like
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  there are very public cases that have come out, and so like that all
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  that stuff is there, but it's a really complex thing. And again,
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  they're they're highly legitious. But what we're trying to report on is just kind
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  of what we're able to find on the internet based on information that they have
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  provided, let alone other organizations. So this is a synthesis of all that
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  stuff. Yeah, and I think it's it's probably not inaccurate at all to
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  say that like there have been there have been a lot of lawsuits that have
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  both come from and been done by scientology or have been applied to and have
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  come from and that doesn't I think require any caveats, although I will say,
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  just as a quick side note, when I hear the word alleged anymore,
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  it's like people use it in such a way that what I hear is
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  this definitely happened, but it's not a matter of public records, so we
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  can't say that it definitely happened, but it definitely happened. And that's that's
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  kind of what this is. So like now knowing a little bit of the
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  history, I think before we get into like some of the basic beliefs,
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  because this is going to take a little bit of like suspending this belief as
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  we get into it, We're gonna listen to some of alleged ads. All
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  right, now that you have your emeter in hand from that ad or maybe
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  it's on roots. Obviously you have to order it so it's being shipped.
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  But anyway, one of the things we have not talked at all about is
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  what do scientologists believe? What is this religion about? And although again we're
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  not criticizing people's belief, they can believe what they want, we do feel
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  like it's important to unpack a little bit of what is happening inside of this
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  religion in our discussion about how what we're kind of building up too, I
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  think is being one of the central reason that we wanted to talk about this
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  in the first place. Right So, according to the Scientology Newsroom, which
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  was one of their information sites, their primary belief is that humanity is generally
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  good and that quote spiritual salvation depends upon themselves end quote, as well as
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  relationships and attainment of brotherhood within the universe. It's primary concern is the full
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  rehabilitation of the spiritual self, which includes capabilities, awareness, and certainty of
• 14:22
  their own immortality. Now you had me until immortality, but I mean,
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  I ultimately it doesn't sound that bad. And basically what this is saying is
• 14:31
  like it sounds like a very spiritual thing. And in case you didn't pick
• 14:35
  it up. The idea is that humans are immortal and that our experiences occur
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  across multiple lifetimes. I feel like that's a slight contradiction in terms, but
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  that's okay. Let's continue to impact this a little bit more. Right.
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  Another important discussion point inside of this is talking about the reactive mind and the
• 14:54
  analytical mind. That sort of a way that scientology breaks down their understanding of
• 14:58
  humans and human behavior. And the reactive mind is the idea that our mind
• 15:03
  absorbs all of our pain and trauma, and alternatively, our analytical mind is
• 15:07
  responsible for consciousness and reason. So our reactive mind stores distress and withholds information,
• 15:13
  and the analytical mind doesn't have access to that distressed information. It is
• 15:18
  trying to essentially make sense of the world pursue it in a logical, logically
• 15:22
  coherent way. This is like not super dissimilar at all from Freud's breakdown of
• 15:28
  the subconscious with the indigo and super ego, except has had three parts in
• 15:33
  this has too. I think what you're going to find here and what you
• 15:35
  will see already is that we've already got reincarnation built into this across multiple lifetimes.
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  YEA, the human soul is immortal, lives across multiple lifetimes, gains
• 15:43
  experience as capabilities and all that. And also the human psyche is split into
• 15:48
  these two things, the reactive mind and the analytic mind, where the analytic
• 15:52
  mind is struggling and your challenges in your life struggles because you have all this
• 15:56
  trauma that's like basically blocking you up that is going to come up later right
• 16:00
  now. Another key belief is that humans are full of endless capabilities and hidden
• 16:04
  abilities that have not been realized. Their potential as assessed and evaluated through a
• 16:08
  process called auditing. And I actually really like this idea that human beings have
• 16:12
  like endless capabilities, which I would make an argument kind of falls in line
• 16:17
  with behavior science a little bit that like, given the right environment and given
• 16:19
  the right context, human beings can are capable of quite quite a bit.
• 16:23
  So you're seeing kind of an amalgamation of all these belief systems coming together to
• 16:27
  form this thing. Yeah, there's there's a level of appealing optimism inside of
• 16:33
  this that like you come in and they're basically like, look, you have
• 16:37
  this mental constipation that's clogging you up, and all we need to do is
• 16:41
  get you a little prune juice, some laxatives, you know, mind laxatives
• 16:45
  if you will, Yeah, spiritual enema. Yeah, it's it's gonna flush
• 16:49
  all that out of here. And then you have anything that you want to
• 16:53
  do or be, you can do or be. And I think, again,
• 16:56
  the optimism is there, and I think that they're not wrong that Like
• 17:00
  a lot of times people and I think, I think we've addressed this before
• 17:03
  on the show, but I think people get really sort of locked inside of
• 17:08
  their own expectations for themselves and then they have a hard time scene passed that
• 17:12
  to what they then could potentially have their behavior be. So I think that
• 17:18
  our science that is not scientology, is also pretty optimistic, as you said,
• 17:22
  because we also see a lot of room for improvement and people, and
• 17:26
  we often are able to see those results realized and achieved. And so I
• 17:30
  think that we have good reason to believe that that's the case. This is
• 17:33
  a little more nebulous. It's not anchored to any specific behavioral measures or outputs.
• 17:37
  It's more like you get the membership card that says that you've so maybe
• 17:41
  it's not that nebulous. I mean, you get the card that says you're
• 17:44
  there, but yeah, yeah, you get the new set of keys to
• 17:47
  the new doors that you couldn't get to before. Admittedly, I didn't think
• 17:51
  that I would have like I would find any common ground with like any of
• 17:55
  this, and like when they were like, yeah, humans could do things,
• 17:57
  and I'm like, yeah, you're right, they could, Like Okay,
• 18:00
  in a moment where it's like oh that was Oh no, they're that's
• 18:02
  how to get you. That's right, and most good lies, there's always
• 18:04
  a nugget of truth and a lot of things. We want to just be
• 18:07
  black and white that we disagree with things so we hate them universally, unilaterally
• 18:12
  and without exception. And I think the reality is that everything is more nuanced
• 18:15
  than that. Sure, there are certain things that people that I fundamentally disagree
• 18:19
  with that they get right, you know, right that they'll occasionally I'm like,
• 18:23
  yeah, I completely agree with where they're at on this. Like that
• 18:26
  happens sometimes, and I think I can appreciate the nuance of that. And
• 18:30
  so even though I don't think that I agree with a lot of the process
• 18:33
  here, as you said, we can get on board with this part of
• 18:34
  it. So we were talking about auditing before I sidetracked us really hard.
• 18:41
  During the audit process, the auditor, not the audit t but the auditor
• 18:45
  is an individual trained to administer their assessment. They meet with the person,
• 18:49
  they get out their little emeter. They plug it up to you and stick
• 18:53
  it in all the holes and wrap things around you, all that sort of
• 18:56
  thing. They don't stick anything in holes. I don't. Yeah, you're
• 19:00
  holding like two soda can size like metal things. Yes, you probably talk,
• 19:04
  that's all it is. Yeah, yeah, And I think I'm gonna
• 19:07
  give you a second here to elaborate more on these because because yeah, anyway,
• 19:11
  so they give you this emeator thing, they get you all hooked up,
• 19:14
  and what they want to do is they're going to gather They tell you
• 19:17
  they're gathering readings about you, about you as a person, and they're basically
• 19:22
  asking you to confess things, mostly concerns, thoughts, feelings, but kind
• 19:26
  of unload, just share things with them. This is like, hey,
• 19:30
  I'm your new best friend. You can tell me all your secrets. For
• 19:33
  the right price. I'll keep those locked up and no one else will hear
• 19:34
  them. And that information is recorded and stored indefinitely. And that's part of
• 19:40
  the pre clear process. So you're going toward clear, but to get there,
• 19:45
  you first have to be pre clear, like the TSA right exactly.
• 19:49
  So essentially you're going into an audit being pre clear, meaning that you have
• 19:52
  all this blockage, and then what you're trying to do is you're trying they're
• 19:56
  trying to gather information so they can figure out how to get you too clear,
• 20:00
  and we'll talk about how you get there accordance to their religion. But
• 20:03
  to get to clear, meaning that you have any blockage, which means that
• 20:04
  you can you know, engage as a human at your highest potential, your
• 20:08
  highest capability. Okay, So that's kind of a core value that you'll find
• 20:11
  within this. So there's the whole thing about going clear as like a thing
• 20:15
  that is almost synonymous in a way with the process of being a member in
• 20:19
  scientology or becoming exactly yeap perfect. Well, I need to know more about
• 20:23
  these emeaters, Shane, Oh, yes, okay, So an emeater the
• 20:27
  emeater they used to audit. It's very likely if you've ever seen like a
• 20:30
  like if for those of you who might be like out and about in different
• 20:34
  like major cities where a scientology place like does exist, like maybe Clearwater,
• 20:38
  Florida. But you might see like a booth where some like some members of
• 20:41
  the Scientology Church will be hanging out and they'll have an emeater that they can
• 20:45
  like audit you right then and there. Now, these emeters or electra psychometers
• 20:51
  are used as an assessment process for those interested in joining the church. And
• 20:53
  you'll see them have signs. Sometimes it'll say like free test, free personality
• 20:57
  test. That's you see a Scientology church. They're getting ready to audio.
• 21:03
  What they are designed to do is they're used to measure what's called electrodermal activity
• 21:07
  or ADA, and the tool is likened to polygraphs like something like that,
• 21:11
  where they essentially do nothing based on what they are originally proposed to do.
• 21:14
  Like so they don't do the thing that they say they do. They just
• 21:15
  measure electrical output kind of kind yeah, kind of. And the FDA actually
• 21:22
  labeled these as illegal medical devices. And make sure we're saying this not a
• 21:26
  legal medical device, but an illegal medical device. Important distinction, an illegal
• 21:33
  yes, yes, and so any device that you see is going to have
• 21:36
  a disclaimer that states that it is a purely religious artifact. Very important.
• 21:41
  Yes, it looks like a video game system with a console and two handles,
• 21:45
  as you said, sort of small soda can sized handles that are attached
• 21:48
  to wires, and that's supposedly how they gather readings. And you may have
• 21:52
  taken a free stress test as another way it's described. Yeah, I would
• 21:56
  definitely have heard the personality test thing, but the auditor might describe it as
• 21:59
  a free stress test. And if you've seen them on the street, that's
• 22:02
  the thing that they're doing. Now. I found this description from someone named
• 22:06
  Chris Schafsmeister who seemed like this is a biophysics person, and what he said
• 22:11
  is, quote, an emeter is a wheatstone bridge, an electronic circuit that
• 22:14
  measures electrical resistance relative to a standard resistance. And then he goes on to
• 22:18
  describe that it detects something that they call end grams. And in his description
• 22:23
  I read as carefully as I could, there's a lot of science and math
• 22:26
  that's a little above my head because I'm not a biophysics person. But essentially,
• 22:30
  if you break down the physics and the biology of how something like this
• 22:36
  is supposed to work, his sort of final conclusion is that it is physically
• 22:41
  impossible for something like this to do what it says it's doing by the very
• 22:45
  nature of the fact that it's measuring something that is essentially intended to be way
• 22:48
  too small to be detected and ranged in a way too complex of a pattern
• 22:53
  for a machine of that nature to detect it. Also, he says,
• 22:56
  our bodies are not wires and do not conduct electrical activity as a wire does,
• 23:02
  and so hooking someone up to a device of this nature and expecting it
• 23:04
  to read their electrical activity as if they were a potato that you plug two
• 23:10
  wires and does not work. Right, So the device itself is already kind
• 23:15
  of scientifically proven not to work. Now, the other side of this,
• 23:17
  I think is really important to remember, and this is something that gets used
• 23:19
  later, is that when they're auditing, they're gathering information, and they're storing
• 23:25
  that information indefinitely. This is the equivalent of going into a confessional and the
• 23:29
  priest writing down everything that you're saying it saying in that confessional booth and then
• 23:33
  putting it in a file for later. Right, yes, right, So
• 23:36
  everybody has that picture and in listeners, I imagine that you're probably picking up
• 23:40
  where that might be a problem, because I've already mentioned the term blackmail,
• 23:44
  but historically there have been some reports of like that information being used to hold
• 23:48
  people hostage within the church allegedly. Yeah, so if the goal is to
• 23:55
  get clear, we have to ask the question what is clear and what does
• 23:59
  it look like? What is that state of clear? And are you clear?
• 24:02
  And the state of clear is I'm so glad you asked, Abraham,
• 24:04
  is the status that follows specifically, anybody in the Scientology realm, anybody in
• 24:10
  the Scientology Church can achieve clear after completing certain clearing activities, which is kind
• 24:17
  of nice objective tasks. I like that. Laxative clear, laxative clear,
• 24:22
  that's it nice and easy. Now. The idea is that your trauma and
• 24:25
  your emotional stress which are held by the reactive minor preventing or blocking you from
• 24:29
  achieving your full potential, and as such you engaging activities to clear the blockage,
• 24:33
  which leads you to accessing your full potential. So again, very optimistic,
• 24:37
  very helpful. But as you continue to remove these blocks, you can
• 24:40
  achieve closer to a state of clear. I like that eventually it becomes so
• 24:45
  clear that you are invisible to the naked eye, like vising out here now,
• 24:52
  going clear, is actually not just a one and done activity. After
• 24:56
  you've reached clear status, you begin receiving a spiritual status above clear, so
• 25:00
  you can become, like I said, you go from invisible to like metaphysical.
• 25:07
  I think yes. But anyway, you go so clear that you can
• 25:10
  reach Operating thetan or Ot, not to be confused with Netflix is the OA,
• 25:15
  which is a different letter altogether, very different. Yeah, but Operating
• 25:18
  thetan or Ot there are eight levels fully endorsed by the church, but the
• 25:23
  Church is also discussed the possibility of as many as fifteen stages of this.
• 25:30
  Okay, and so, as you might guess, you need to pay an
• 25:33
  additional fee to take the courses to achieve each level of thetan Hood. Yeah,
• 25:38
  so you are OT level one, OT level two, and we'll talk
• 25:41
  about what the different levels are because you can actually see what the course rundowns
• 25:45
  are yea, which is kind of interesting. You can't see what's in the
• 25:48
  course, but you can see kind of the series. Sure. Now,
• 25:51
  the additional levels that were discovered after l Ron Hubbard died have never been released,
• 25:56
  and so the thought is is that it might just be a way to
• 26:00
  kind of keep people on the hook. But sure, we'll leave that now
• 26:03
  strap in. When you reach OT three, you begin to experience your full
• 26:07
  self and get closer to Zenu, a figure within scientology's advanced technology component of
• 26:11
  the belief. So part of scientology is that they believe that this advanced technology
• 26:15
  existed, exists, and existed, and that part of it was brought to
• 26:21
  the planet Earth by Zeno. Now Zenu is in the lore, is the
• 26:26
  extraterrestrial ruler of the Galactic Confederacy. The story goes that he brought billions of
• 26:30
  his own people, the TGAC, to Earth seventy five million years ago and
• 26:34
  killed them with hydrogen bombs. The spirits of these aliens attach themselves to humans
• 26:40
  and are a part of the reason we experience spiritual harm or blockages or why
• 26:44
  We're pre clear, why is this important for the church? Well, you
• 26:47
  cannot achieve OT three without getting past quote the wall of fire, which is
• 26:52
  part of the experience of the Thetan's which were the alien spirits, and a
• 26:56
  course to learn how to break through the wall of fire can cost nearly nine
• 27:00
  thousand dollars to achieve, just out of curiosity, do you happen to know
• 27:03
  if the cost of these levels increases with inflation. I imagine they probably do.
• 27:07
  I would think so. I do think they're probably subject to the whims
• 27:11
  of the market. Yeah. Anyway, here's a quick rundown of the known
• 27:15
  just as a quick reminder, operating thetan or theton levels or OT. So
• 27:19
  you have OT one. This is the first step toward becoming clear. This
• 27:22
  is a small sum of two thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars to pull
• 27:27
  it out your savings. You're good. Now. If you invest that again
• 27:30
  plus some you can for a five thousand, two hundred and twenty five dollars
• 27:34
  fee at the time of this recording. Who knows what the pressures of inflation
• 27:37
  will do to this, but that will bring you to OT two at OT
• 27:41
  three. As we said, this is crossing the wall of fire into z
• 27:45
  new territory, which is a sentence I never thought I would say. And
• 27:48
  that is for a small fee of eight thousand, nine hundred and ten dollars.
• 27:53
  And so now my quick back of the envelope calculations put us well over
• 27:59
  sixteen thousand dollars or the cost of one Honda Fit approximately of investments to reach
• 28:07
  those levels of clarity. Yeah, and going forward, you've got OT four,
• 28:11
  which is the drug rundown course. The cost is unknown. I couldn't
• 28:14
  find a listing of that. OT five is audited New era dianetics for ots,
• 28:18
  OT six is solo n OTS auditing courses. OT seven is solo n
• 28:23
  OTS as well, and then OT eight Level eight. The final official endorsed
• 28:30
  class is called Truth Revealed. I mean it sounds like, hey, like
• 28:33
  you're getting into a secret club, but you just gotta pay a lot of
• 28:37
  money to get there, right, I gotta say, honestly, you look
• 28:38
  at these and you're like, well, I could swing that amount of money.
• 28:41
  I could, Like, I want to know what they have to say
• 28:44
  up at you know, OT two, OT three, and like, I
• 28:45
  feel like there's a certain level of sort of like I can imagine someone who's
• 28:49
  got the cash to burn looked at this and it's like, I could have
• 28:52
  elite membership in this club because I can afford to ascend these levels so rapidly,
• 28:57
  And I could see a certain level of appeal of that. So maybe
• 29:00
  someone who's very insecure, doesn't have a lot of direction in life, and
• 29:03
  has a ton of cash to burn, maybe just recently came out of a
• 29:07
  few big movies this thinking like I could be an action star someday. Maybe
• 29:11
  I need to be a clear action star. Who knows, and then you
• 29:12
  start filming Mission Impossible. As a guess, I don't know who you're talking
• 29:17
  about, Vin Rahims. Maybe yeah. As a quick summary, the idea
• 29:22
  here is you do not reach your full potential because your reactive mind prevents you
• 29:26
  from becoming clear or reaching that potential. Right, you are pre clear.
• 29:30
  You're a pre clear failure. And part of the reason you're pretty clear is
• 29:33
  because Znu, the alien overlord, killed so many of his people seventy five
• 29:37
  million years ago, and you have an evil alien hitchhiker that's attached to your
• 29:41
  soul, and so to go clear, you can take these courses to gain
• 29:47
  spiritual healing with you know, just spend those thousands, tens of thousands of
• 29:51
  dollars probably mean at least eight known courses to reach your potential. Makes sense?
• 29:55
  Got it makes sense? Great? Got it? We got it.
• 29:56
  Listen. Now here's the thing you might be going that sounds a little absurd,
• 30:02
  like as somebody who is an atheist. Sure that might sound absurd to
• 30:04
  me when you read it like that, but you could do the same thing
• 30:07
  about any story in the Bible. I mean, like truly, like when
• 30:11
  you say stuff out loud, you're like, okay, so God created humans
• 30:15
  in himself and then got real sick of their shop and then set himself back
• 30:18
  down as a different person, but also himself. He could walk on water
• 30:23
  and make bread out of thin air, and make fish out of thin air,
• 30:26
  and make wine out of water, and then had people that he created
• 30:30
  kill himself and also his son, and then come back and then everybody is
• 30:33
  good. Like when you say the stuff out loud, and obviously I'm saying
• 30:37
  in a satirical tone, it sounds ridiculous, but it makes sense that people
• 30:41
  could possibly buy into this because this is truly no different than what you might
• 30:45
  hear in other religions. I think the scientologists would be happy to hear that,
• 30:48
  And I think that you also might be wondering to yourself, why as
• 30:52
  a psychology podcast talking about scientology this weird religion thing, And maybe it makes
• 30:57
  perfect sense to you, But I think we do need to get in why
• 31:00
  we talk about scientology, But first we need to get in some ads.
• 31:11
  Okay, we are back. We've been talking about scientology, comparing it to
• 31:15
  a lot of the world's religions. I agree with your point that although it
• 31:19
  topographically does look different than a lot of the other religions that have relied mostly
• 31:25
  on extra metaphysical figures, this one simply relies on extraterrestrial figure sure, and
• 31:32
  so there's not really a lot of difference in those, But there's actually a
• 31:36
  more important relation between scientology specifically and psychology that does not exist in the same
• 31:42
  way across other religions. Right. So a main element of the Church of
• 31:47
  Scientology is that they consider themselves a scientific community. So that's a big element
• 31:52
  of this. They consider themselves a scientific community, and they have sought copyrights
• 31:56
  for their technologies, though many of their publications and technologies have been deemed either
• 32:00
  ineffective or harmful and have been rejected. So this is a really important thing.
• 32:06
  You're not going to see a lot of like priests writing in scientific journals
• 32:09
  to try to get their beliefs within that system published in like a scientific like
• 32:14
  scientific literature. But Scientology kind of stands out differently because they have actively tried
• 32:20
  to do that. That is a thing that is a thing to think about.
• 32:22
  It gets worse, it gets worse just as you prepare yourself. It's
• 32:27
  a lot to kind of absorb. Yeah. So one of the reasons we
• 32:30
  wanted to discuss this is because scientology I'm not even sure allegedly is the right
• 32:35
  a word here. This is pretty clear there is a blatant disregard for psychology
• 32:38
  and psychiatry. Now they say that they're science based, so that seems surprising,
• 32:44
  but this is a part of where the big pharma conversation started was scientology.
• 32:49
  So do you know why they began to dislike psychology and psychiatry, Well,
• 32:54
  maybe you do. Let's get into it anyway. L Ron Hubbard was
• 32:58
  rejected by psychiatry and the psychology community. The Church has gone on to say
• 33:04
  that the fields of psychology and psychiatry ignore the spiritual dimension and Hubbard's ideas of
• 33:08
  the mind, which is the equivalent of saying your brain is like a blocked
• 33:13
  artery. Yeah, and so they have taken this very staunch position on these
• 33:19
  fields. Just as a quick side note, I think that we as people
• 33:22
  practitioners inside of psychology version of it, are highly critical of our own field
• 33:29
  because we feel like it's important to move forward. The way to move forward
• 33:31
  is to be critical of our flaws and to point them out and correct them
• 33:36
  when they exist. Sure, and so we're all four criticizing fields that don't
• 33:40
  do well, rejecting them wholesale because they turned you down at their luncheon as
• 33:45
  a different matter altogether. Right, So what you're gonna find is, like
• 33:49
  scientology specifically started as like a personal revenge story almost then, this is why
• 33:53
  it's important to understand learning histories and motivations. So Hubbard himself believes psychiatry and
• 33:58
  psychology to be good. Initially, he received treatment during World War Two for
• 34:01
  extended periods of moroseness and suicidal inclinations. Like that's part of his history.
• 34:07
  He was unable to afford it and began studying psychiatry informally to develop his own
• 34:10
  theories. People do this all the time, yeah, right, Like they're
• 34:14
  like, I did my own This is the equivalent if I did my own
• 34:16
  research. Okay, I would just to say I invented my own research.
• 34:21
  That's essentially what happened. Right, So his ideas were rejected due to his
• 34:24
  overall arrogance about the science and neglect of known science or scientific inquiry about the
• 34:30
  processes the brain process in psychology, so he basically came in and said,
• 34:34
  here's what I think, and everybody that was in the field was like,
• 34:36
  we already know more about this than what you just said, So that doesn't
• 34:39
  make any sense, Like we were already beyond this question. Yeah, that
• 34:44
  you're asking, and you would know that if you hadn't done your own research.
• 34:49
  So immediately after this, after he was kind of like rejected and his
• 34:52
  ideas were rejected, he wrote Dianetics. Like immediately after his wife Sarah sought
• 34:57
  institutionalization as a result of growing concer Like she specifically tried to get him hospitalized
• 35:01
  because of his own mental health concerns and specifically about his specific violence and irrationality
• 35:08
  around a lot of the stuff. So he was pretty violent and had a
• 35:12
  lot of challenges, and he actually kidnapped his wife and daughter as a result
• 35:15
  of this kind of breakdown, And soon after he came out to say that
• 35:19
  psychiatry was evil. So it sounds like he wasn't accessing these services in a
• 35:23
  really powerful way or a meaningful way and had some kind of maybe undiagnosed or
• 35:29
  concerning presenting problems and never got them adequately treated. So this was like almost
• 35:32
  like a coping mechanism for him. I would guess that the revisionist history version
• 35:38
  of this that Scientology might want you to believe is that he became disillusioned with
• 35:44
  psychiatry because they were not open to new ideas, and so he left the
• 35:47
  field. And I think that's just not what really it really looks like,
• 35:52
  is what happened, sure, and so I would be disinclined to trust the
• 35:55
  opinion of the person who has stake, who has like a reason to both.
• 36:01
  I guess at this point financial reason to have their position seem like the
• 36:07
  right one. Anyway, they went so far as to form the Citizens Commission
• 36:10
  on Human Rights, which runs the Anti Psychiatry Museum, which is called Psychiatry
• 36:15
  and Industry of Death. They all sort of book called Believe What You Like,
• 36:19
  which saw them try to spy on British institutions related to mental health.
• 36:22
  And as an example of this, the de facto figurehead of Scientology is kind
• 36:29
  of Tom Cruise. I think it's largely because of his continued and maintained popularity
• 36:34
  and fame and movies and that sort of thing, and the fact that it's
• 36:37
  just very well known that he's a scientologist. Key has been very vocal about
• 36:40
  his dislike of psychiatry in particular, and a direct quote from the All Teeth
• 36:45
  No Soul actor includes quote, I think psychiatry should be outlawed and quote there's
• 36:51
  no such thing as a chemical imbalance end quote. And it's criticize others for
• 36:54
  taking medications regularly. And I think that is a position personal or otherwise that
• 37:00
  is very harmful to people who are suffering with mental health problems. Absolutely,
• 37:06
  he was in a pretty public feud with Brookshields, of all people, after
• 37:09
  Brookshields had talked about using medication to help manage your postpartum depression, which is
• 37:15
  very real thing. Sure, yeah, she was public about that. She's
• 37:17
  very vulnerable about it, and Tom Cruise was like, yeah, that's not
• 37:20
  real, you know, like as he does. And so Shields actually had
• 37:23
  a really great quote on this. She said quote Tom Cruise should stick to
• 37:27
  saving the world from aliens and let women who are experiencing postpartum depression decide what
• 37:30
  treatment options are best for them end quote, which is reasonable, rational,
• 37:37
  measured, and absolutely like I advocate for that. Like, whatever you think
• 37:40
  works best for you, go do it. But don't listen to Tom Cruise
• 37:44
  about it fair enough anyway. That is essentially why we think that there's a
• 37:47
  pretty clear link between what we discuss and scientology. Is this sort of war
• 37:52
  against psychology about which, as I said, we're in favorite of criticism.
• 37:55
  I think it's good this sort of blanketed approach of like, well, i
• 37:59
  have then my own ideas about psychology, and I'm not going to do the
• 38:02
  work or research or get the degree or have an understanding of what that is.
• 38:06
  I'm just going to sort of, without knowing what's going on in psychology
• 38:08
  and psychiatry, going to make up my own ideas and if you don't like
• 38:12
  them, then it is because you're evil. Yeah, And that that seems
• 38:15
  to be the sort of the sort of what happened. And I mean,
• 38:17
  that's just a nonsense position to take, Like sure, And I think,
• 38:22
  as I was saying earlier, if demonizing or essentially saying that people who are
• 38:28
  suffering with these things, it's not real, like what they believe isn't like
• 38:32
  it's just a belief that they have. It's just those you know, thetens
• 38:37
  or whatever and grams. It's yeah, it's it's the stuff attached to your
• 38:43
  soul. It's it's the it's the blocked brain that's extremely harmful. There are
• 38:46
  people out here that like who are legitimately battling with with the kind of mental
• 38:50
  health problems that could result in things like suicide or going out and hurting other
• 38:54
  people, and like to just say their problems aren't real. I think it
• 38:58
  makes it a significantly more dangerous elevated situation. I think at the very least,
• 39:02
  we treat at face value what someone is reporting is happening so that we
• 39:07
  can figure out what's going on and do our best to support them. And
• 39:10
  that telling people that whatever they're experiencing is invalid right out the gate is not
• 39:15
  a smart place to be practically, or philosophically or clinically. I think that's
• 39:21
  honestly where the biggest, my biggest thing comes from with this. As far
• 39:25
  as this particular belief system, I mean, there are hundreds and hundreds and
• 39:30
  hundreds of belief systems that exist out there that include a lot of things that
• 39:34
  I may not agree with but that do exist. I mean, But the
• 39:37
  thing is is when it comes down to this particular thing, having mental health
• 39:42
  concerns in my family, working with a lot of people that have mental health
• 39:45
  diagnoses that really struggle with those, and equality of life is diminished because of
• 39:50
  those, because they're not getting adequate treatment, or they're not getting enough treatment,
• 39:52
  or not getting the treatment to work for them. I mean watching that
• 39:54
  happen and then having somebody like Tom Cruise come out and say, well,
• 39:59
  none of this is real is just a slap in the face to somebody who
• 40:02
  works in the field, let alone somebody who might have a diagnosis. And
• 40:07
  I cannot imagine how hurtful that would be watching somebody stand up on a platform
• 40:12
  and a pedestal and be on talk shows and promoting movies and going I did
• 40:16
  my own stunts. I jumped out of an airplane and I pop popcorn on
• 40:21
  the way down. Also, mental health is a real and you're like,
• 40:22
  what the are you doing? Dude? That's my biggest bias against this,
• 40:25
  and like why I it's such a concern and let alone the other stuff that
• 40:30
  we're gonna talk about, But like, that's I think my biggest thing.
• 40:32
  Believe what you want. But at this point in time, it's becoming quite
• 40:35
  harmful the messaging around this. Now you might be hearing what we've been saying,
• 40:39
  the criticisms we've been leveling at this and hear this whole like moving up
• 40:44
  a level, getting deeper and deeper into the system sort of thing, and
• 40:46
  think this sounds a lot like a cult. So we didn't unpack that question,
• 40:51
  is it a cult? Does this meet that definition of a cult?
• 40:53
  Allegedly, while this episode in particular is not about cults, a common criticism
• 40:57
  of this is that scientology gets can to cultish behavior. So by definition,
• 41:01
  a cult is quote a system of religious veneration and devotion directed towards a particular
• 41:07
  figure or object end quote. So another way cults have been described has been
• 41:10
  a quote a group of people with usually atypical beliefs living in relative isolation from
• 41:16
  the world end quote. So kind of wrapping your head around those definitions,
• 41:21
  I think it's important to kind of unpack a couple of things around cults.
• 41:23
  So those are some quick definitions. I think other things to think about when
• 41:27
  we're trying to look at what cults are and what they do is what are
• 41:30
  the common elements of when we have sort of an archetype of a cult versus
• 41:35
  other things that do cult like things that usually involves things like authoritarian control.
• 41:38
  You've got someone who has total control over everything that everybody in the members.
• 41:43
  The members all do extremist beliefs. So it's not just like we believe that
• 41:46
  flowers are really pretty and therefore we're going to stick our grounds. It's like
• 41:50
  something that's way outside of a sort of normal range of behaviors. Isolation from
• 41:54
  society usually means you do not communicate or talk with others on the outside.
• 41:58
  That's usually a very quote opponent of cults. And then usually commonly a veneration
• 42:04
  of a single individual as being like the primary figurehead, status, symbol,
• 42:09
  leader, you know, whatever it is. There is like a person who
• 42:12
  is regarded as having the highest level of status and sort of quality, if
• 42:16
  you will. So when we start kind of going further, I think it's
• 42:20
  important to also define that they're kind of expressed that there's different types of cults.
• 42:23
  There are doomsday cults, which are cults that prepare for the end of
• 42:27
  the world, like the Branch Davidians in Wake of Texas in the nineteen nineties,
• 42:30
  if you're familiar with that whole situation. They're political cults. I mean,
• 42:34
  all you gotta do is look at January Sex. You've got religious cults
• 42:37
  where generally starts with a brand new theology or a religion, or they're sex
• 42:40
  cults which focus primarily on sex and sexual abuse, like Nexium, which is
• 42:45
  a recent kind of like a weird MLM that came up, multi level marketing
• 42:49
  scheme that came up that turned into a sex cult, and there was like
• 42:52
  some pretty public trials where people got charged and they're sent to prison for it,
• 42:55
  like including some actors. Woh, okay, so these are actually like
• 43:00
  contemporary things that are going on, like Matt Gates. Yeah, Matt Gates
• 43:04
  is definitely a part of Okay, one of these I meant to say next
• 43:07
  year. I don't know how that slept out anyway, Yeah, you know,
• 43:10
  it's just it happens sometimes. Now, there are some other examples of
• 43:14
  cults that are important to note, like Heaven's Gate People's Temple, which was
• 43:16
  Jim Jones the Unification Church. There are many, many, many many cults
• 43:21
  out there that exist that or use as different case examples and have pulled these
• 43:24
  characteristics that we've just described. And there are multiple motivations for why someone would
• 43:30
  join a colt, how they get recruited to cults, how cults recruit people.
• 43:32
  So it makes sense the groups like the Church of Scientology would be able
• 43:37
  to recruit folks right and get them to sort of into that system. Sometimes
• 43:40
  people seek shared experiences of relationships. Others are seeking spiritual meaning. Others are
• 43:46
  often tricked or manipulated into joining, sometimes out of fear, sometimes out of
• 43:51
  hope, sometimes both, whatever the reason, There are groups of people who
• 43:53
  find their way and the arms of welcoming organizations, only to find out that
• 43:58
  it wasn't necessarily what they expected, or they continue to believe and sort of
• 44:01
  maintain the facade for a really long time because they want to believe it so
• 44:06
  badly. But then that really does beg the question, based on all of
• 44:08
  this discussion of cults, is the Church of Scientology cult by definition not necessarily
• 44:15
  but also maybe And that's the challenge that's that's the kind of the concern that
• 44:19
  goes along with this. It seems the only lacking element is that central figure.
• 44:22
  Although l Ron Hubbard might effectively serve that role as like the person that's
• 44:28
  venerated like it's not quite the same as Jim Jones, like not the omnipresent
• 44:32
  kind of like the one above all the end of all there is type of
• 44:36
  situation, Like it's not like that, but supposedly el Ron Hubbard has ascended
• 44:40
  to all the extra levels that nobody else is and he is off exploring the
• 44:45
  galaxy and the Zeni Verse. So there's some other differences too, is like
• 44:49
  they aren't really the isolationist way that many cults tend to operate, Like they
• 44:53
  do keep their secrets closely guarded, but they don't prevent members from going out
• 44:57
  and sort of being out in the community and doing things in the world.
• 45:00
  Right, Yeah, they're actually pretty public, which is like an odd thing
• 45:04
  too. Yeah, so like that's not really cult like their beliefs I think
• 45:07
  I would categorize as extremists, but as we said, they're not really all
• 45:10
  that different from believing that like someone read magic stones out of a hat for
• 45:15
  example, or tossed to a burning bush or talk to yeah, talked to
• 45:20
  a piece of shrubbery that was on fire. So like there's I think it
• 45:23
  actually does meet a lot closer to the definition of religion than it does a
• 45:28
  cult, and so I think I probably wouldn't necessarily slip it into cult status,
• 45:30
  But there are things about it that are cult like, and I can
• 45:34
  understand why they're concerning for that reason. So the main concern really in this
• 45:37
  space is that the church engages in active processes to suppress, harass, or
• 45:42
  classify its followers and critics openly. So like what they'll do is they ask
• 45:45
  that they're followers disconnect from their attachments. There are some reports of that,
• 45:50
  and are told that those people are considered suppressive persons or sps, and sps
• 45:54
  are like a derogatory term, and the church, you are an SP,
• 45:58
  you are bad, you are you should not be around. Followers also received
• 46:01
  training on how to manage skeptics like us, So I imagine we'll probably get
• 46:05
  some emails at some point in time. So I think there is like a
• 46:07
  little bit of the isolation component there, but not necessarily. It's like it's
• 46:10
  like kind of like like get rid of the people who are sps. An
• 46:15
  I'm an SP two, but like you could get rid of the people who
• 46:17
  are sps, because they're going to be they're going to constantly put those blocks
• 46:22
  back in place and keep you from being clear, and so bring them on
• 46:27
  or just keep them at arm's length. It's like essentially what happens where negative
• 46:30
  Nelle is over here. That's it. During the audit process, secrets are
• 46:35
  gathering stored. As we mentioned, this has sort of treated this confessional.
• 46:38
  You're asked to give them a lot of personal information that they then get to
• 46:43
  hold onto and a standard confessional someone might share their inner secrets or concerns where
• 46:47
  it is forgiven and left and a confessional booth. In this case, every
• 46:51
  confession is documented and stored for a later retrieval if needed. And this alone
• 46:55
  can create a coercive relationship and create course of controls sort of that if you
• 47:00
  leave, everyone will find out type of approach. So this does then sort
• 47:05
  of look like that authoritarian control that we've seen in other cult like things as
• 47:08
  well, right, and so to kind of like maybe button this particular section
• 47:13
  of RUE in twenty eighteen compares auditing to pastoral counseling, and if you're out
• 47:17
  initiated, pastoral counseling is a form of psychotherapy that includes spiritual resources as well
• 47:22
  as psychological understanding for healing and growth, and it's typically performed by mental health
• 47:25
  professionals that have theological training. So you'll find this kind of like in church
• 47:30
  faith based types of settings. Right, And my question would be, how
• 47:34
  could this be if there's a strong aversion to psychology in psychotherapy. Answer that
• 47:38
  one cruise, How could auditing and pastoral counseling be the same even though they
• 47:44
  have the same processes. Well, we can answer that auditors are not trened
• 47:49
  counselors and the audit process is an assessment. Either ru had a gross misunderstanding
• 47:53
  of the audit process or he's one of them. Either way, it just
• 47:58
  doesn't make very much sense to essentially say like we're going to do something that
• 48:00
  looks like psychology and also say psychology psychiatry aren't real right right, right,
• 48:06
  or evil or evil. It's a whole thing. So now that we have
• 48:09
  kind of an idea of where we're going and what's next, let's get to
• 48:13
  the point in the Scientology episode where we do talk about science. But while
• 48:16
  we prepare for that, we're gonna listen to a couple ads. Okay,
• 48:27
  we promised you science, where are here to deliver? Obviously, I think
• 48:30
  the first thing to say is that there isn't really any science behind Scientology,
• 48:35
  particularly what they deem as being sort of effective. But there are some nuanced
• 48:38
  things that are worth unpacking in terms of understanding science and how it relates to
• 48:43
  this. Yeah, So the first thing to really understand about what's going on
• 48:46
  in the world scientology is this idea of coercion. And so there is an
• 48:50
  extensive body of research on the impact of coercion and what it does, and
• 48:53
  between the impact on mental health and well being of those in coercive circumstances.
• 48:58
  The church does kind of employ these practices that impacts followers. Defectors from the
• 49:02
  church indicate that the impact the church had on their overall well being in relationships.
• 49:07
  Overall, it was really difficult for them to get on and to move,
• 49:10
  like to create friends and to become, you know, part of their
• 49:15
  communities because there was so much course of control. I was going to ask
• 49:17
  you real quick, I figure it with me as well. I figured most
• 49:20
  people will have well have heard the term coercion, and most that listen to
• 49:23
  us will know what that means. But just in case, you're way to
• 49:24
  find it really quick. Yeah, vocabulary, I like that coercion is the
• 49:31
  practice of persuading someone to do something by use of force or threats. Right,
• 49:36
  So essentially, when you think of the audit process, I have all
• 49:38
  this information on you, you're gonna do what I say worlds. The world
• 49:42
  is going to find out. As a matter of fact, that's like one
• 49:44
  of the biggest like discussions around John Travolta's involvement with the Church of Scientology.
• 49:51
  Everybody's got rumors and stuff like that, but like that's actually one of the
• 49:52
  big points of contention that comes up with John Travolta time and time again.
• 49:57
  He's still only part of the church because he'll get out of it as as
• 49:59
  a home sexual man and he doesn't want that, which anyway, I guess
• 50:04
  it is what it is. It's a whole thing, but it's exhausting now.
• 50:07
  Kent and Manka Manka and twenty fourteen have written about the impact of Scientology
• 50:13
  on the field of psychiatry and state that misinformation practices and public statements about the
• 50:17
  field of psychiatry have ultimately harmed public trust in psychiatry and have made it so
• 50:22
  that fewer people are accessing services that they may need that would help get them
• 50:27
  the supports that would allow them to recover and find you know, sort of
• 50:30
  strength and meaning in their relationships and in their lives. Because they are they
• 50:35
  see that practice as being problematic. So again there's oftentimes I think there are
• 50:39
  these people in the past who did not think about the long term implications of
• 50:45
  you know, picking a fight with a whole field of people who are out
• 50:47
  there trying to help others. I think that's an important thing. Now.
• 50:51
  Is scientology the only place that the bad vibes are coming from when it comes
• 50:54
  to psychiatry, No, not even close. But their messaging certainly isn't helping.
• 50:59
  Yeah, so I agree. Now. Ratana in twenty seventeen goes further
• 51:02
  syite the practices of dianetics and claims of psychiatry psychology being pseudoscientific as harmful to
• 51:07
  those with actual psychiatric concerns. So basically what they're comparing was like what's going
• 51:13
  on with scientology versus like what's happening in psychology. So, for instance,
• 51:16
  if things like chemical imbalances and psychiatric disorders are a myth, then the claims
• 51:22
  of scientology makes disregards concerns related to queer patients and their unique needs. A
• 51:27
  lack of care around clinically significant disorders can produce higher rates of psychiatric symptoms leading
• 51:31
  to harm to the self or others. So that's kind of what you were
• 51:35
  saying before, which is like if I'm not getting the help I need,
• 51:37
  I am increasing risk of harm to people around me. And so the messaging
• 51:42
  around calling psychiatry and psychology pseudoscientific increases risk for those who are at risk,
• 51:50
  right, Lazarre Kravitz Frederic Kadem in two thousand and two, And I don't
• 51:54
  think it's that Kravitz different, Kravits different. Yeah that Lenny Leonard Kravitz or
• 52:00
  Zoe explored self reported motivations for Jewish religious behavior and found that there were several
• 52:05
  factors belief in divine order, ethnic identity, social activity, family activity,
• 52:09
  and upbringing. And while we cannot directly apply the same factors as scientology,
• 52:14
  we can't see how these factors would lead to involvement in a large church type
• 52:19
  organization. Yeah, it makes sense. I think, like when you're looking
• 52:22
  for like activity social groups like Yeah, an organization, whether they're religious or
• 52:25
  not, may provide for that, and it makes sense that people would join
• 52:29
  these larger groups. Yeah. Roost Led at All in twenty seventeen explored cult
• 52:31
  membership and how people end up joining and or leaving said cult. They found
• 52:37
  that there are shared characteristics among cult membership and addictive disorders. Things like persistence
• 52:42
  of engagement despite harm or damage, initial psychological relief, occupation or engagement in
• 52:46
  a membership or club, high psychiatric comorbidities, and accessibility to related activities.
• 52:52
  So I thought that was kind of interesting that they found that addictive disorders and
• 52:58
  cult membership have a lot of pa arlels. Yes, yeah, I think
• 53:01
  that that there's probably a whole episode to unpack about that at some point in
• 53:07
  the future. Yes, but there's someone that I think we talk about too
• 53:09
  little on this show, whose name is Israel gold Diamond, and he's not
• 53:12
  talking about either cults or scientology specifically, but I think in generally understanding these
• 53:17
  complex things that humans do that sometimes look very confusing, way don't understand them.
• 53:22
  He said, it's contingencies plural, and this case, what we're mean
• 53:27
  by contingencies is essentially the relation between our behavior and its effect in the world
• 53:31
  and how that then later affects us in our behavior and the behavioral contingencies.
• 53:37
  The circumstances related to joining a major organization makes sense. Feeling stressed. They
• 53:43
  offer a place of relief and rest. Having a problem, they can solve
• 53:45
  it, even if that place great's a problem. Lonely. They got lots
• 53:49
  of people. They got built in friends, want meaning in your life.
• 53:52
  There's something you can do to save the world, save yourself, save other
• 53:55
  people than feeling sick. They've got a solution for that very specific alien blockage
• 54:00
  problem. And so anyway, the point being that, like there are lots
• 54:05
  of it's not just one thing. In effect, with everything, it's never
• 54:08
  just one thing. It is all the things all the time, and how
• 54:12
  they interact with one another two. You know, one thing could change another
• 54:15
  in terms of the circumstances of your life. And so Issio gold Diamond is
• 54:20
  someone we should invoke more often in our discussions. Absolutely. So with all
• 54:25
  of that being said, there are some other tidbits that I thought were really
• 54:29
  important that we could talk about related this. Yeah, important and fun,
• 54:32
  I think important and fun, but also will provide a little bit more context
• 54:36
  about like the high strangeness that goes along with us. So, first of
• 54:38
  all, there were only about forty thousand scientologists globally. Globally. Wow,
• 54:43
  that is a shockingly small number, which is much less than I thought.
• 54:45
  Yeah, that surprises me tremendously. So it's it's mind blowing because there are
• 54:50
  more behavioring less in the world than scientologists, and nobody knows what I do
• 54:52
  for a living. That is so frustrated. That's a very good point.
• 55:01
  Yeah, I mean, if you were to PLoP every scientologist on the entire
• 55:05
  planet into one town, it would be a tiny, tiny rural town,
• 55:07
  a small town. Like they have like a grocery store in a gas station,
• 55:12
  and they have enough property to make a small town too. Yeah,
• 55:15
  and that's a fair point. And also somehow like eleven Starbucks, but yeah,
• 55:20
  definitely a Walmart. Another interesting tidbit here. They own about twelve million
• 55:23
  square feet of property. That's where you're going with your a small town thing.
• 55:27
  That's where I was going, yep, with twenty six properties that are
• 55:29
  worth approximately four hundred million dollars. Their headquarters in Clearwater, Florida. Yeah,
• 55:37
  of course it's Florida. Yeah, I don't know. I didn't see
• 55:42
  that coming, but it's worth about one hundred and sixty eight million dollars.
• 55:45
  So House of Mouse and House of Going clear you know, the House of
• 55:50
  zero house nearby. It didn't catch me until this moment, Like, do
• 55:53
  you think they picked Clearwater specifically because it's clear? I do think they I
• 55:58
  think that's maybe they maybe they renamed it too. I feel like that was
• 56:00
  very explicit. Yeah, I think it was explicit. Either they change the
• 56:05
  name or they chose it because of the name. Yeah, I feel like
• 56:07
  it had to have been very intentional to be there. So some believe that
• 56:10
  academics are actually afraid to study Scientology and publish on the religion due to their
• 56:15
  highly litigious nature and suppressive tactics. It appears that the overall that their public
• 56:21
  relations, like Scientology is public relations, and their practices will make those people
• 56:25
  sps to the world, those academics that are studying so like everybody, it's
• 56:30
  like one of those things where it's like we're publishing this episode, but like
• 56:32
  we also know that there's a risk that we're going to get an email from
• 56:35
  the Church of Scientology. It's gonna be like, hey, take this down,
• 56:37
  Like because they are so litigious and there's so many public records of them,
• 56:42
  so like academics don't even want study them because they're like, I don't
• 56:44
  want to bother they're afraid of it. Yeah, we need we need HBO
• 56:46
  money to like higher lawyers that can help us deal with this. Yeah,
• 56:52
  you can also help us by joining us on Patrion the Why we do what
• 56:57
  we do Legal Defense Fund exactly right. Our goal for our public hangout was
• 57:02
  fifteen patrons. Our goal for like a public activity as twenty patrons. Our
• 57:07
  goal for having enough money to battle the Scientology lawyers as two million patrons.
• 57:14
  Let's break all those records, guys. Helps. Every little bit helps.
• 57:19
  The major move that Scientologists have made is enlisting actors, major public figures that
• 57:23
  are well known and well liked. That then we'll go out and share their
• 57:27
  message. We already know about Tom Cruise and John Travolta, but there's also
• 57:30
  Giovanni Rabies, Elizabeth Moss, Nancy Cartwright, Doug E. Fresh, and
• 57:35
  Heinza Kays who famously left South Park due to their episode on Scientology, and
• 57:39
  among those who originally joined and left also include William S. Burrows Beck,
• 57:45
  Cedric bixlar Zavala, who is the at the Drive in the singer of at
• 57:49
  the Dreven Yet, yeah, who are in that? Neil Gaiman, Katie
• 57:52
  Holmes, Charles Manson, and Leo Ramini who famously went after the Church and
• 57:57
  several documentaries that were pretty powerful. We get to skip over that. Charles
• 58:00
  Manson was a scientologist at some point in time. No, that that did
• 58:06
  occur to me to maybe come to circle back around too. So there's that.
• 58:12
  William S Burrows and Charles Mantor are both like no, no, no,
• 58:14
  no, no no no, it's too much just to kind of put
• 58:16
  that in your heads now. For a period of time, l Ron Hubbard
• 58:19
  was living in a home with Jack Parsons as part of a group studying thelemic
• 58:22
  magic. Jack Parsons is partly responsible for helping establish rocketry in the United States
• 58:28
  as part of a group of scientists at Caltech called the Suicide Squad, and
• 58:31
  they were known as a Suicide Squad, and that's where the original name came
• 58:35
  from. They were known for their unorthodox and dangerous methods, which caused several
• 58:38
  explosions on campus and off campus. Jack Parsons actually died in the explosion in
• 58:44
  his own house, so like it was kind of like a pattern of behavior
• 58:47
  that he had. But he is responsible for creating jet engines. Wow,
• 58:51
  and his conscienceness was put into a shark who then became a sentient soldier I
• 58:55
  hope. So, yeah, there's a myth that Hubbard actually created the religion
• 59:00
  on a bet with Robert A. Heinlein, a wonderful author author of A
• 59:02
  Stranger Into Strange Land and Starship Troopers our final tie. And while this is
• 59:07
  not confirmed, several reports indicate that Hubbard had made multiple comments about how starting
• 59:12
  a religion could be a good way to make money, allegedly allegedly, I
• 59:16
  wonder if we should just call this podcast this podcast episode Scientology Comma allegedly.
• 59:22
  I think that's the name of it. I think that's the name. You
• 59:24
  got it perfect, we did it. I mean, el Ron Hubbard had
• 59:27
  a lot of the yachts, so he did make some money off of this.
• 59:30
  Yeah, fair, all right. So I mean with all this,
• 59:34
  all this information, it's probably worth doing some takeome points. So I think
• 59:38
  my main take on point in kind of going through all this is that it's
• 59:42
  not unfair to describe Scientology as an alleged cult. Those main key markers are
• 59:47
  there in one form or another. They might be a little bit more nuanced,
• 59:51
  but they're they're there, and that those that I have spoken out about
• 59:53
  the harms of this particular group they parallel harms of other cults. Consistently,
• 1:00:00
  people are being suppressed, they're being hurt that they are being coerced, and
• 1:00:04
  I think I think it's like I said, it's not necessarily I don't know
• 1:00:07
  that you can outright call scientology a cult. Obviously we're not here, but
• 1:00:10
  it's not unfair to liken them to a cult. I think, yeah,
• 1:00:15
  I can see that, And so I think they wouldn't like really meet the
• 1:00:16
  technical definition. But they do share some characteristics, yes, with cults and
• 1:00:22
  things that cults do, and I do get that. And one of the
• 1:00:24
  things they have done is taking an existing problem and create a solution that only
• 1:00:29
  they have. It's a page right out of the sort of pseudoscience handbook,
• 1:00:32
  is to sort of patent and lock down these positions. Now, I will
• 1:00:37
  also say a lot of pseudosciences give their stuff away for free, but then
• 1:00:40
  they are sort of like because their stuff doesn't work, it's sort of like,
• 1:00:45
  oh, well, you need this other thing to really bring to the
• 1:00:46
  next level. And that's where they get people in the door. And I
• 1:00:50
  think that's not different here, right, there's the like you get your personality
• 1:00:52
  test, yeah, and then you pay us thousands of dollars and you get
• 1:00:54
  to learn the truth if you will, Yeah, And so we do have
• 1:00:58
  lots of research on how to treat and support those with various mental health disorders.
• 1:01:01
  There's ongoing research all the time to continue to find better in better ways
• 1:01:05
  to support those people. Were really clear that those struggles are real for those
• 1:01:08
  people, and honestly, it kind of doesn't matter whether or not they have
• 1:01:12
  a chemical imbalance or whether or not they have a psychological problem that was brought
• 1:01:15
  on by circumstances that arose in their childhood that you could could call baggage if
• 1:01:21
  you want to. The point is that they have the real experience that they're
• 1:01:23
  struggling with something real that could have them the result that is currently resulting in
• 1:01:28
  harm to them, it could result in further harm to them or others,
• 1:01:31
  and that they are seeking support with that. So calling that not real is
• 1:01:36
  just it's inappropriate, it's harmful, and it's not something I can be on
• 1:01:40
  board with, regardless of what the ideology might be. And I think that's
• 1:01:45
  ultimately my main take. One point too, is like, at the end
• 1:01:49
  of the day, like it doesn't really matter what your moral tales are,
• 1:01:52
  It doesn't matter what your stories are, it doesn't matter what your belief system
• 1:01:55
  is. But if it's becoming harmful to people that are not part of your
• 1:02:00
  group, or it's becoming harmful to people within your group financially harmful, then
• 1:02:06
  I don't think that that's a very supportive system of faith. And I think
• 1:02:10
  that's where I really struggle with that. I think, at the end of
• 1:02:13
  the day, like I couldn't imagine going to a place where I'm seeking help
• 1:02:16
  and just being put in more risk as a result of that because I'm seeking
• 1:02:22
  out a community I'm already vulnerable and now I'm in more harm's way than I
• 1:02:25
  ever was because they're trying to make money off of me, or they are
• 1:02:30
  telling me to isolate myself, when isolation is the last thing I should do.
• 1:02:34
  And so I think that ultimately, no matter what your belief system is,
• 1:02:37
  if it's harmful, it's not helpful, and that's we've got to move
• 1:02:40
  away from those things. And all of this that's basically just the you know,
• 1:02:45
  the creation of a person who was mad that he didn't get his way,
• 1:02:47
  so he created an entire religion to say, you can't be in my
• 1:02:51
  secret club and know the secret password unless you give me money and believe what
• 1:02:54
  I tell you to believe yeah, I mean l Ron Hubbard was not a
• 1:02:58
  great guy. He stole Jack Parson his wife and like did all kinds of
• 1:03:01
  really awful things while he was living with him. So like, he's not
• 1:03:04
  a great guy. He's not known for his like moral integrity. All right,
• 1:03:08
  Well, I think that's about what we have to say about scientology.
• 1:03:10
  Is there anything else that you'd like to add chain before we move on?
• 1:03:14
  No, I think that covers it. I mean, I've got I mean,
• 1:03:16
  I have a lot to say, but I don't think that it fits
• 1:03:19
  in the context of this particular episode. Fair enough, Well, we do
• 1:03:22
  have some recommendations. I wouldn't recommend ads, but they're here anyway. Okay,
• 1:03:34
  we're back. I know we just had some transition music away from ads.
• 1:03:37
  So I'll give you a second to listen to my dulcet tones, the
• 1:03:38
  dulcet tones of my voice, and then we'll do a music to segue to
• 1:03:42
  our beautiful recommendations segment recommendations. I'm recommending a new stand up special. It's
• 1:03:55
  by John Millennium. It's called Baby J. I don't know if you've had
• 1:03:59
  a chance to watch yet. I don't know if you have not, do
• 1:04:00
  you watch any stand up at all. Sometimes, Yeah, not not super
• 1:04:03
  consistently, but I do sometimes. Okay, I've gotten a real joyet of
• 1:04:06
  some stand up stuff. Yeah, okay, good. So this one is
• 1:04:10
  starkly different than John Moliney's stuff. So he still wears a suit, and
• 1:04:13
  he's like very well addressed and all that, and he's still kind of like
• 1:04:15
  some exaggerated stories. But this is the whole he tells that, I mean,
• 1:04:18
  from the beginning to end. It's like him just kind of sharing and
• 1:04:23
  being vulnerable about his addiction and going to rehab and the whole process of like
• 1:04:27
  going to rehab, healing from rehab, all the struggles that he's had with
• 1:04:30
  being a drug addict, and like the entire story along that line. And
• 1:04:34
  it's really fascinating. It's really fascinating to watch him kind of be a different
• 1:04:38
  person and like tell a different jokes instead of the really exaggerated stories. It's
• 1:04:42
  very linear and very I think, very heartfelt. So I was really impressed
• 1:04:45
  with it. But it was also very funny, sure, because he was
• 1:04:47
  like the whole time like he was that, like he wasn't punching up or
• 1:04:50
  punching down in anybody else. It was always to himself, like everything was
• 1:04:55
  like him to say his own punching bag, and I thought that was really
• 1:04:57
  a great way to probably cope and stress or deal with the stress that goes
• 1:05:00
  along with recovery. All right, good to know. Yeah, where do
• 1:05:03
  you get this? Where's this available? It's on Netflix right now? Okay,
• 1:05:06
  John Lenny Baby j on Netflix. I'm recommending a TV show. I
• 1:05:11
  may have even recommended this before, I don't know, but I was just
• 1:05:13
  delighting in the wonders of this show. And that's Bob's Burgers. It's a
• 1:05:17
  cartoon show. It's definitely available on Hulu. It might be available on Fox,
• 1:05:21
  but you can find it a couple of different places. But this is
• 1:05:25
  just it's such a delightful, wholesome, really really funny, well written show.
• 1:05:30
  And I think all the vocal talented it is incredible. The story writing
• 1:05:33
  is wonderful. It's engaging, it never gets old. It's not relying on
• 1:05:39
  a lot of sort of shock value or politics. It's usually these sort of
• 1:05:42
  day to day struggle type comedy situations. Yeah, and some also goofball personalities
• 1:05:47
  that I think really helped drive it forward. So Bob's Burgers the movie was
• 1:05:50
  great too. Recommend that, so go out and find yourself some Bob's Burgers
• 1:05:55
  and just sit back and relax and enjoy the right because it's a good time.
• 1:05:58
  I love it now. Bobs is great. It's so funny. Indeed,
• 1:06:01
  all right, if you like what we're doing here today and you'd like
• 1:06:04
  to support us, you can do that by subscribing living us a rating or
• 1:06:08
  review of picking up some merch, joining us on a trip through Scientology World
• 1:06:13
  theme park, which I don't think any of us would go to, So
• 1:06:15
  don't don't do that, I take it back, no that, But specifically,
• 1:06:18
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• 1:06:20
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• 1:06:24
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• 1:06:26
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• 1:06:28
  get enough, then we'll do some more formal activities we get till like twenty
• 1:06:31
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• 1:06:33
  So join us over there. It's patreon dot com slash WWDWWD podcast.
• 1:06:41
  You can learn more about this episode and other episodes by going to our website.
• 1:06:44
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• 1:06:48
  podcast dot com. For the people who have already joined us on Patreon,
• 1:06:51
  those people get all kinds of bonus stuff they already liked the episode. They
• 1:06:55
  get our notes, they get behind the scenes content, they get videos,
• 1:06:57
  they get ramblings from us, they get our search inquiries to chat ept.
• 1:07:01
  That special group of people consists of Mike, m Meghan, Laila, Mike
• 1:07:05
  T, Justin, Kim, Joshua, The Daily Ba, Brad, Stephanie,
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  Kelly, Olivia and Brian. Thank you all so much for your support,
• 1:07:13
  credit where credit is due. Music and editing by Justin Greenhouse, writing
• 1:07:16
  and fact checking by Shane, Selena, Jess and myself. And then of
• 1:07:20
  course thank you all for listening. Is there anything that I missed or anything
• 1:07:24
  you'd like to add before we close out this dive on scientology? Nope,
• 1:07:27
  not today perfect. Then this is Abraham, This is Shane bro Out.
• 1:07:30
  See ya. You've been listening to Why we do what we do. You
• 1:07:33
  can learn more about this and other episodes by going to WWDWWD podcast dot com.
• 1:07:41
  Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome Day one.