WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.759 Welcome back to the deep dive. If I sound a little 00:00:02.759 --> 00:00:05.820 cautious today, there's a pretty good reason 00:00:05.820 --> 00:00:09.000 for that. We are walking directly into a minefield. 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:10.919 That's one way to put it. And I don't mean that 00:00:10.919 --> 00:00:13.300 metaphor. Well, OK, maybe a little metaphorically, 00:00:13.359 --> 00:00:15.699 but we're tackling a subject that is just surrounded 00:00:15.699 --> 00:00:21.059 by lawyers, by razor wire and about what? 70 00:00:21.059 --> 00:00:24.660 years of incredibly intense history. It is certainly 00:00:24.660 --> 00:00:26.859 a heavy hitter. Depending on which document in 00:00:26.859 --> 00:00:28.719 this massive stack in front of us you choose 00:00:28.719 --> 00:00:32.280 to believe, we are either about to discuss the 00:00:32.280 --> 00:00:35.520 only hope for saving humanity from insanity and 00:00:35.520 --> 00:00:38.159 nuclear destruction. Right. The salvation of 00:00:38.159 --> 00:00:42.399 mankind. Or. We're about to dissect a transnational 00:00:42.399 --> 00:00:45.600 criminal enterprise that masquerades as a religion 00:00:45.600 --> 00:00:48.200 to hoard cash and abuse its members. There is 00:00:48.200 --> 00:00:50.039 almost no middle ground in the source material, 00:00:50.259 --> 00:00:52.460 is there? It is completely, utterly polarized. 00:00:52.520 --> 00:00:54.579 We are talking, of course, about Scientology. 00:00:54.579 --> 00:00:56.759 We are. And, you know, it's one of those topics 00:00:56.759 --> 00:00:58.299 where everyone thinks they know the story. Oh, 00:00:58.299 --> 00:01:00.460 yeah, absolutely. You see the headlines. You 00:01:00.460 --> 00:01:03.399 picture Tom Cruise jumping on a couch. You picture 00:01:03.399 --> 00:01:05.939 John Travolta in a pilot's uniform. You hear 00:01:05.939 --> 00:01:08.159 all these rumors about aliens and volcanoes. 00:01:08.500 --> 00:01:11.379 The sci -fi stuff. Right. And the general consensus 00:01:11.379 --> 00:01:14.219 for the average person is usually just it's that 00:01:14.219 --> 00:01:17.239 weird thing famous people do that costs a fortune. 00:01:17.400 --> 00:01:20.420 And that's the caricature. It's the tabloid version. 00:01:20.680 --> 00:01:24.769 But. Our mission today and why we have so many 00:01:24.769 --> 00:01:26.890 documents in front of us from so many different 00:01:26.890 --> 00:01:31.109 sources is to go way, way past that. We have 00:01:31.109 --> 00:01:33.209 to. We need to look at the mechanics. How does 00:01:33.209 --> 00:01:35.790 a science fiction writer in the 1950s, I mean, 00:01:35.790 --> 00:01:38.269 a guy who was writing pulp stories for a penny 00:01:38.269 --> 00:01:40.930 a word, how does he pivot to creating a global 00:01:40.930 --> 00:01:43.609 theology? And what is the actual technology they 00:01:43.609 --> 00:01:46.510 claim fixes the human mind? That's the core of 00:01:46.510 --> 00:01:48.930 it. And then there's the big one. Why is this 00:01:48.930 --> 00:01:51.469 organization seemingly constantly at war with, 00:01:51.569 --> 00:01:53.810 well, with everyone? Yeah. The government, the 00:01:53.810 --> 00:01:55.769 internet, the entire psychiatric profession. 00:01:56.069 --> 00:01:57.989 Understand that. I think we have to start with 00:01:57.989 --> 00:02:00.530 the concept of the two Scientologies. The two 00:02:00.530 --> 00:02:02.269 Scientologies. Okay, break that down for us. 00:02:02.620 --> 00:02:05.540 Well, looking at the sources, you have the Scientology 00:02:05.540 --> 00:02:08.680 that's presented to the public. This is the humanitarian 00:02:08.680 --> 00:02:11.460 organization, the one with the gleaming new buildings, 00:02:11.819 --> 00:02:15.819 the anti -drug campaigns, the celebrity endorsements. 00:02:15.860 --> 00:02:17.840 The one you see on the Super Bowl ad. Exactly. 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:20.639 It presents itself as a modern, practical religion 00:02:20.639 --> 00:02:23.759 offering real tools for life. You know, communication 00:02:23.759 --> 00:02:26.099 courses, help with studying, that kind of thing. 00:02:26.240 --> 00:02:28.500 Okay, so that's version one. And the second one? 00:02:28.599 --> 00:02:31.879 The second one is the Scientology you find in 00:02:31.879 --> 00:02:36.379 court dockets, in FBI files, and in sworn affidavits 00:02:36.379 --> 00:02:38.699 from former high -ranking executives who were 00:02:38.699 --> 00:02:41.979 there for decades. And that version is different. 00:02:42.099 --> 00:02:44.900 It's described as a high -control group, punitive, 00:02:45.120 --> 00:02:47.759 secretive, and incredibly, incredibly expensive. 00:02:48.300 --> 00:02:50.800 So our goal today isn't to take a side and say 00:02:50.800 --> 00:02:52.780 this is good or this is evil. No, we're just 00:02:52.780 --> 00:02:55.020 unpacking the sources. Our goal is to unpack 00:02:55.020 --> 00:02:57.180 all this source material to see how these two 00:02:57.180 --> 00:02:59.960 completely contradictory versions can possibly 00:02:59.960 --> 00:03:02.180 coexist. So let's start at the very beginning. 00:03:02.340 --> 00:03:04.439 Because before there was a church and way before 00:03:04.439 --> 00:03:06.719 there was a controversy, there was just a man, 00:03:06.840 --> 00:03:10.659 L. Ron Hubbard. L. Ron Hubbard, or LRH, as he's 00:03:10.659 --> 00:03:13.139 often referred to by his followers. Born in 1911. 00:03:13.639 --> 00:03:17.639 By the 1930s and 40s, he was an incredibly prolific... 00:03:18.030 --> 00:03:21.349 Writer. I mean, unbelievably prolific. He was 00:03:21.349 --> 00:03:24.530 a machine. A machine. He wrote westerns, adventure 00:03:24.530 --> 00:03:28.270 stories, fantasy. But he was specifically known 00:03:28.270 --> 00:03:29.930 for his science fiction. And that background 00:03:29.930 --> 00:03:31.909 is so important to everything that follows, right? 00:03:31.990 --> 00:03:34.129 He was a world builder by trade. Exactly. He 00:03:34.129 --> 00:03:36.530 was used to creating entire universes with their 00:03:36.530 --> 00:03:38.590 own rules, their own physics, their own histories. 00:03:38.810 --> 00:03:42.870 But in 1950, he shifts gears completely. He releases 00:03:42.870 --> 00:03:45.909 a book that just explodes onto the scene. Dianetics. 00:03:46.490 --> 00:03:48.870 The modern science of mental health. Now, correct 00:03:48.870 --> 00:03:50.430 me if I'm wrong here, but reading through the 00:03:50.430 --> 00:03:52.650 early history, Dianetics wasn't pitched as a 00:03:52.650 --> 00:03:54.710 religion at all, was it? Not even a little bit. 00:03:54.789 --> 00:03:57.189 And that distinction is absolutely critical for 00:03:57.189 --> 00:03:59.909 the listener to understand. In 1950, Hubbard 00:03:59.909 --> 00:04:02.069 presented Dianetics as a mental health science. 00:04:02.509 --> 00:04:04.729 A science. Okay, and the timing is key here too, 00:04:04.810 --> 00:04:06.729 right? This is post -World War II. You have to 00:04:06.729 --> 00:04:09.969 remember the context. Psychology and psychiatry 00:04:09.969 --> 00:04:13.370 were still in a, well, a very rough state. Lobotomies 00:04:13.370 --> 00:04:15.590 were still happening. People were deeply traumatized 00:04:15.590 --> 00:04:18.930 from the war. And Hubbard comes along and offers 00:04:18.930 --> 00:04:21.449 what is essentially an engineering approach to 00:04:21.449 --> 00:04:23.709 the mind. An engineering approach? I like that. 00:04:23.769 --> 00:04:25.610 It sounds so appealing. It's like saying, you 00:04:25.610 --> 00:04:27.709 aren't broken. You're not crazy. You just have 00:04:27.709 --> 00:04:30.649 a mechanical issue we can fix. Precisely. The 00:04:30.649 --> 00:04:32.850 central thesis of Dianetics is that the human 00:04:32.850 --> 00:04:36.089 mind has a fundamental flaw. He divided the mind 00:04:36.089 --> 00:04:39.149 into two primary parts. You have the analytical 00:04:39.149 --> 00:04:41.709 mind, which he said is like a perfect computer. 00:04:41.889 --> 00:04:44.009 It's rational. It's calculating. It's flawless. 00:04:44.350 --> 00:04:46.379 Okay, the good part. And then you have the villain 00:04:46.379 --> 00:04:48.819 of the story, the reactive mind. The reactive 00:04:48.819 --> 00:04:51.180 mind. Let's really unpack that. What is it doing 00:04:51.180 --> 00:04:53.759 to us? Hubbard claimed the reactive mind is a 00:04:53.759 --> 00:04:56.620 kind of stimulus response mechanism that only 00:04:56.620 --> 00:04:59.819 kicks in when you are unconscious or semi -unconscious 00:04:59.819 --> 00:05:02.680 or in extreme pain. So when the analytical mind 00:05:02.680 --> 00:05:06.519 is offline. Exactly. And when it's on, it records 00:05:06.519 --> 00:05:08.360 everything that's happening around you. Not like 00:05:08.360 --> 00:05:13.420 a memory, but like a... A raw, painful recording. 00:05:13.660 --> 00:05:16.980 He called these recordings engrams. An engram. 00:05:17.019 --> 00:05:18.839 Okay, so give us an analogy for that. Make it 00:05:18.839 --> 00:05:21.279 real for us. Okay, imagine you're a child and 00:05:21.279 --> 00:05:23.980 you get kicked by a horse. You're knocked unconscious. 00:05:24.699 --> 00:05:27.480 Your analytical mind, the perfect computer, shuts 00:05:27.480 --> 00:05:30.310 off. But your reactive mind is still recording 00:05:30.310 --> 00:05:32.930 everything. It records the physical pain of the 00:05:32.930 --> 00:05:35.230 kick, the sight of the horse, the smell of the 00:05:35.230 --> 00:05:37.230 manure in the barn, maybe someone shouting, he's 00:05:37.230 --> 00:05:39.430 hurt. Got it. It's all recorded in this one toxic 00:05:39.430 --> 00:05:42.670 file. Exactly. And later on, years later, you're 00:05:42.670 --> 00:05:45.629 walking past a farm, you smell manure, or maybe 00:05:45.629 --> 00:05:47.449 you hear someone in a movie shout, he's hurt. 00:05:47.910 --> 00:05:50.449 And suddenly, your reactive mind keys in that 00:05:50.449 --> 00:05:52.670 anagram. You get a sudden headache. You feel 00:05:52.670 --> 00:05:55.100 a surge of anxiety. You have no idea why. It's 00:05:55.100 --> 00:05:56.920 like a glitch in your hard drive, a corrupted 00:05:56.920 --> 00:05:58.660 file that just keeps playing in the background 00:05:58.660 --> 00:06:00.600 and messing everything up. That's a great way 00:06:00.600 --> 00:06:02.899 to put it. And Hubbard said these engrams are 00:06:02.899 --> 00:06:05.939 the root cause of all human misery. Not just 00:06:05.939 --> 00:06:08.939 anxiety, but irrational behavior, psychosomatic 00:06:08.939 --> 00:06:13.040 illnesses, bad eyesight, asthma, arthritis. He 00:06:13.040 --> 00:06:15.439 blamed it all on engrams. Oh, so he was offering 00:06:15.439 --> 00:06:17.620 a single cause for everything. It's a single 00:06:17.620 --> 00:06:21.110 cause. And Dianetics was the debugger. The therapy, 00:06:21.209 --> 00:06:24.009 which he called auditing, was designed to find 00:06:24.009 --> 00:06:26.389 these engrams and erase them. And the ultimate 00:06:26.389 --> 00:06:29.310 goal of the therapy was to erase them all, to 00:06:29.310 --> 00:06:31.990 become clear. Yes. A clear is a person who has 00:06:31.990 --> 00:06:34.790 no reactive mind left. It's been completely erased. 00:06:35.230 --> 00:06:37.430 And Hubbard promised that a clear would have 00:06:37.430 --> 00:06:40.550 a near -perfect IQ, a photographic memory, no 00:06:40.550 --> 00:06:43.269 illnesses. They would be, for all intents and 00:06:43.269 --> 00:06:46.089 purposes, an optimized human being. Which, let's 00:06:46.089 --> 00:06:48.069 be honest, is an absolutely incredible sales 00:06:48.069 --> 00:06:50.970 pitch. Here is a book, a therapy that will make 00:06:50.970 --> 00:06:54.170 you a superhuman. And the public ate it up. Dianetics 00:06:54.170 --> 00:06:56.949 was a massive bestseller. Dianetics clubs sprang 00:06:56.949 --> 00:06:59.329 up all over America. People were literally auditing 00:06:59.329 --> 00:07:01.089 each other in their living rooms, reading from 00:07:01.089 --> 00:07:03.509 the book. But there was a major, major problem. 00:07:03.670 --> 00:07:05.610 The scientists didn't like it. They hated it. 00:07:05.949 --> 00:07:08.170 To put it mildly, the American Psychological 00:07:08.170 --> 00:07:10.230 Association, the medical establishment, they 00:07:10.230 --> 00:07:13.810 rejected it almost immediately as dangerous pseudoscience. 00:07:13.829 --> 00:07:16.250 They said there was absolutely no evidence for 00:07:16.250 --> 00:07:19.850 any of these claims about engrams or the reactive 00:07:19.850 --> 00:07:21.730 mind. And then the business side of it started 00:07:21.730 --> 00:07:24.589 to fall apart, too. It crumbled. The Dianetics 00:07:24.589 --> 00:07:27.230 Foundation went bankrupt. Hubbard actually lost 00:07:27.230 --> 00:07:29.990 the rights to the book Dianetics for a while 00:07:29.990 --> 00:07:33.129 in 1952. It was a complete disaster. So let's 00:07:33.129 --> 00:07:35.449 pause right here. He's bankrupt. The scientific 00:07:35.449 --> 00:07:37.550 community is laughing at him. He's lost the rights 00:07:37.550 --> 00:07:39.829 to his own bestseller. This really feels like 00:07:39.829 --> 00:07:41.670 it should be the end of the story. It does. Most 00:07:41.670 --> 00:07:43.589 people would pack it up, go back to writing Pulp 00:07:43.589 --> 00:07:45.769 Fiction and call it a day. But Hubbard pivots. 00:07:45.790 --> 00:07:47.689 And this is one of the most scrutinized, most 00:07:47.689 --> 00:07:50.189 critical moments in the entire history of this 00:07:50.189 --> 00:07:52.550 movement. This is the moment where we shift from 00:07:52.550 --> 00:07:55.870 science to religion. This is the turning point. 00:07:55.990 --> 00:07:58.250 I want to look at a specific document we have 00:07:58.250 --> 00:08:01.370 here. It's a letter from April 1953 that Hubbard 00:08:01.370 --> 00:08:03.990 wrote to Helen O 'Brien, who was helping manage 00:08:03.990 --> 00:08:06.310 what was left of the organization. This letter 00:08:06.310 --> 00:08:08.850 is often cited by critics as the smoking gun. 00:08:09.230 --> 00:08:11.970 In it, Hubbard is discussing how to structure 00:08:11.970 --> 00:08:14.810 their new organization in Phoenix. And he writes, 00:08:14.910 --> 00:08:28.209 quote, The religion angle. It sounds... Frankly, 00:08:28.290 --> 00:08:30.509 it sounds like a business strategy, not a spiritual 00:08:30.509 --> 00:08:33.409 revelation. Historians and critics argue that's 00:08:33.409 --> 00:08:35.669 exactly what it was. It was a pragmatic, almost 00:08:35.669 --> 00:08:38.450 cynical move. If you frame your organization 00:08:38.450 --> 00:08:40.929 as a clinic, you're subject to medical regulations, 00:08:41.309 --> 00:08:43.590 malpractice suits. You have to prove your claims. 00:08:43.769 --> 00:08:45.350 Right. You're held to a scientific standard. 00:08:45.629 --> 00:08:47.889 But if you frame it as a religion, you get First 00:08:47.889 --> 00:08:49.879 Amendment protection. You don't have to prove 00:08:49.879 --> 00:08:51.960 your therapy works in a lab because it's not 00:08:51.960 --> 00:08:54.220 therapy anymore. It's a spiritual ritual. And 00:08:54.220 --> 00:08:56.620 taxes. We can't forget about taxes. Exactly. 00:08:56.860 --> 00:08:59.799 So in late 1953, the first church of Scientology 00:08:59.799 --> 00:09:02.639 is incorporated in New Jersey. And Hubbard was 00:09:02.639 --> 00:09:05.360 surprisingly open about this. Even later, in 00:09:05.360 --> 00:09:08.299 a 1962 lecture, he told his followers that the 00:09:08.299 --> 00:09:10.840 religious structure was, quote, entirely a matter 00:09:10.840 --> 00:09:13.879 for accountants and solicitors. Wow. He was saying 00:09:13.879 --> 00:09:15.759 the quiet part out loud right there. But let's 00:09:15.759 --> 00:09:18.559 look at the name itself. Scientology. It still 00:09:18.559 --> 00:09:21.240 sounds scientific. It has science right in the 00:09:21.240 --> 00:09:24.080 name. It's designed to. It's a very clever linguistic 00:09:24.080 --> 00:09:26.960 blend. You have the Latin word seer, which means 00:09:26.960 --> 00:09:29.799 to know, and then the Greek word logos, meaning 00:09:29.799 --> 00:09:33.159 the study of. So Hubbard defined it as knowing 00:09:33.159 --> 00:09:35.980 about knowing. Knowing about knowing. It's very 00:09:35.980 --> 00:09:39.700 meta. It is. But by using that iology suffix, 00:09:39.700 --> 00:09:42.320 he was borrowing the prestige of science in the 00:09:42.320 --> 00:09:45.519 atomic age. It sounds like technology, like engineering. 00:09:45.720 --> 00:09:47.919 It appeals to a certain kind of person who might 00:09:47.919 --> 00:09:50.700 not be interested in faith or God, but is very 00:09:50.700 --> 00:09:53.460 interested in results and workability. So now 00:09:53.460 --> 00:09:56.080 we have the vehicle, the church. It provides 00:09:56.080 --> 00:09:58.320 legal protection, but they need a new engine. 00:09:58.419 --> 00:10:01.039 They need a theology. Because Dianetics was all 00:10:01.039 --> 00:10:03.120 about the mind, but Scientology goes deeper. 00:10:03.320 --> 00:10:05.279 This is where we get introduced to the thetan. 00:10:05.399 --> 00:10:08.039 This is the core shift from Dianetics to Scientology. 00:10:08.179 --> 00:10:11.759 In Dianetics, you are a mind and a body. In Scientology, 00:10:11.879 --> 00:10:13.480 you learn that you are not your body. You are 00:10:13.480 --> 00:10:15.200 not your mind. You are not your name or your 00:10:15.200 --> 00:10:17.820 personality. You are an immortal spiritual being 00:10:17.820 --> 00:10:20.200 called a thetan. So I don't have a soul or a 00:10:20.200 --> 00:10:23.360 thetan. I am a thetan. Exactly. You are the driver. 00:10:23.460 --> 00:10:26.940 The body is just the car. A meat body, as they 00:10:26.940 --> 00:10:29.279 sometimes call it in the texts. The doctrine 00:10:29.279 --> 00:10:32.059 teaches that the thetan is immortal. has lived 00:10:32.059 --> 00:10:34.039 through countless past lives on this planet and 00:10:34.039 --> 00:10:37.539 others over trillions of years. Trillions with 00:10:37.539 --> 00:10:40.740 a T. Trillions. Hubbard's timeline for the universe 00:10:40.740 --> 00:10:43.620 is, let's say it's much, much older than what 00:10:43.620 --> 00:10:46.220 modern science suggests. And the goal of Scientology 00:10:46.220 --> 00:10:49.759 then is to awaken this thetan. It's to rehabilitate 00:10:49.759 --> 00:10:52.240 the thetan to its native. God -like abilities. 00:10:52.659 --> 00:10:56.080 One of the key concepts introduced here is exteriorization. 00:10:56.419 --> 00:10:58.259 This is the ability of the thetan to actually 00:10:58.259 --> 00:11:00.240 detach from the body and exist independently 00:11:00.240 --> 00:11:02.799 of it while still being able to control it. So 00:11:02.799 --> 00:11:05.220 out -of -body experiences on demand. That's the 00:11:05.220 --> 00:11:08.019 idea. And this all leads us to the central roadmap 00:11:08.019 --> 00:11:10.440 of the religion, which they call the bridge to 00:11:10.440 --> 00:11:12.470 total freedom. I've seen this chart. It's huge. 00:11:12.549 --> 00:11:14.990 It looks like a giant periodic table or a really 00:11:14.990 --> 00:11:17.789 complex corporate flow chart. It is massive. 00:11:18.049 --> 00:11:21.049 And it is a very rigid step -by -step process. 00:11:21.210 --> 00:11:23.470 You cannot skip steps. You start at the bottom 00:11:23.470 --> 00:11:26.049 as a pre -clear. You do auditing sessions to 00:11:26.049 --> 00:11:28.429 handle your earthly traumas and engrams and become 00:11:28.429 --> 00:11:32.250 clear. But in Scientology, unlike in Dianetics, 00:11:32.429 --> 00:11:35.210 becoming clear is just the halfway point. Just 00:11:35.210 --> 00:11:37.649 the beginning, really. So what comes after clear? 00:11:37.909 --> 00:11:40.309 Once you are clear... You attest to that state 00:11:40.309 --> 00:11:42.789 and then you move on to the operating thetan 00:11:42.789 --> 00:11:45.649 levels or the OT levels. Operating thetan. That 00:11:45.649 --> 00:11:49.070 word operating implies function, action. Right. 00:11:49.149 --> 00:11:51.370 An operating thetan is defined as someone who 00:11:51.370 --> 00:11:54.110 can operate spiritually without being encumbered 00:11:54.110 --> 00:11:56.799 by matter, energy, space or time. They can be 00:11:56.799 --> 00:11:58.879 at cause over these things. So we're not just 00:11:58.879 --> 00:12:00.899 talking about being happy or having a good memory 00:12:00.899 --> 00:12:02.919 anymore. It's a whole different ballgame. The 00:12:02.919 --> 00:12:05.559 promise is incredibly seductive. We aren't just 00:12:05.559 --> 00:12:07.820 talking about peace of mind. The source material 00:12:07.820 --> 00:12:10.940 says an OT is posited as having godlike power, 00:12:11.080 --> 00:12:14.240 the ability to create personal universes, total 00:12:14.240 --> 00:12:16.990 control over your environment. But, and I feel 00:12:16.990 --> 00:12:19.370 like this is a very big but, getting across that 00:12:19.370 --> 00:12:21.629 bridge isn't like going to Sunday school. You 00:12:21.629 --> 00:12:24.389 have to pay. You do. And this is one of the biggest 00:12:24.389 --> 00:12:28.269 points of contention and criticism. Scientology 00:12:28.269 --> 00:12:30.389 operates on a very strict doctrine of exchange. 00:12:31.649 --> 00:12:33.669 Hubbard thought that if you give something away 00:12:33.669 --> 00:12:36.610 for free, the recipient doesn't value it and 00:12:36.610 --> 00:12:39.809 it can actually harm them spiritually. So, you 00:12:39.809 --> 00:12:42.769 must pay for auditing and training. And we aren't 00:12:42.769 --> 00:12:44.350 talking about a collection plate being passed 00:12:44.350 --> 00:12:46.620 around on a Sunday. No. We are talking about 00:12:46.620 --> 00:12:49.220 fixed prices for our courses and for intensives 00:12:49.220 --> 00:12:52.059 of auditing, which are 12 .5 -hour blocks. And 00:12:52.059 --> 00:12:54.379 the costs are steep. How steep are we talking? 00:12:54.580 --> 00:12:56.980 The source material from ex -members and journalists 00:12:56.980 --> 00:12:59.139 who have investigated this site estimates that 00:12:59.139 --> 00:13:01.480 traversing the entire bridge, going from the 00:13:01.480 --> 00:13:04.500 very bottom all the way to OT8, the highest level 00:13:04.500 --> 00:13:07.480 currently available, can cost anywhere from $400 00:13:07.480 --> 00:13:11.820 ,000 to over $559 ,000, adjusted for inflation. 00:13:12.240 --> 00:13:14.220 Half a million dollars for spiritual freedom. 00:13:14.460 --> 00:13:16.539 And that's a conservative estimate. That assumes 00:13:16.539 --> 00:13:18.340 you move through the levels without any trouble. 00:13:18.500 --> 00:13:20.639 If your auditor finds you have a dirty needle 00:13:20.639 --> 00:13:22.720 on the E -meter, meaning you have more issues 00:13:22.720 --> 00:13:24.700 to handle, you have to pay for more hours to 00:13:24.700 --> 00:13:26.799 fix it. Okay, you mentioned the E -meter. Let's 00:13:26.799 --> 00:13:29.500 pause on that. Because if you walk past a church 00:13:29.500 --> 00:13:32.259 of Scientology, you might see people in the window 00:13:32.259 --> 00:13:34.940 at a desk holding two metal cans connected to 00:13:34.940 --> 00:13:38.220 a meter. What is happening there? That is the 00:13:38.220 --> 00:13:41.299 electropsychometer, or E -meter. It's basically 00:13:41.299 --> 00:13:43.860 a simple device that measures galvanic skin response. 00:13:44.299 --> 00:13:46.799 It passes a tiny electrical current through the 00:13:46.799 --> 00:13:50.240 body and measures changes in resistance. So the 00:13:50.240 --> 00:13:52.720 theory is what? That your thoughts have electrical 00:13:52.720 --> 00:13:55.279 properties? The theory is that when you are asked 00:13:55.279 --> 00:13:58.059 a question about a past trauma, the thought itself 00:13:58.059 --> 00:14:00.600 carries mass, or a kind of spiritual charge. 00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:03.340 That charge changes the electrical resistance 00:14:03.340 --> 00:14:05.820 in your body, and the needle on the meter moves. 00:14:06.429 --> 00:14:09.629 A smooth floating needle means no charge. A sticky 00:14:09.629 --> 00:14:11.389 or falling needle means you've hit on something. 00:14:11.490 --> 00:14:14.029 So it's a lie detector or a trauma detector. 00:14:14.330 --> 00:14:15.990 Scientologists would say it's a spiritual tool 00:14:15.990 --> 00:14:18.149 for the auditor to locate areas of distress with 00:14:18.149 --> 00:14:20.490 precision. It'd be very clear it doesn't diagnose 00:14:20.490 --> 00:14:22.730 anything. Critics and psychologists would say 00:14:22.730 --> 00:14:26.169 it's a prop, an intimidation tool used to induce 00:14:26.169 --> 00:14:28.669 a kind of hypnotic state or create dependency 00:14:28.669 --> 00:14:31.190 on the process. But the legal status of it is 00:14:31.190 --> 00:14:34.649 fascinating. It is. The FDA actually raided the 00:14:34.649 --> 00:14:37.610 church in the 60s and seized the e -meters, claiming 00:14:37.610 --> 00:14:40.169 they were fraudulent medical devices being used 00:14:40.169 --> 00:14:42.590 to make unproven claims of curing illnesses. 00:14:42.990 --> 00:14:45.389 So how did they get them back? After a long legal 00:14:45.389 --> 00:14:48.169 battle, a court ruled they could use them, but 00:14:48.169 --> 00:14:50.190 only if they were clearly labeled as religious 00:14:50.190 --> 00:14:53.110 artifacts, not medical devices, and that the 00:14:53.110 --> 00:14:56.549 church made no claims of curing disease. So if 00:14:56.549 --> 00:14:59.129 you look at an e -meter today, it has a disclaimer 00:14:59.129 --> 00:15:02.190 right on it saying it is for religious use only. 00:15:02.830 --> 00:15:05.429 It's amazing how the legal and the spiritual 00:15:05.429 --> 00:15:08.350 are so deeply intertwined here. Every step seems 00:15:08.350 --> 00:15:10.870 calculated to protect the organization. But I 00:15:10.870 --> 00:15:12.210 want to get to the stuff that you don't see on 00:15:12.210 --> 00:15:15.889 the brochures. The secret stuff. The space opera. 00:15:16.250 --> 00:15:18.850 Ah, yes. This is where we get into the upper 00:15:18.850 --> 00:15:21.509 confidential levels of the bridge. Specifically 00:15:21.509 --> 00:15:25.149 operating Thetan Level 3, or OT3. This is the 00:15:25.149 --> 00:15:27.129 one they call the Wall of Fire. That's what Hubbard 00:15:27.129 --> 00:15:29.840 called it. Now think about this. In most religions, 00:15:29.919 --> 00:15:32.379 the core myth, the story of creation or the fall 00:15:32.379 --> 00:15:35.059 of man or salvation, is the first thing you learn. 00:15:35.120 --> 00:15:37.019 It's taught to everyone openly. Right, it's the 00:15:37.019 --> 00:15:40.240 foundation. In Scientology, the core cosmology, 00:15:40.279 --> 00:15:43.200 the creation story, is treated like a trade secret. 00:15:43.679 --> 00:15:46.120 You are not allowed to know it until you have 00:15:46.120 --> 00:15:48.820 paid for and successfully completed all the levels 00:15:48.820 --> 00:15:51.659 leading up to OT3. And they litigate like crazy 00:15:51.659 --> 00:15:54.259 to keep it secret. Aggressively. They've sued 00:15:54.259 --> 00:15:56.679 people for copyright infringement for posting 00:15:56.679 --> 00:15:59.299 it online. But thanks to the internet and court 00:15:59.299 --> 00:16:02.000 leaks, primarily from a major case in the 80s, 00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:04.820 we have the documents. We know the story. So 00:16:04.820 --> 00:16:07.120 tell us the story. What is the deal with Xenu? 00:16:07.279 --> 00:16:09.179 According to Hubbard's handwritten materials 00:16:09.179 --> 00:16:13.240 for the OT3 course, the story begins 75 million 00:16:13.240 --> 00:16:15.840 years ago. At that time, there was a galactic 00:16:15.840 --> 00:16:18.820 confederacy of 76 planets, and it was suffering 00:16:18.820 --> 00:16:21.480 from a severe overpopulation problem. Okay, an 00:16:21.480 --> 00:16:23.500 intergalactic government with a population crisis. 00:16:23.740 --> 00:16:26.000 And the ruler of this confederacy was a being 00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:29.539 named Xenu. X -E -N -U. Xenu, got it. Xenu decided 00:16:29.539 --> 00:16:31.940 to solve the overpopulation problem once and 00:16:31.940 --> 00:16:34.500 for all. He had his minions call in billions 00:16:34.500 --> 00:16:37.620 of citizens from across the confederacy for supposedly 00:16:37.620 --> 00:16:41.019 income tax inspections. But it was a trap. A 00:16:41.019 --> 00:16:43.070 trap? What did you do? He had them paralyzed, 00:16:43.389 --> 00:16:46.470 frozen in a mixture of alcohol and glycol, and 00:16:46.470 --> 00:16:48.289 then loaded them into spacecraft that Hubbard 00:16:48.289 --> 00:16:50.649 specifically describes as looking exactly like 00:16:50.649 --> 00:16:53.470 DC -8 airplanes but with rocket engines. DC -8 00:16:53.470 --> 00:16:57.289 spaceplanes, 75 million years ago. That's a very 00:16:57.289 --> 00:17:00.370 specific detect. Very specific. These spaceplanes 00:17:00.370 --> 00:17:03.129 flew to Earth, which at the time was called TGAC. 00:17:03.370 --> 00:17:06.369 And Zinu's forces stacked these billions of frozen 00:17:06.369 --> 00:17:08.789 people around the bases of volcanoes across the 00:17:08.789 --> 00:17:11.150 planet. Right. Places like Hawaii and Las Palmas. 00:17:11.329 --> 00:17:14.130 And then? And then he detonated hydrogen bombs 00:17:14.130 --> 00:17:16.569 inside the volcanoes. He blew them all up. He 00:17:16.569 --> 00:17:19.250 blew them all up. A mass genocide on a galactic 00:17:19.250 --> 00:17:21.849 scale. Yeah. But the explosion didn't destroy 00:17:21.849 --> 00:17:23.869 their souls, their thetans. It just ripped them 00:17:23.869 --> 00:17:26.630 from their bodies. So now you have billions and 00:17:26.630 --> 00:17:28.990 billions of disembodied, traumatized thetans 00:17:28.990 --> 00:17:31.009 floating around in Earth's atmosphere. Okay, 00:17:31.049 --> 00:17:33.509 this is a lot to take in. It sounds exactly like 00:17:33.509 --> 00:17:35.849 a pulp sci -fi novel from the 50s. It's often 00:17:35.849 --> 00:17:38.589 being compared to one. But the story doesn't 00:17:38.589 --> 00:17:42.009 end there. Zinu's forces then captured all these 00:17:42.009 --> 00:17:44.609 floating souls using electronic ribbons or sticky 00:17:44.609 --> 00:17:47.769 traps. They were brought to huge cinemas where 00:17:47.769 --> 00:17:50.130 they were forced to watch movies for 36 days 00:17:50.130 --> 00:17:52.730 straight. What kind of movies? Movies that implanted 00:17:52.730 --> 00:17:54.710 them with all sorts of false data and confusing 00:17:54.710 --> 00:17:58.450 imagery. Hubbard called these implants. They 00:17:58.450 --> 00:18:01.509 included images of God, the devil, Christ, and 00:18:01.509 --> 00:18:03.789 the foundations of modern earth religions. The 00:18:03.789 --> 00:18:05.490 idea was to confuse them so they could never 00:18:05.490 --> 00:18:07.829 figure out what truly happened. Then they were 00:18:07.829 --> 00:18:11.220 released. So what does this ancient story have 00:18:11.220 --> 00:18:14.059 to do with us now? Why do I need to pay $100 00:18:14.059 --> 00:18:17.460 ,000 to learn this? This is the absolute crux 00:18:17.460 --> 00:18:20.180 of the upper OT levels. Hubbard taught that these 00:18:20.180 --> 00:18:22.700 traumatized, disembodied, brainwashed thetans 00:18:22.700 --> 00:18:25.079 didn't just disappear, they clustered together. 00:18:25.339 --> 00:18:27.900 And today, right now, they are attached to you. 00:18:27.960 --> 00:18:30.079 They're attached to me. They're called body thetans. 00:18:30.079 --> 00:18:32.720 I'm haunted. I'm infested with alien ghosts. 00:18:33.039 --> 00:18:36.309 In a word, yes. The doctrine says that your persistent 00:18:36.309 --> 00:18:38.930 fears, your anxieties, your physical pains, your 00:18:38.930 --> 00:18:42.430 self -doubts are often not even yours. They are 00:18:42.430 --> 00:18:44.849 being caused by these body thetans that are stuck 00:18:44.849 --> 00:18:47.710 to you, re -experiencing their own ancient trauma. 00:18:47.890 --> 00:18:51.069 They're like spiritual parasites. Exactly. And 00:18:51.069 --> 00:18:53.730 the entire purpose of the advanced OT levels. 00:18:54.109 --> 00:18:57.529 from OT3 up to OT7, is to telepathically locate 00:18:57.529 --> 00:19:00.549 these body thetans, communicate with them, audit 00:19:00.549 --> 00:19:02.589 them through the trauma of the volcano explosion, 00:19:02.750 --> 00:19:05.609 and get them to leave your body. Exorcism via 00:19:05.609 --> 00:19:08.170 telepathy for thousands and thousands of these 00:19:08.170 --> 00:19:10.769 things. One by one or in clusters. It's a very 00:19:10.769 --> 00:19:13.549 long process. But why keep this so incredibly 00:19:13.549 --> 00:19:16.130 secret? I mean, every religion has its myths. 00:19:16.230 --> 00:19:18.630 Why hide this one behind a firewall of litigation 00:19:18.630 --> 00:19:21.210 and nondisclosure agreements? Hubbard's official 00:19:21.210 --> 00:19:24.220 warning was dire. He claimed in the course materials 00:19:24.220 --> 00:19:26.339 that if you learn this material before you were 00:19:26.339 --> 00:19:28.599 spiritually ready, before you had done all the 00:19:28.599 --> 00:19:30.259 prep work on the lower levels of the bridge, 00:19:30.420 --> 00:19:32.460 it would kill you. It would kill you. So he said 00:19:32.460 --> 00:19:34.259 you would get pneumonia and die. It was called 00:19:34.259 --> 00:19:36.279 the wall of fire because it was supposedly that 00:19:36.279 --> 00:19:38.799 dangerous to your physical body. So it's a spiritual 00:19:38.799 --> 00:19:41.519 safety hazard. That's the internal logic from 00:19:41.519 --> 00:19:46.519 an external. It's much more pragmatic. If you 00:19:46.519 --> 00:19:49.059 told a brand new recruit on day one about Xenu 00:19:49.059 --> 00:19:52.019 and hydrogen bombs and alien ghosts, they'd laugh 00:19:52.019 --> 00:19:54.079 and walk right out the door. Of course. You have 00:19:54.079 --> 00:19:56.599 to be slowly acclimated to the belief system. 00:19:57.160 --> 00:20:00.539 It's the classic. boiling frog method of indoctrination. 00:20:00.859 --> 00:20:04.539 By the time you finally reach OT third, you have 00:20:04.539 --> 00:20:06.960 already invested years of your life, countless 00:20:06.960 --> 00:20:09.059 hours of auditing, and maybe hundreds of thousands 00:20:09.059 --> 00:20:11.079 of dollars. You were too invested to just walk 00:20:11.079 --> 00:20:13.480 away. It really highlights that duality we talked 00:20:13.480 --> 00:20:15.299 about at the start. On the surface, it's all 00:20:15.299 --> 00:20:17.759 self -help, communication courses, study tech. 00:20:18.640 --> 00:20:21.420 But deep inside, it's an intergalactic war against 00:20:21.420 --> 00:20:25.420 body parasites from 75 million years ago. And 00:20:25.420 --> 00:20:27.859 that duality extends to the very structure of 00:20:27.859 --> 00:20:30.460 the organization itself, because running this 00:20:30.460 --> 00:20:33.160 massive worldwide operation requires a massive, 00:20:33.240 --> 00:20:35.559 dedicated workforce. And that brings us to the 00:20:35.559 --> 00:20:37.549 Sea Org. The Sea Organization. These are the 00:20:37.549 --> 00:20:39.750 people you see in the naval style uniforms, right? 00:20:39.890 --> 00:20:43.990 Yes. They were established in 1967 when Hubbard 00:20:43.990 --> 00:20:46.809 decided to move his base of operations onto a 00:20:46.809 --> 00:20:49.250 small fleet of ships to avoid the jurisdiction 00:20:49.250 --> 00:20:51.869 of governments like the U .S., U .K., and Australia, 00:20:52.130 --> 00:20:55.369 which were investigating him. He appointed himself 00:20:55.369 --> 00:20:58.839 the Commodore. So it's a clergy, basically. It's 00:20:58.839 --> 00:21:01.799 the elite inner core, the dedicated clergy. They're 00:21:01.799 --> 00:21:03.859 the ones who run the organization, deliver the 00:21:03.859 --> 00:21:05.900 upper levels, and manage the whole enterprise. 00:21:06.220 --> 00:21:07.980 And they sign a contract. I remember reading 00:21:07.980 --> 00:21:09.900 about this. It's a very, very long contract. 00:21:10.119 --> 00:21:12.220 It is the longest contract. They sign a one billion 00:21:12.220 --> 00:21:16.599 year contract. One billion years. Symbolizing 00:21:16.599 --> 00:21:18.599 their commitment to serve Scientology and its 00:21:18.599 --> 00:21:20.819 goals, not just in this lifetime, but in all 00:21:20.819 --> 00:21:23.579 of their future lifetimes as Thetans. It creates 00:21:23.579 --> 00:21:26.609 a total all -encompassing identity. You aren't 00:21:26.609 --> 00:21:29.009 just a person working a job. You are an immortal 00:21:29.009 --> 00:21:31.609 being on a sacred mission to clear the planet. 00:21:31.750 --> 00:21:34.210 That is heavy. And the lifestyle isn't exactly 00:21:34.210 --> 00:21:36.410 a Caribbean cruise from what the sources say. 00:21:36.529 --> 00:21:39.269 Far from it. The source material from former 00:21:39.269 --> 00:21:43.049 members describes it as an extremely high pressure 00:21:43.049 --> 00:21:47.299 communal existence. Long, long hours. Often 90 00:21:47.299 --> 00:21:50.700 or 100 hours a week. Very little pay. Sometimes 00:21:50.700 --> 00:21:53.880 just a stipend of $50 a week. And the discipline 00:21:53.880 --> 00:21:55.980 is intense. Let's talk about that discipline. 00:21:56.180 --> 00:21:58.099 Because this isn't just your boss telling you 00:21:58.099 --> 00:22:00.140 to try harder next time. This is a whole system. 00:22:00.380 --> 00:22:02.980 Management by statistics. Right. Hubbard was 00:22:02.980 --> 00:22:05.799 obsessed with metrics and statistics. Every single 00:22:05.799 --> 00:22:08.220 post in the organization, from the person cleaning 00:22:08.220 --> 00:22:11.079 the floors to the top executives, has a stat 00:22:11.079 --> 00:22:14.089 that is plotted on a graph every week. What kind 00:22:14.089 --> 00:22:16.109 of stats are we talking about? It could be number 00:22:16.109 --> 00:22:19.009 of new people brought in, value books sold, or 00:22:19.009 --> 00:22:21.490 just gross income. If your graph is going up, 00:22:21.509 --> 00:22:23.710 you're up stat. You're in good standing. If the 00:22:23.710 --> 00:22:25.569 graph is going down, you're down stat, and you're 00:22:25.569 --> 00:22:27.930 in serious trouble. Make money. Make more money. 00:22:28.069 --> 00:22:30.109 That's an actual directive found in Hubbard's 00:22:30.109 --> 00:22:32.789 policy letters. It is. And if you are consistently 00:22:32.789 --> 00:22:35.789 down stat, or if you violate any of the myriad 00:22:35.789 --> 00:22:38.549 of rules, the consequences are severe. This brings 00:22:38.549 --> 00:22:40.849 us to the Rehabilitation Project Force, or the 00:22:40.849 --> 00:22:44.779 RPF. The RPF. This is described by critics and 00:22:44.779 --> 00:22:48.180 numerous former members as essentially a prison 00:22:48.180 --> 00:22:50.619 camp. That's the description they use. It's a 00:22:50.619 --> 00:22:53.200 disciplinary program for Sea Org members who 00:22:53.200 --> 00:22:55.940 have been deemed a problem. The sources describe 00:22:55.940 --> 00:22:57.940 conditions where members are stripped of their 00:22:57.940 --> 00:23:01.099 rank, made to wear black boiler suits, and engaged 00:23:01.099 --> 00:23:04.119 in hard physical labor all day. And what else? 00:23:04.619 --> 00:23:06.640 They're often housed in squalid conditions like 00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:09.279 a basement or a garage. They're separated from 00:23:09.279 --> 00:23:11.980 their families, forbidden from speaking to anyone 00:23:11.980 --> 00:23:14.680 unless spoken to, and forced to eat table scraps 00:23:14.680 --> 00:23:18.099 after everyone else has eaten. It's a process 00:23:18.099 --> 00:23:21.059 of total humiliation designed to break the individual's 00:23:21.059 --> 00:23:23.680 will and rebuild them in the image of the organization. 00:23:24.059 --> 00:23:26.460 And this isn't just for low -level grunts who 00:23:26.460 --> 00:23:28.480 mess up. We're talking about high -ranking executives 00:23:28.480 --> 00:23:31.400 being sent there. Absolutely. No one is safe 00:23:31.400 --> 00:23:33.680 from the ethics system. And the ultimate weapon 00:23:33.680 --> 00:23:35.259 in the system, the thing that keeps everyone 00:23:35.259 --> 00:23:37.900 in line, is the policy of disconnection. This 00:23:37.900 --> 00:23:39.700 is the one that breaks families. We see it in 00:23:39.700 --> 00:23:41.660 the documentaries constantly. It's heartbreaking. 00:23:41.960 --> 00:23:44.819 It is arguably the most powerful control mechanism 00:23:44.819 --> 00:23:47.880 they have. Hubbard defined a category of people 00:23:47.880 --> 00:23:51.140 he called suppressive persons, or SPs. He claimed 00:23:51.140 --> 00:23:54.700 that about 2 .5 % of the population are SPS people, 00:23:54.880 --> 00:23:57.579 who are truly malevolent antisocial personalities, 00:23:57.960 --> 00:24:01.039 like Hitler or... Anyone who actively criticizes 00:24:01.039 --> 00:24:03.279 Scientology. So if I leave the church and I decide 00:24:03.279 --> 00:24:06.019 to speak out about my experiences, I'm an SP. 00:24:06.220 --> 00:24:08.700 You are immediately declared a suppressive person. 00:24:08.819 --> 00:24:11.380 And if you are declared an SP, a policy letter 00:24:11.380 --> 00:24:14.000 is issued. And any Scientologist in good standing, 00:24:14.160 --> 00:24:16.559 your spouse, your children, your parents, your 00:24:16.559 --> 00:24:18.740 best friends must disconnect from you. Meaning 00:24:18.740 --> 00:24:21.299 what exactly? They have to sever all ties completely. 00:24:21.500 --> 00:24:24.140 No phone calls, no emails, no contact whatsoever. 00:24:24.440 --> 00:24:26.680 If they refuse, they are labeled a potential 00:24:26.680 --> 00:24:29.839 trouble source or PTS, and they themselves risk 00:24:29.839 --> 00:24:31.619 being thrown out of the church. It's a mechanism 00:24:31.619 --> 00:24:33.980 to keep people in. You can't leave without losing 00:24:33.980 --> 00:24:36.579 everyone and everything you love. It effectively 00:24:36.579 --> 00:24:39.900 holds your entire family hostage. And it brings 00:24:39.900 --> 00:24:42.940 us to how the church deals with the outside world. 00:24:43.639 --> 00:24:45.420 Because if you think they are tough on their 00:24:45.420 --> 00:24:47.799 own members, just look at how they treat their 00:24:47.799 --> 00:24:51.069 enemies. We have to talk about fair game. Fair 00:24:51.069 --> 00:24:54.450 game. The name alone sounds ominous. It's a policy 00:24:54.450 --> 00:24:57.849 written by Hubbard in the 1960s. He wrote that 00:24:57.849 --> 00:25:00.789 an enemy of the church, an SP, may be deprived 00:25:00.789 --> 00:25:04.349 of property or injured by any means, by any Scientologist, 00:25:04.410 --> 00:25:06.269 without any discipline of the Scientologist, 00:25:06.470 --> 00:25:09.150 may be tricked, sued, or lied to or destroyed. 00:25:09.470 --> 00:25:12.269 Tricked, sued, or lied to or destroyed. That's 00:25:12.269 --> 00:25:14.589 in writing from the founder. It was. Now the 00:25:14.589 --> 00:25:16.349 church will say they officially canceled this 00:25:16.349 --> 00:25:18.890 policy by name in 1968 because it was causing 00:25:18.890 --> 00:25:21.809 bad PR. But critics and countless former members 00:25:21.809 --> 00:25:23.490 allege that while the name might have changed, 00:25:23.589 --> 00:25:25.769 the practice continues unabated. They just don't 00:25:25.769 --> 00:25:27.769 call it fair game anymore. And they point to 00:25:27.769 --> 00:25:31.150 some pretty extreme operations as proof. Like 00:25:31.150 --> 00:25:33.170 Operation Snow White. This is one of those things 00:25:33.170 --> 00:25:34.670 that if you put it in a movie, people would say 00:25:34.670 --> 00:25:37.210 it's too unrealistic. It is the largest single 00:25:37.210 --> 00:25:39.710 instance of domestic espionage in the history 00:25:39.710 --> 00:25:43.930 of the United States. In the 1970s, the Guardian's 00:25:43.930 --> 00:25:46.049 office, which was the intelligence and covert 00:25:46.049 --> 00:25:49.710 operations wing of the church, decided to purge 00:25:49.710 --> 00:25:52.930 government files in dozens of countries that 00:25:52.930 --> 00:25:55.009 were negative towards Hubbard and Scientology. 00:25:55.170 --> 00:25:58.130 They didn't just hack in. They physically infiltrated 00:25:58.130 --> 00:26:00.730 the federal government. They did. Scientologists 00:26:00.730 --> 00:26:03.210 got jobs inside the IRS and the U .S. Justice 00:26:03.210 --> 00:26:05.930 Department. They worked as clerks, secretaries 00:26:05.930 --> 00:26:08.829 assistants. They planted bugs in conference rooms, 00:26:09.089 --> 00:26:11.670 wiretapped phones and stole tens of thousands 00:26:11.670 --> 00:26:13.490 of sensitive documents. And they got caught. 00:26:13.730 --> 00:26:17.230 They did. The FBI raided them in 1977 and it 00:26:17.230 --> 00:26:19.789 led to the conviction of 11 top Scientology officials, 00:26:20.029 --> 00:26:22.569 including Mary Sue Hubbard, L. Ron Hubbard's 00:26:22.569 --> 00:26:25.089 own wife. She went to prison. That is just staggering. 00:26:25.190 --> 00:26:27.009 It shows the lengths they will go to. And then 00:26:27.009 --> 00:26:28.609 there was the operation against the journalist 00:26:28.609 --> 00:26:31.150 Paulette Cooper, Operation Freakout. Paulette 00:26:31.150 --> 00:26:33.269 Cooper wrote one of the very first critical books, 00:26:33.450 --> 00:26:37.069 The Scandal of Scientology, in 1971. The church 00:26:37.069 --> 00:26:39.730 didn't just sue her. They launched a multi -year 00:26:39.730 --> 00:26:42.789 campaign to utterly destroy her life, which they 00:26:42.789 --> 00:26:46.230 codenamed Operation Freakout. And the goal. The 00:26:46.230 --> 00:26:49.109 stated goal. in their own internal documents, 00:26:49.309 --> 00:26:52.029 which were seized by the FBI, was to get her 00:26:52.029 --> 00:26:55.250 incarcerated in a mental institution or jail. 00:26:55.470 --> 00:26:58.250 How did they try to do that? It's insane. They 00:26:58.250 --> 00:27:01.109 stole her personal stationery. They used it to 00:27:01.109 --> 00:27:03.690 write and mail fake bomb threats to the Church 00:27:03.690 --> 00:27:06.130 of Scientology itself, and even one to Henry 00:27:06.130 --> 00:27:08.130 Kissinger, trying to frame her as a terrorist. 00:27:08.410 --> 00:27:11.250 She was actually indicted by a grand jury before 00:27:11.250 --> 00:27:13.529 the FBI discovered the plot during the Snow White 00:27:13.529 --> 00:27:16.309 raids and realized she'd been framed. That is 00:27:16.309 --> 00:27:19.049 terrifying. It's institutional gaslighting on 00:27:19.049 --> 00:27:21.230 a federal level. It shows that the organization, 00:27:21.509 --> 00:27:24.430 at its core, views itself as being at war with 00:27:24.430 --> 00:27:26.970 a hostile world. Hubbard viewed the universe 00:27:26.970 --> 00:27:29.589 as a battleground between the forces of Scientology 00:27:29.589 --> 00:27:32.289 and the forces of suppression. And in a war, 00:27:32.450 --> 00:27:35.690 anything goes. This war mentality seems to extend 00:27:35.690 --> 00:27:38.420 to the legal system, too. The phrase litigiousness 00:27:38.420 --> 00:27:40.640 comes up constantly in the sources when describing 00:27:40.640 --> 00:27:43.119 their tactics. Hubbard famously wrote in a policy 00:27:43.119 --> 00:27:45.400 letter, the purpose of the suit is to harass 00:27:45.400 --> 00:27:48.660 and discourage rather than to win. He advised 00:27:48.660 --> 00:27:52.380 using lawsuits as a tool. You sue critics, not 00:27:52.380 --> 00:27:54.619 necessarily because you think you can win, but 00:27:54.619 --> 00:27:57.299 to bleed them dry, to make it so expensive and 00:27:57.299 --> 00:28:00.220 so psychologically draining to criticize Scientology 00:28:00.220 --> 00:28:02.420 that people will just stop doing it. And they 00:28:02.420 --> 00:28:05.579 used this tactic to essentially destroy the original 00:28:05.579 --> 00:28:08.279 cult awareness network. They did. The original 00:28:08.279 --> 00:28:11.480 CAN was a nonprofit that had families of people 00:28:11.480 --> 00:28:14.200 and groups they considered cults. Scientology 00:28:14.200 --> 00:28:16.500 and its members filed dozens of lawsuits against 00:28:16.500 --> 00:28:19.220 them until CAN was forced into bankruptcy. And 00:28:19.220 --> 00:28:21.319 then... And then, in the most incredible twist 00:28:21.319 --> 00:28:23.940 of irony, a Scientologist bought the name... 00:28:24.140 --> 00:28:26.299 the logo and the phone number of the Cult Awareness 00:28:26.299 --> 00:28:28.920 Network in the bankruptcy auction. So now if 00:28:28.920 --> 00:28:30.940 you Google the Cult Awareness Network for help, 00:28:31.119 --> 00:28:33.400 you are calling a group backed by the Church 00:28:33.400 --> 00:28:36.759 of Scientology. That is strategic genius in a 00:28:36.759 --> 00:28:39.119 very, very dark way. It is ruthlessly efficient. 00:28:39.359 --> 00:28:41.579 We've talked a lot about the history and the 00:28:41.579 --> 00:28:44.440 attacks on external critics, but we have to address 00:28:44.440 --> 00:28:47.000 the allegations of abuse inside the organization, 00:28:47.380 --> 00:28:50.220 especially in more recent years. Hubbard died 00:28:50.220 --> 00:28:54.589 in 1986. Who took over? A man named David Miscavige. 00:28:54.950 --> 00:28:57.930 He was a very young, very intense Sea Org member 00:28:57.930 --> 00:29:01.210 who rose through the ranks and seized power in 00:29:01.210 --> 00:29:04.230 the vacuum that Hubbard's death created. Under 00:29:04.230 --> 00:29:06.109 his leadership, the organization became even 00:29:06.109 --> 00:29:08.369 more focused on expansion and acquiring real 00:29:08.369 --> 00:29:12.089 estate. But the reports of abuse also intensified. 00:29:12.089 --> 00:29:13.670 And this is where we start hearing about something 00:29:13.670 --> 00:29:16.740 called the hole. Yes. According to testimony 00:29:16.740 --> 00:29:18.880 from multiple high -ranking executives who later 00:29:18.880 --> 00:29:21.880 left, the hole was a confinement facility at 00:29:21.880 --> 00:29:24.160 Gold Base, the international headquarters in 00:29:24.160 --> 00:29:26.759 California. They described being confined in 00:29:26.759 --> 00:29:28.700 a pair of double -wide trailers, basically an 00:29:28.700 --> 00:29:31.119 office building, for months and in some cases 00:29:31.119 --> 00:29:33.819 years. Confinement? They alleged they were subjected 00:29:33.819 --> 00:29:36.460 to group confessions, forced to perform humiliating 00:29:36.460 --> 00:29:38.680 tasks, and that there was physical violence. 00:29:39.480 --> 00:29:41.240 beatings, people being slammed against walls. 00:29:41.539 --> 00:29:43.799 I recall reading about a game of musical chairs. 00:29:44.119 --> 00:29:45.740 That's one of the most bizarre and disturbing 00:29:45.740 --> 00:29:49.460 details to come out. Allegedly, Miscavige ordered 00:29:49.460 --> 00:29:51.380 these top executives, people who have been in 00:29:51.380 --> 00:29:54.400 for decades, to play musical chairs to the sound 00:29:54.400 --> 00:29:57.700 of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Why? They were 00:29:57.700 --> 00:30:00.180 told that the last person standing would be the 00:30:00.180 --> 00:30:02.740 only one allowed to stay at the base. Everyone 00:30:02.740 --> 00:30:05.289 else would be kicked out of the Sea Org. which 00:30:05.289 --> 00:30:08.009 for them meant losing their entire world, their 00:30:08.009 --> 00:30:09.990 families, everything. They were literally fighting 00:30:09.990 --> 00:30:12.670 for their lives over a chair. And what is the 00:30:12.670 --> 00:30:15.289 church's response to these allegations? They 00:30:15.289 --> 00:30:19.700 deny it completely. They say the hole never existed 00:30:19.700 --> 00:30:21.759 as described and that these are all lies from 00:30:21.759 --> 00:30:24.220 disgruntled former members, they call them apostates, 00:30:24.380 --> 00:30:26.519 who have an axe to grind and are looking for 00:30:26.519 --> 00:30:29.019 a payday. But the consistency of the stories 00:30:29.019 --> 00:30:31.259 from so many different high -level people is 00:30:31.259 --> 00:30:33.319 what observers find so compelling. And this isn't 00:30:33.319 --> 00:30:35.240 the only serious allegation. There's a tragic 00:30:35.240 --> 00:30:38.259 case of Lisa McPherson. That's a landmark case. 00:30:38.839 --> 00:30:41.359 Lisa McPherson was a dedicated Scientologist 00:30:41.359 --> 00:30:44.619 who died in 1995. She had a mental breakdown 00:30:44.619 --> 00:30:47.680 after a minor car accident. But because Scientology 00:30:47.680 --> 00:30:50.380 is so opposed to psychiatry, instead of getting 00:30:50.380 --> 00:30:52.539 professional mental health care, she was taken 00:30:52.539 --> 00:30:55.079 to the Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida 00:30:55.079 --> 00:30:58.619 to undergo the introspection rundown. Which is 00:30:58.619 --> 00:31:00.779 what exactly? It's a Scientology process designed 00:31:00.779 --> 00:31:03.140 to handle a psychotic break. Yeah. It involves 00:31:03.140 --> 00:31:06.420 complete isolation and silence. She was held 00:31:06.420 --> 00:31:08.420 there for 17 days. And she died in their care. 00:31:08.599 --> 00:31:11.569 She died of a pulmonary embolism. The coroner's 00:31:11.569 --> 00:31:13.769 report said she was severely dehydrated, had 00:31:13.769 --> 00:31:16.089 cockroach bites, and was in a state of neglect. 00:31:17.029 --> 00:31:19.349 The state of Florida brought two felony charges 00:31:19.349 --> 00:31:21.549 against the church abuse of a disabled adult 00:31:21.549 --> 00:31:24.130 and practicing medicine without a license. But 00:31:24.130 --> 00:31:26.029 the case was eventually dropped due to controversies 00:31:26.029 --> 00:31:27.829 with the medical examiner's changing opinions. 00:31:28.170 --> 00:31:31.089 But it led to a lawsuit. A massive wrongful death 00:31:31.089 --> 00:31:33.410 lawsuit from her family, which the church eventually 00:31:33.410 --> 00:31:36.109 settled confidentially. It remains a powerful 00:31:36.109 --> 00:31:38.410 rallying cry for critics about the dangers of 00:31:38.410 --> 00:31:40.430 rejecting conventional medicine. And then there 00:31:40.430 --> 00:31:42.430 are the allegations regarding women and children. 00:31:42.690 --> 00:31:45.769 The forced abortion claims from former Sea Org 00:31:45.769 --> 00:31:48.670 members are particularly disturbing. They are. 00:31:49.069 --> 00:31:51.710 Multiple women who were in the Sea Org for years, 00:31:51.970 --> 00:31:54.230 people like Astral Woodcraft and Claire Headley, 00:31:54.289 --> 00:31:57.130 who have spoken out publicly, allege that because 00:31:57.130 --> 00:32:00.069 the Sea Org is a paramilitary -style group focused 00:32:00.069 --> 00:32:04.289 247 on clearing the planet, having children was 00:32:04.289 --> 00:32:07.509 viewed as a major distraction, a liability. So 00:32:07.509 --> 00:32:09.789 they claim. They claimed they were pressured, 00:32:10.049 --> 00:32:12.890 coerced, and essentially forced into having abortions 00:32:12.890 --> 00:32:15.569 to keep their posts. To keep their jobs. To keep 00:32:15.569 --> 00:32:18.390 their standing in the only world they knew. They 00:32:18.390 --> 00:32:21.009 alleged that if they refused, they faced being 00:32:21.009 --> 00:32:23.490 sent to lower -level organizations, being declared 00:32:23.490 --> 00:32:26.390 a problem, or being kicked out entirely, which 00:32:26.390 --> 00:32:28.230 meant losing their spouse and their life's worth. 00:32:28.230 --> 00:32:30.569 That's the church's response. Again, they deny 00:32:30.569 --> 00:32:32.529 this completely. They say they have a profound 00:32:32.529 --> 00:32:34.490 respect for family and that these decisions were 00:32:34.490 --> 00:32:37.690 personal choices. But the sheer volume of corroborating 00:32:37.690 --> 00:32:39.829 testimonies from different women over many years 00:32:39.829 --> 00:32:43.049 creates a very, very dark picture. It really 00:32:43.049 --> 00:32:45.170 paints a picture of an organization where the 00:32:45.170 --> 00:32:48.250 so -called mission overrides basic human rights 00:32:48.250 --> 00:32:51.269 and family bonds. That's the greater good argument 00:32:51.269 --> 00:32:54.589 taken to its absolute extreme. If you truly believe 00:32:54.589 --> 00:32:56.890 you are the only hope for the survival of the 00:32:56.890 --> 00:32:59.710 universe, then individual suffering can become 00:32:59.710 --> 00:33:02.480 acceptable. even necessary collateral damage. 00:33:02.720 --> 00:33:04.720 Which brings us back to how they view the rest 00:33:04.720 --> 00:33:08.059 of society, specifically their absolute hatred 00:33:08.059 --> 00:33:11.299 of psychiatry. It's not just a dislike. The sources 00:33:11.299 --> 00:33:13.640 describe it as an all -out war. It's a total 00:33:13.640 --> 00:33:16.869 war. Hubbard despised psychiatrists. He called 00:33:16.869 --> 00:33:19.289 them psychs. He blamed them for pretty much every 00:33:19.289 --> 00:33:21.769 evil in modern society. He claimed they were 00:33:21.769 --> 00:33:24.089 responsible for the Holocaust, for creating drug 00:33:24.089 --> 00:33:27.490 abuse, for political suppression. He viewed psychiatry 00:33:27.490 --> 00:33:30.069 as a rival priesthood. They were competing for 00:33:30.069 --> 00:33:32.529 the same territory, the human mind. So they formed 00:33:32.529 --> 00:33:35.099 the CCHR. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights. 00:33:35.200 --> 00:33:37.500 It sounds like a generic laudable rights group, 00:33:37.579 --> 00:33:40.420 but it's a Scientology front organization founded 00:33:40.420 --> 00:33:44.039 in 1969 with the sole purpose of dismantling 00:33:44.039 --> 00:33:46.440 the entire field of psychiatry. And they're still 00:33:46.440 --> 00:33:49.000 active today. Very active. They have a museum 00:33:49.000 --> 00:33:51.819 in Hollywood called Psychiatry, an industry of 00:33:51.819 --> 00:33:55.960 death. They aggressively lobby against antidepressants, 00:33:56.019 --> 00:33:59.299 ADHD medication and mental health legislation 00:33:59.299 --> 00:34:01.279 around the world. And speaking of front groups, 00:34:01.400 --> 00:34:03.440 we have to talk about recruitment because people 00:34:03.440 --> 00:34:05.400 don't usually walk in off the street and say, 00:34:05.480 --> 00:34:08.320 sign me up for the alien ghosts and the billionaire 00:34:08.320 --> 00:34:11.539 contract. No, the gradient is key. You start 00:34:11.539 --> 00:34:14.500 small. You might see a tent on the sidewalk offering 00:34:14.500 --> 00:34:17.650 a free stress test. You sit down. hold the cans 00:34:17.650 --> 00:34:19.469 of the e -meter, they ask you some questions, 00:34:19.650 --> 00:34:22.190 and then tell you that you have areas of stress 00:34:22.190 --> 00:34:23.829 and ruin in your life that they can help you 00:34:23.829 --> 00:34:25.610 with. So it starts with a simple personality 00:34:25.610 --> 00:34:28.869 test. Or maybe you encounter Narconon, their 00:34:28.869 --> 00:34:31.710 drug rehab program. Narconon is Scientology. 00:34:31.869 --> 00:34:34.530 It is based entirely on Hubbard's non -medical 00:34:34.530 --> 00:34:37.010 writings. It uses something called the Purification 00:34:37.010 --> 00:34:40.590 Rundown. long hours in a sauna combined with 00:34:40.590 --> 00:34:43.510 massive doses of vitamins, supposedly to sweat 00:34:43.510 --> 00:34:46.869 out drug toxins. Critics, including medical professionals, 00:34:47.130 --> 00:34:50.030 argue it lacks any scientific backing and is 00:34:50.030 --> 00:34:52.230 primarily a recruitment tool that funnels vulnerable 00:34:52.230 --> 00:34:54.230 people into the church. And then, of course, 00:34:54.309 --> 00:34:57.530 there's the celebrity strategy, Project Celebrity. 00:34:57.610 --> 00:35:00.690 This goes all the way back to a 1955 policy letter 00:35:00.690 --> 00:35:03.349 from Hubbard. He knew that famous people are 00:35:03.349 --> 00:35:05.789 trendsetters. If you get the influencers, you 00:35:05.789 --> 00:35:08.690 get the public. So they created celebrity centers 00:35:08.690 --> 00:35:12.190 specifically to cater to artists and famous people. 00:35:12.309 --> 00:35:14.949 And it worked. It worked brilliantly. Tom Cruise, 00:35:15.289 --> 00:35:18.289 John Travolta, Elizabeth Moss, Nancy Cartwright. 00:35:18.389 --> 00:35:21.230 They are the smiling, successful face of the 00:35:21.230 --> 00:35:23.750 organization. They make it look safe, desirable, 00:35:23.929 --> 00:35:26.309 and elite. But something happened in the mid 00:35:26.309 --> 00:35:29.630 -2000s that they couldn't control. A new enemy 00:35:29.630 --> 00:35:33.449 emerged. The Internet. The Internet was the one 00:35:33.449 --> 00:35:35.449 thing Hubbard couldn't possibly have predicted, 00:35:35.590 --> 00:35:38.590 and it completely changed the game. In 2008, 00:35:38.769 --> 00:35:40.889 an internal Scientology video of Tom Cruise, 00:35:41.130 --> 00:35:43.389 meant only for other members, was leaked to the 00:35:43.389 --> 00:35:45.530 Web. I remember this. He's very intense in it. 00:35:45.610 --> 00:35:47.610 Very intense. He has these wide eyes, and he's 00:35:47.610 --> 00:35:49.769 talking about how Scientologists are the authorities 00:35:49.769 --> 00:35:51.610 on the mind and the only ones who can really 00:35:51.610 --> 00:35:53.809 help. The church tried to scrub it from the Web, 00:35:53.869 --> 00:35:55.789 issuing copyright takedown notices everywhere. 00:35:56.130 --> 00:35:58.510 And the Internet fought back. Enter Anonymous. 00:35:59.130 --> 00:36:01.510 The loosely organized hacktivist collective. 00:36:01.809 --> 00:36:04.329 They saw this censorship attempt as an attack 00:36:04.329 --> 00:36:06.610 on the freedom of the Internet. They declared 00:36:06.610 --> 00:36:09.309 war on the Church of Scientology and launched 00:36:09.309 --> 00:36:12.389 Project Chenology. What did that involve? It 00:36:12.389 --> 00:36:15.449 started with cyber attacks. DDoS attacks that 00:36:15.449 --> 00:36:17.949 took down Scientology websites. Then it moved 00:36:17.949 --> 00:36:20.750 to prank calls and black faxes. And then it moved 00:36:20.750 --> 00:36:23.550 into the real world. Thousands of people all 00:36:23.550 --> 00:36:25.849 wearing Guy Fawkes masks from the movie V for 00:36:25.849 --> 00:36:29.210 Vendetta began holding protests outside Scientology 00:36:29.210 --> 00:36:32.230 orgs all over the world. That was a huge turning 00:36:32.230 --> 00:36:34.829 point, wasn't it? It was monumental. Before that, 00:36:34.929 --> 00:36:38.010 fear of litigation kept most people silent. Anonymous 00:36:38.010 --> 00:36:40.920 was, well... Anonymous. They couldn't be easily 00:36:40.920 --> 00:36:42.960 sued into silence. They broke the fear barrier. 00:36:43.159 --> 00:36:45.320 Then that opened the floodgates. It led to a 00:36:45.320 --> 00:36:47.420 new wave of ex -members feeling safe enough to 00:36:47.420 --> 00:36:50.179 speak out. It paved the way for major documentaries 00:36:50.179 --> 00:36:53.639 like HBO's Going Clear and Leah Remini's TV show. 00:36:53.780 --> 00:36:56.460 It completely changed the public narrative and 00:36:56.460 --> 00:36:58.719 took away the church's ability to control information. 00:36:59.219 --> 00:37:01.039 So where does that leave us today? We still have 00:37:01.039 --> 00:37:03.199 these two versions of Scientology fighting it 00:37:03.199 --> 00:37:06.130 out. We do. On one hand, you have the Scientology 00:37:06.130 --> 00:37:08.510 that is presented to the public, a humanitarian 00:37:08.510 --> 00:37:11.570 organization, a group that is officially recognized 00:37:11.570 --> 00:37:13.889 as a tax -exempt religion in the United States. 00:37:14.030 --> 00:37:16.829 A status they won in 1993 after what the sources 00:37:16.829 --> 00:37:19.829 describe as a war with the IRS. An all -out war. 00:37:20.010 --> 00:37:22.429 They filed, I believe, something like 2 ,400 00:37:22.429 --> 00:37:25.889 lawsuits against the IRS until the agency finally 00:37:25.889 --> 00:37:28.929 capitulated and granted them the exemption. So 00:37:28.929 --> 00:37:31.949 legally, in the U .S., they are of a bona fide 00:37:31.949 --> 00:37:34.010 religion. But not everywhere. Not everywhere. 00:37:34.210 --> 00:37:36.550 In France, the organization has been convicted 00:37:36.550 --> 00:37:38.929 of organized fraud. In Germany, it's monitored 00:37:38.929 --> 00:37:41.449 by intelligence agencies as an anti -democratic 00:37:41.449 --> 00:37:44.530 cult. In Australia, it was banned in the 60s, 00:37:44.530 --> 00:37:47.429 then later recognized as a religion. The legal 00:37:47.429 --> 00:37:49.530 status depends entirely on where you are standing. 00:37:49.869 --> 00:37:51.530 And meanwhile, the organization is incredibly 00:37:51.530 --> 00:37:53.389 wealthy. Billions of dollars in real estate. 00:37:53.530 --> 00:37:55.809 Under Miscavige, they've focused on buying historic 00:37:55.809 --> 00:37:58.570 buildings in cities around the world and renovating 00:37:58.570 --> 00:38:01.480 them into lavish ideal orgs. But reports from 00:38:01.480 --> 00:38:03.500 journalists and ex -members suggest that these 00:38:03.500 --> 00:38:05.659 massive, beautiful buildings are largely empty. 00:38:05.900 --> 00:38:08.119 So they have the money and the property, but 00:38:08.119 --> 00:38:10.519 they are losing the people. It seems that way. 00:38:10.659 --> 00:38:13.739 The Internet has inoculated the public. If you 00:38:13.739 --> 00:38:16.440 Google Scientology today, the first thing you 00:38:16.440 --> 00:38:19.199 find isn't a free personality test. The first 00:38:19.199 --> 00:38:22.039 thing you find is the hole, you find Xenu, you 00:38:22.039 --> 00:38:24.679 find disconnection, and you find fair game. It 00:38:24.679 --> 00:38:27.239 brings us right back to the beginning, to a synthesis. 00:38:27.869 --> 00:38:30.570 We've looked at the sci -fi origins, the promise 00:38:30.570 --> 00:38:33.250 of a talk therapy, the secret space opera theology. 00:38:34.059 --> 00:38:36.780 the intense systems of control, and the constant 00:38:36.780 --> 00:38:39.179 war with critics. And it creates a fat -fucking 00:38:39.179 --> 00:38:41.760 final question for you, the listener. L. Ron 00:38:41.760 --> 00:38:43.659 Hubbard wrote in one of his technical bulletins 00:38:43.659 --> 00:38:46.340 that the only way to control people is to lie 00:38:46.340 --> 00:38:48.500 to them. And yet, in other places, he claimed 00:38:48.500 --> 00:38:51.420 to be creating a brand new civilization, a world 00:38:51.420 --> 00:38:54.280 where honest beings can have rights. That is 00:38:54.280 --> 00:38:56.559 the core contradiction, isn't it? So which version 00:38:56.559 --> 00:38:59.940 of Hubbard won? The humanitarian visionary or 00:38:59.940 --> 00:39:02.210 the cynical manipulator? That's the question. 00:39:02.349 --> 00:39:06.110 Has the organization he created ultimately served 00:39:06.110 --> 00:39:08.230 that vision of spiritual freedom he promised? 00:39:08.570 --> 00:39:11.769 Or has it become the very thing it claimed to 00:39:11.769 --> 00:39:15.090 fight, a mechanism of suppression? The sources 00:39:15.090 --> 00:39:17.710 we've examined suggest that for many, it began 00:39:17.710 --> 00:39:20.329 as a dream of freedom and ended as a prison of 00:39:20.329 --> 00:39:22.369 belief. And for you listening, it makes you think. 00:39:22.880 --> 00:39:25.940 Where is that line? At what point does a high 00:39:25.940 --> 00:39:28.380 -demand religion with unorthodox beliefs become 00:39:28.380 --> 00:39:31.440 what its critics call a thriving cult? That is 00:39:31.440 --> 00:39:33.860 something to mull over. Indeed. And as always, 00:39:33.960 --> 00:39:36.539 remember, check your sources. Because in a world 00:39:36.539 --> 00:39:39.039 of information warfare, the deep dive into knowledge 00:39:39.039 --> 00:39:41.539 is your only real defense against manipulation. 00:39:42.059 --> 00:39:43.820 Couldn't have said it better myself. That's it 00:39:43.820 --> 00:39:45.800 for this deep dive into the source material on 00:39:45.800 --> 00:39:47.719 Scientology. We will see you next time.