Transcript for:
Exploring Scientology: Beliefs and Controversies

foreign we will begin the session now you will remain aware of everything that goes on okay we're going to find an incident in your life you have an exact record of then by sending you through it at the time it happened we're going to reduce it we will reduce the pain go to the beginning of that incident tell me what's happening well these things get also a bunch of young kids like that we were all very heated very excited can you recall a time when you were happy I think the first time I saw a habit and I was in it because you thought you were doing it was good I mean so you had some gratification oh I felt a tremendous amount of relief I've got the answers for everything within the religion what are you most afraid of it would stop I'll say whatever you want I'll write up anything that flipped out I mean I started punching holes in the walls do you have a secret you're afraid I will find out yes yes go to the beginning of that incident okay all right tell me about it I was 21 years old that need London Ontario Canada I wanted to be a documentary filmmaker and someone had told me about what they called who said there's this cult in New York called Scientology which I never heard of and if you give them all your money they'll make anything possible in your life and about six months later I was walking down the street this guy was there selling books and I realized they were all the same book dianetics which again I'd never heard of handed me one asked me to look at it I was talking I wasn't really listening to him as I opened the cover and it said stamped in the inside page the Church of Scientology and I said take me there all right all right here we go I'm not a great multitasker you know and if I feel like doing something that's what I do and uh I was into this [ __ ] and I was I was becoming an auditor like I was in Scientology probably four months and I had done more than John Travolta had done and he'd been there for 85 years or some [ __ ] my agents call you know he got an audition that [ __ ] it I don't really you know what I mean I was a voice on about a spiritual adventure and this was like whoa this is an interesting Road you know so uh what was the question so tell me how was it you first got involved in Scientology well I was introduced to it by some friends I don't know if they said it or if it was just talked about buyers that they had superpowers and I I was like really young but I thought I'd like to have super powers and um but also I had done so much um political social work so this really looked like that it was a solution to handling a lot of the world's problems instead of trying to handle things in Mass you could deal with it person by person make each person better and thus the world would get better and shorter [Music] [Music] well thank you very much and Welcome to our whole new world it's a world where the operative phrase reads exceeding all expectations transcending all parameters extending the boundaries Beyond any boundary not to mention godspeed lightning speed and a Quantum Leap and sure rapidity of progress up the bridge [Applause] we're out to make every life extraordinary and if by chance it ever seems laborious or a sacrifice then you are looking at the off ramps instead of the highway you are missing the signpost up ahead the one that reads next stop Infinity [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] probably my favorite concept of Scientology is a world without criminality a world without war and a world without insanity and I know of no other group that their goals were that clear look I don't you you you name me another philosophy religion or technology that one of its main goals besides the three I mentioned uh earlier where Joy is the operative concept [Applause] these are the times now okay these are the times we will all remember were you there what did you do so what do you say let me clean this place up [Applause] because we're counting on you all right it's dweller age [Applause] Scientology is such a subject of Fascination for people how did you get engaged in the story well I've always been interested in religions and why people believe one idea rather than another I've studied Jonestown radical Islam there are oftentimes good-hearted people idealistic but full of a kind of crushing certainty that eliminates doubt you know my goal wasn't to write an expose it was simply to understand Scientology trying to understand what people get out of it you know why they go into it in the first place I was interested in intelligent and skeptical people who are drawn into a belief system and wind up acting on those beliefs in ways they never thought they would foreign tology turned out to be two offices above the world war store he asked me what's ruining your life I'm in love I'm in love with this woman it's impossible I don't know what to do I need some help and he said we can help you with that I said really yes and I ran home and got her and said we have to sign up for this it sounds really good it could you know save our relationship so we both signed up the next day to do a course which I think cost fifty dollars the thing that absolutely got me and stayed with me forever was the very first thing I read when you opened the course back and it said paraphrasing don't believe any of this if it works for you great if it doesn't discard it I was troubled by the fact they called it a religion but I figured oh it's some tax scam it's fine with me it's like I don't really care about that as long as it works the first exercise after you do all this reading and stuff like that is this thing called ottr0 which is basically you stand you sit just like this eyes closed three feet away from somebody who's doing the same thing and and you basically confront them you know and uh in Scientology lingo I went exterior exteriorizing is what they call it you know you leave your body so it was a transcend an experience for me and that made me go holy [ __ ] [ __ ] this is wow I was reading books and going to lectures and going to things at the different events at the mission at the local Santa Clara mission and then I knew I wanted to join the sea org and get really involved as soon as I could which would be right out of high school zorg is the most Fraternal Order of the organization it's people who really really believe in the cause and sign a billionaire contract which I did when I was you know as soon as I could I left skid marks get into that billionaire contract you thought you were doing something good to have a positive effect all of mankind that's what Hubbard says everything you do for Endless trillions of her ears depends what you do here and now with and in Scientology [Music] I began to ask this question what is man and I found oddly enough that nobody could tell me what man was uh what did he consist of where was he going what was he doing to really know life you've got to be part of life you must get down and look you must get into the the nooks and crannies of existence or the you have to rub elbows with all kinds and types of men before you can finally establish what he is and you in fact did this yes I've slept with bandits in Mongolia and I've uh hunted with uh pygmies in the Philippines matter of fact I have studied 21 different primitive races including the white rice and my conclusions were that uh man he was a spiritual being that was pulled down to the material the fleshly interests to an interplay in life that was in fact too great for him to confront and I concluded finally that he needed a hand to understand Scientology you have to understand the life and mind of its inventor L Ron Hubbard Hubbard was a prolific writer he actually holds the Guinness Book of World Records for the number of books published more than a thousand Hubbard got his start in the depression writing Pulp Fiction named for the cheap paper used writers were paid a penny a word so they had to write a lot to make money Hubbard hammered away so fast on Long rolls of butcher paper and used to drip sweat on his typewriter Herbert's career took off when he began to write for a magazine called astounding science fiction along with authors like Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein Hubbard wrote stories with a sense of Mission to get man to the Stars he found his true metier in science fiction and a lot of what Scientology is he had previously written about in the form of the science fiction he had the ability to fabricate these amazing tales and he transported those imaginary stories into his theology [Music] after Pearl Harbor Hubbard took command of a sub-chaser but he was still a man prone to invention he would write that he sunk two Japanese Subs but in fact just off the coast of Oregon he opened fire on what turned out to be a log and dropped most of his depth charges on underwater magnetic rocks when he accidentally shelled a Mexican Island he was relieved of his command after the war Hubbard ended up in Los Angeles where he settled in with a small group of seekers and Visionaries a guy named Jack Parsons a fascinating man was one of the founders of the jet propulsion Laboratory and there's actually a crater on the moon named after Jack he was a significant scientific figure but he was also the head honcho in this black magic cult it was called the Oto or the Ordo template orientus they followed the teachings of Aleister Crowley a famous sexual magic figure in England Parsons had a mansion in Pasadena they would have ceremonies and they were seeking some sort of goddess figure that he could impregnate in order to create the Antichrist Hubbard moved in and became Parsons assistant one night this beautiful redhead named Marjorie Cameron showed up at the door she was perfectly willing to engage in this sexual ritual in order supposedly to produce the Antichrist she and Jack eventually got married that happened after Hubbard ran off with Jack's girlfriend Sarah Northrup Scientology and Hubbard would later refuse to acknowledge his relationship with Sarah but we uncovered Sarah's own Recollections over time with Hubbard he was 13 years older than I was I thought he was a great war hero captain of a ship that had been downed in the Pacific and he was weaks and a raft and he'd been blinded by the Sun and his back had been broken all these things were complete lies but I didn't know it at the time I believed every word of it if only Sarah had seen Hubbard's military records in a 900 page file Hubbard's activities are laid out in extraordinary detail Hubbard told people that he had been blinded and crippled during the war and their practices that would form the basis of Scientology had cured him but his records show that his only wounds were mild arthritis and conjunctivitis [Music] we had this terrible fight and he told me he was going to commit suicide if I didn't marry him I really believed him we got married we spent the winter in that lighthouse in the lake in the Poconos I remember one awful night when I was asleep and he was out typing and he hit me across the side of the head with a 45 because I was smiling in my sleep and he said I was thinking about somebody else I got up and left the house and walked on the ice of the lake I was terrified he always said that he would kill me rather than let me leave him the only good thing I got from Ron was my baby [Music] we moved to Elizabeth New Jersey and he started writing Dianetics the book was conceived and he started working on it in 1950 that the only way to make any real money was to have a religion that's essentially what he was trying to do with dianetics get a religion where he could have an income and the government wouldn't take it away from him in the form of taxes Dianetics was an immense success from the moment it was published in 1950 it swept through America and other countries around the world this book that that's the background of all of this that's what started all the trouble and we expected this to sell about 6 000 copies and it hit the top of the best seller list of the New York Times and it just stayed there month it month out it was like I started an avalanche Dianetics the modern science and mental health is considered to be the fundamental text which is the foundation upon which all else is built [Music] one of the theories of Dianetics is to discover these things that are very traumatic or have been very upsetting to you and if you can observe exactly what happened the power of that incident to influence you today is removed the concept of Dianetics is that you have two sides of your mind there is the analytical side which is a perfect computer it remembers everything it's Flawless it never makes a mistake and then there's a reactive side and this is where all your neuroses and anxieties and fears are stored and where do they come from they come from ingrams an Ingram is like a memory man has an automobile accident he has a picture of an automobile accident he has all the sensations of having been hurt in the automobile accident takes him a long time to recover because he's still wearing the automobile accident if you said hey why don't you take this automobile accident and throw it away why all of a sudden he recovers from the automobile axle naturally because the thing is keeping it impressed upon him and his body is his mind an auditor is a practitioner in Scientology he listens and he computes we have a meter a meter simply shows where an individual is aberrated the e-meter is a very powerful instrument it's one-third of a lie detector a lie detector would also measure your respiration and pulse it is two cans and there's electrical wires carrying an undetectable amount of current into a meter with a needle on it according to Church of Scientology it actually detects the mass of your thoughts although there's no evidence that thoughts have mass the current passes through your body and as your mental mass increases so does the resistance to the circuit so the auditor will ask you a question tell me about an upset with your mother what's truly bothering you about being with you know about your wife's Behavior what is it why are you upset today well I had a fight with my wife well I can see that there was that the same thought say that again and and gradually the needle will have less response and in that manner you discharge the emotion then you're asked to go back to earlier incidents that were like that and you might say well my mother spoke to me in the same scolding tone of voice and you recount that story and eventually you discharge the emotion and that's very much like Freudian therapy but with Scientology then they'll ask further well that's as far back as I go well maybe not the auditor might say something just registered on the meter what was that I had an image in my mind well what was the image it was a barn are you inside the barn go back to that image okay open the door what do you see well it looks like 19th century France you walk outside and you see the people dressed in their costumes and the e-meter is saying this is real this is a real memory it's just as real as those other memories that you had beautiful little soft needle and everything's good needles Rising which means he's getting you know thinking a lot the needle just like goes like a lot of [ __ ] blows away the Theta bot which is a very quick little thing like which means exteriorization when you come out of an auditing session you feel euphoric that confessional nature makes you feel better somebody will say oh you're gonna have a session I would feel better just hearing that man is asleep he is hypnotized now in Scientology reverse the process and you make him wake up such a man becomes unbrainwashed you might say he becomes unhypnotized this sounds Mr Hubbard in a sense like an extension of psychology or Psychiatry oh no Psychiatry has to do with the insane and we have nothing to do with the insane whatsoever is this a form of psychoanalysis no psychoanalysis they lay back don't don't associate Scientology with such people that that's terrible that's Bad Manners you know when L Ron Hubbard first wrote Dianetics he thought it was a tremendous psychological breakthrough so much so that he would be recognized he wrote letters to the American Psychological Association they couldn't make heads or tails of his ideas to them it was like psychological folk art for instance he would talk about clear that means that the individual has erased his reactive mind his unconscious mind is gone and he is totally alert and totally capable once you've taken away all these traumatic memories from this life in previous ones then you are clear someone who had a perfect memory who was never ill your eyesight would be better I tested people before Scientology processing and after Scientology process uniformly found that their IQ had raised we are making such individuals and we're making them regularly then we're making them routine an old bird Act is an effort to individuate it is a withhold of oneself Ron gave lectures everywhere for large amounts of money and money just started pouring in I mean these people were paying 500 a piece in the 1950s for training in dianetics I felt that he was stealing from people and that he was hoodwinking them all the business of sitting holding hands and putting all these false memories into people's minds then they would finally come along and say oh yes I can remember it all [Music] foreign began to believe that he was a savior and a hero that he really was this God figure he was absolutely convinced that he had the cure for the psychological ills of mankind and that the only reason that it wasn't being promulgated far and wide was that the medical profession had a vested interest in keeping people sick I think he was afraid that some psychiatrists would pop him into an institution generated into a really paranoid terrifying person Sarah threatened to leave Hubbard unless he got psychiatric help he responded by kidnapping their baby and taking her to Cuba he was incapable of taking care of her so he put her in the charge of a mother and daughter who were both mentally [ __ ] and they apparently kept her in some kind of cage he called me and told me that he had killed her he said he had cut her into little pieces and dropped the pieces in a river and it was my fault then he called me back and said that she was still alive and this went on and on and on when Hubbard came back to the U.S Sarah persuaded him to agree to a divorce and give her custody of their daughter when I left him he cleaned out all the joint bank accounts so that I wouldn't have any money Hubbard soon lost all his money too Dianetics proved to be a passing fan like the hula hoop but Hubbard still had his imagination so he repackaged the ideas of Dianetics into a religion called Scientology Hubbard added more science and more structure along with the e-meters came a payment plan every step to clear had a price tag how would you describe rapacious it's all about making money Hubbard from the beginning knew that people would pay for this counseling at a pretty good clip and so he continued to come out with more and more levels the real money was in paying for these higher and higher courses they're getting into thousands of dollars those prices kept going up and up that's really where Scientology begins to create this indoctrination is it's Hubbard that came up with that only Hubbard and you have to be a part of our group to get that spiritual satisfaction you were looking for the Hubbard College of Scientology qualifications division Department of certifications and awards does hereby certify that Anthony a Phillips has attained the state of clear as male members paid for Hubbard's bridge to total freedom the church's coffers swelled with hundreds of millions of dollars from the beginning Hubbard tried to shelter that revenue from any government taxes the founding Church of Scientology attempted in 1967 to get a court determination that it was exempt from federal taxation on the basis that it was a non-profit religious organization a federal court denied the founding Church tax exemption saying that some of the church's earnings from 1955 to 1959 were used for the personal benefit of private individuals L Ron Hubbard and family ABC News has repeatedly requested interviews with Mr Hubbard we have been told that he is unavailable [Music] it was very exciting it was that heady mix of emotion and belief and it's you get stuck to it it's so strong that it sticks you like glue and there's no way you can get away from it I was deeply convinced that we were going to save the world I considered myself tremendously fortunate to be in that position out of the blue one day I received this envelope with an invitation to join the sea project it was completely confidential I wasn't to tell anyone about it I was so ecstatic here was a chance to work with honey and I signed yes I was on my way to The Greatest Adventure in my life we had an overnight flight to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands where we found at about six o'clock in the morning we were taxied down to a dock we had to climb up this rickety ladder all the way up to the ship and we couldn't believe this was where we were going this ship was a rusty Hulk I was given a dirty old jumpsuit to get into missing one arm and the other one was almost half torn orphan put to work we had to scrub the ship and cleaned out the ship which was arduous strenuous work in the heat habit came to the ship every day smoking cigarettes and surveying his kingdom after dinner he'd come and join us on the weldick there he was you know right amongst us talking to us he would be his most magnificent self at those times he'd lean back and he'd look up at the cosmos and he'd point out galaxies constellations and he'd say the fifth Invaders are up there and this is how they addressed him this is how they talk and see that blip across the sky over there he pointed out and we were all yes we see it we see it neither and that's one of those space tests and there was the fourth Invader course was here visit Vader Force came in and the name of this solar system is space station 33 before the fader Force had been there for God knows how many skillion years have been sitting down you clear a pin drop on that ship he had us emotionally captured and held right there in the palm of his hand where he wanted us he had us right there in the early 60s Hubbard was under investigation in various countries his solution was to take to the high seas he made himself Commodore of a fleet of three ships a Scientology Navy to crew the vessels he created the sea organization the members of this so-called sea org would become the church's clergy they began going from port to port in the Mediterranean show up for a few days and then go off of sail off in some other direction and a very enterprising reporter for Granada television in Britain tracked him down slate one take one that's one of the very few instances where Hubbard has actually appeared on camera what are you actually doing on this ship now I am studying ancient civilizations trying to find what happened to them finding out why they went into a decline why they died [Music] training area Prince as an Italian Prince as a matter of fact it's quite interesting that exercises can be conducted which demonstrate conclusively that there are memories which exist prior to this life he had buried treasure all around the coastline and he wanted to go find all these caches of treasure we were all very heated very excited about this whatever was his whim we did we would have died for the old man don't you wake up sometimes in the middle of the night and think to yourself well I've been on this ship with a whole lot of scientologists who believe I'm fantastic who don't believe I'm fantastic if you saw the number of times they don't follow my orders lrh started to devise a system of penalties or punishments or what he called ethics and one of the penalties for the Auditors making mistakes in their auditing sessions was to be tossed overboard you have done such and such and such and such and we commit your errors to the deep and then just pushed overboard 30 feet 35 feet this is very definitely off the Record and don't use it but Scientology organizations were probably much more precisely conducted when I was a director of them I haven't been a director of them sometimes so maybe there aren't abuses I wouldn't tell anybody else that do you ever think that you might be quite mad oh yeah the one man in the world who never believes he's mad or the madman [Music] so we got married a year and a half after we joined and moved to California I wanted to be a writer and my wife she was studying Scientology we had a baby right away and the only people we knew there were scientologists I was working as a Furniture mover during the day and writing spec scripts at night and then on the weekends I'd be you know doing some auditing can you recall a time when you were happy there was a social aspect to it too you got to hang out with people there's interesting people nice people these are all people who are looking to improve their life haha I told my man on a jacket Sky I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in [Music] Hubbard was hiding from public view he was very active in directing the operations of the church particularly in Hollywood this was just after the hate Ashbury era and what Scientology was selling itself is get high without drugs it was a place where people went and explored ideas and you would often see famous people Leonard Cohen members of the Grateful Dead Rock Hudson so they purchased the celebrity center the idea was to draw in these famous entertainers and use them as pitch men for the religion in an industry like Hollywood where stardomis is such a is such an elusive quality Scientology it would offer a route to maybe feel a little bit more secure and when you're trying to break in you're also dealing with Relentless rejection and something that helps you stay focused and feel that you're improving yourself and becoming more clear you can see the appeal of that the beliefs and practices that I have I have studied in Scientology have been invaluable to me have you ever met Ron Hubbard I'd love to I'd be honored because I think he's so brilliant [Music] so when I worked at the celebrity center I would you know just recruit various people like Priscilla Presley and of course John Travolta Johnny he came and he started on course and it was so fun and outrageous and he just made a party wherever he was John Travolta was a young actor in his very first movie he was a troubled young man and he's looking for help a fellow actor gave him a little bit of Scientology counseling she gave him a copy of Dianetics and he was transported by this he would go all in these auditions and no matter what he went off or he'd get it I am stuck a Band-Aid commercial right away booked that now the Army starts you with two it was booking everything and then he went up for a series of course he books it and it's a big series welcome back hotter up your nose with a rubber horse in the late 70s and early 80s John Travolta was scientology's biggest star Spanky was assigned to be Travolta's key contact with the church and she helped out with producers fans and the Press they became close and when Spanky got married Travolta was there when Johnny first got into Scientology he didn't even believe in himself that much but he got injected with a lot of confidence and then you get this phobia inducement that if I leave it's all going to go down the tubes when you're in the organization all the good that happens to you is because of Scientology and everything that doesn't that isn't good is your fault sell it all in the beginning as something quite logical everything makes sense and you're going up what they call the bridge and you're you're doing this auditing and this is good and the next one well it's not quite as good it didn't quite make sense to you but you know you've already paid for the next one so you'll do that one Bridge it's a metaphor you start here at the bottom of the bridge and then you go to the top so where it is and it's it's an awareness scale you start down here and you're not aware of anything and then you go up here and you're a lot more aware of who you are your spirituality your relationship to others a person is supposed to become more able as they go up the bridge and then there are the OT levels operating Satan and if Satan is a spiritual being that's the soul of the person at what level over time did you achieve ot8 it's the highest there is you can't get any higher than no t8s from the beginning you hear these stories people tell if these abilities they've been able to gain I was always talked about the people who are OT could read your mind and and they could move objects at will and they could you know they were cause Over Matter energy space and time so sounded damn good to me I mean I thought wow this is great finally get you a three and they give me the secret materials which I've been hearing about all this time they're hand written by Hubbard you have to keep them in a lock briefcase be very cautious because they've always said that this gets out it's dangerous to people you actually do them harm if they are not adequately prepared and I read it and that doesn't make any sense this gobbled story that didn't make sense I think remember for one fleeting second thinking well maybe it's an insanity test maybe if you believe this they kick you out that's it that of course is not the case they talk about you know the fact that the Earth was created in such and such trillions of years ago and these this guy who's space guy Galactic Overlord this was the prison planet and people being caught and captured and being brought to planet Earth and put them in volcanoes and then blow them up with Avon whoa I studied geography in school those volcanoes didn't exist 75 million years ago and we have these lost souls all over us and we have to get rid of them and I'm going what the [ __ ] are you talking about I'm down for the self-help stuff I'm down for okay I can be clear I can you know I can get rid of those the negative emotions but what the [ __ ] is this when you get to the upper levels of Scientology the creation myth is explained to you story is that 75 million years ago people lived in a world very much like the world of America in the 1950s people particular time and space walking around in closed she looked very remarkably like the clothes they wear at this very minute and the cars they drove looked exactly to say and they walked down streets that looked like these streets it was a very similar world and similar problems one of which was overpopulation they had elected half Gmail to the Supreme Ruler there was a tyrannical Overlord of the galactic Confederacy named zenu in order to resolve this problem of overpopulation he called people in ostensibly for tax Audits and had them Frozen with injections of glycol to their heart box them up in boxes threw them into space plane feed the eight airplanes the exact copy they were flown to the prison planet tgiac is actually the planet Earth and these frozen bodies were then dropped into volcanoes and then they step along hydrogen bombs on the top of each volcano and their disembodied Spirits these are called Satan floated out and they were captured and forced to sit in front of movie screens off they were shown images implants as Hubbard would have it every man is shown crucified so was the psychiatrist shown crucified that's how he gets away with what he gets away with the electric shocks people and when a child is born a Satan will leap inside the child's body at that very instant and it becomes like the child's Soul more than one Satan might crowd into the body hundreds of thousands might they're the source of all of our neuroses and fears and anxieties then you are on the e-meter by yourself now you're soloing you're supposed to scan mentally from your top of your head to your toes to see if you can locate any alien beings and when you do you tell them to go away I kept on trying to audit I could not figure out how I could have all these spirits of dead people attached to me inside me on me I was clear for God's sake I was clear people actually had breakdowns and you know nervous breakdowns because they spend so much time thinking about being Infested by these creatures if you're really believing that it can drive you crazy foreign those years of introspection eventually led me to sincerely considering that I was so bad that I couldn't confront how bad I was I didn't know it at the time but a depression set in that was with me for years and the worst thing was that lrh kept ordering me for more auditing I had to find swords that were stuck in me hypothetical swords imaginary swords that were causing all this pain this auditing went on and on wasn't doing any good I should have been left alone [Music] but everything that I took offense with I rationalized almost immediately I had to I could not continue in this game of Scientology without explaining away what he was doing got to be a way of believing and every one of us got into that it was part of the Mind Control it was part of the Celtic manipulation he was the master who did it to us and we took it on and then we did it to ourselves and I learned from it I would never ever again you know go do the bidding of a tyrant [Music] Harvard questioned his own sanity and actually wrote a letter to the veterans administration asking for psychiatric help that he seems never to have been given I think that his whole creation of Scientology really was a form of self-therapy if he was just a fraud then at some point he would have taken the money and run but he never did that he spent much of his day on the e-meter trying to understand what was going on inside his own mind Hubbard became increasingly paranoid that a powerful Satan had infected his body and that regular auditing wasn't strong enough to make it leave when Larry Wright was researching his book he videotaped an interview with a Scientologist who was asked to help Hubbard expelled with Satan he was having uh problems getting rid of a BT body Satan so he wanted me to build a machine and basically blow the Fate in the way just get him out of there blow it off and also kill the body it was a suicide basically yeah but I didn't want to kill him I just wanted to scare him so I had read some books about nickel and Tesla and stuff and I figured maybe building a Tesla quarter would probably be the best route to go I had little electrodes that you hook it up to the e-meter so when he's on the cans then he would just flip the button and it would do its thing as far as I know he blew up my e-meter burn it up Scientology really is a journey into the mind of L Ron Hubbard and the further you get into it the more like L Ron Hubbard you become 1980 [Music] [Applause] lrh moved off the lines so that he could continue his writings and researches without any distractions [Applause] [Music] he has now moved on to his next OT level of OT research this level is beyond anything any one of us ever imagined this level is in fact done in an exterior state meaning that it is done completely exterior from the body at this level of OT the body is nothing more than an impediment and encumbrance to any further gain as an OT thus thus at two thousand hours Friday the 24th of January A.D 36 L Ron Hubbard discarded the body he had used in his lifetime for 74 years 10 months and 11 days although you may feel grief understand that he did not and does not now [Applause] [Music] it's true from 1986 but he left no plan no Plex session the ambitious David miscavige stepped forward and by bending arms and making deals took control of the church and installed a new generation of lieutenants we want to make sure that all of us and cycle on this completely so we can get on with the job that is ahead of us the first time I met Miss cabbage was in 83 he was the guy running back and forth between Hubbard and the property in Hemet in a van back and forth delivering messages worked my way through the organization and Miss cabbage would come down to Florida where I was running the place and we slowly surely became friends by 2001 I was working directly for my scavenge we'd sit and drink a bottle of scotch and I'd hear everything he had to say about the church and about the people involved from his perspective and honestly it was it was uh horrifying it was scary and Shane told you there was a concept that 98 of the people are good and two percent are evil well he worked very hard to convince me that it was the other way around two and a half percent were okay and the rest were very evil and bad and somehow they'd all been dumped on that base so they could be around him he was he was extremely paranoid so Marty is Miss cabbage a True Believer uh yes she has to continue to believe because if he looks at it rationally and he sees that it is as I say it will destroy him you know he'll just he'll realize that you know he's done a lot worse than I've done you know he's abused people on a personal level um as a as a it's how he got to the top and it's how he stayed at the top at the age of 11 David miscavage joined the church with his parents as a child his ambition caught Hubbard's eye so when Hubbard wanted to become a filmmaker Miss cabbage was his assistant cameraman an auditing Prodigy he claimed Scientology cured his asthma he became a sort of general contractor for the church and was soon named action Chief the man who did whatever needed doing for a church that developed a scary reputation for attacking its critics Scientology has been in the headlines off and on for 25 years now almost since the time it was founded as a religion Scientology story is one of a church embittered by what it perceives as harassment we're talking about attacks from multi-billion Dollar media conglomerates World governments real powers of the world they take enemies very seriously this comes right out of Hubbard's own policies from the 60s he's saying we never defend we always attack and they have followed it ever since they call it fair game and anybody who criticizes Scientology is a fair game whatever you're told whatever needs to be done if it's against the law it doesn't matter the best example was in the mid 70s scientologists were walking into these Department of Justice offices and IRS offices and taking documents out by the yard the FBI rate of the Church of Scientology largest raid in FBI history at that time oh my God the building is filled FBI and they're you know they're taking things it was craziness clearly elron Hubbard was in charge of all that but he was only named an unindicted co-conspirator and Mary Sue Hubbard Hubbard's wife she went to prison 10 others went to prison this was where I cut my teeth where I was in my early 20s miscavage was in his early 20s we were taking over for this group that had created the largest domestic Espionage operation in the history of the United States they were breaking into offices framing people this is the activities of a church there was a guy who you know was a reporter for the LA Times whose dog was poisoned while he was working on Scientology story again and again while reporting this story we met many former members who described Scientology as a dangerous and deeply paranoid organization they hire private detectives to arrest people I have been sued twice Financial ruin years of harassment they're home spoken into have them beaten we chased her around we followed her to the airport gotten hold of personal phone records slashed their tires break their car windows I was locked in a chicken wire cage dangerous horrifying terrifying fraud a nightmare many of their stories are corroborated in sworn Court testimony by up to a dozen other people are they all lying they sat in a room they figured out what they were going to say my position as the spokesperson was to evade the question or sleaze around some way or give what was an acceptable answer or something that I believed at the time please welcome Mr Mike rinder all right [Applause] because Scientology is perceived and conceived by scientologists as being the salvation for mankind you can have people that lie with a very straight face if they believe that what they are doing is protecting the Church of Scientology Iran happened says we do not find critics of Scientology who do not have criminal pasts do you believe that sure people who oppose you are undoubtedly criminals I believe that yeah you know there isn't and hasn't been any effort which has been taken to quote silence critics no that doesn't happen oh we would never do that but according to many insiders Hubbard was growing more and more vindictive toward those who stood in his way he created what he called the rehabilitation project Force that RPF was what we called it it was the prison camp the where you'd go for re-indoctrination it was on the seventh floor of the Hollywood headquarters a confined space to rehabilitate members who might be harboring subversive thoughts Banky was sent to the RPF when she objected to the way the church had denied medical treatment to her boss I went thinking of course this is a big mistake there and there were like 200 so much of the exact strata of the organization that hit the skid simultaneously RPF stands for rehabilitation project force it is a program that is exclusively for the benefit of sea organization members if they uh stressed out if they're not doing well on their job have them do menial type work and five hours a day of auditing and Scientology training it's a fabulous program we were working Cross My Heart 30 hours on three hours off doing like hard labor like having wire brushes on windowsills and sanding and sanding and sanding breathing paint fumes that regular crew would eat first and then we'd get what was left it was kind of like table scraps there was mattresses out there on the roof and they were wet and Soggy and gross and if you got to sleep for three hours sometimes you just have to go out there and crash out and I had a young child at that time who was 10 months old when I went to the RPF she got taken and put in the cadet or the organization for the children and then I I got pregnant when I was an RPF so now I'm standing walls and eating table scraps and Pregnant and ruining myself sick about my child in Spanky's time the children of sea org members were separated from their parents and raised in the cadet org to remove all distractions from their parents ultimate responsibility to clear the planet sea org members were often pressured to have abortions because the church Feud getting children as an unpractical burden initially you're like this is absurd this is nuts and then you kind of settle in and go well obviously I need to deal with something that I'm not facing so perhaps this is they're doing this to make me better there's so many bizarre stories that you it's just hard to believe stuff they asked if I could arrange a private screening of Saturday Night Fever and I was like what I disappeared from this man's life I abandoned him and now you want me arrange a private screening what do you I I said is there anything else maybe a Beatles reunion [Music] Travolta had been wondering where Spanky was when she was sent to the RPF she was not allowed to contact him or anyone else but now under the watch of a guard she was permitted to call Travolta's assistant she said we could use John's personal print of the film under one condition that you'll see John I was so excited I hadn't had dialogue with him for many months we have the screaming of a film and on the next night I was supposed to have dinner with Johnny and after the screening I was abruptly told I wasn't going to see him and I needed to call and cancel he was truly angry at me for for having allowed this abuse of myself you know and for having that so little of myself that I would allow this degree of degradation and and um and and he was my good friend and I knew that he was telling me the truth those words were such a wake-up call for me and I went over there to the cadet Park there were so many sick children in there and my daughter is very very ill burning up a fever completely neglected in a urine soaked crib her eyes were so filled with mucus they were welded shut she had fruit flies on her body and I just I couldn't bear it I just went no that's I'm done I mean I just knew I could make these choices for me I could decide to give up my life and and do this to help the world but I couldn't make these choices for my children I just had to get her out told him that I was having problems with my pregnancy and I needed to use the phone so they sent a bodyguard with me I called one of the few non-scientologists I knew a wonderful woman who happened to work for John Travolta I said meet me at this address I gave her time and I hung up I go up to my daughter's room and I wrapped her up and there's that bodyguard with me I said oh my sister-in-law is in that car she's gonna take the baby to the doctor is this been approved of course it was approved she's in my arms and I got in the car my friend she just nods her head boom with that I pull my leg and shut that door she is Ziplocs and we drive and people are yelling my name is baby no no I mean just freak though I'm thinking I'm a dead person something terrible is gonna happen to me I was just so frightened that they would come to fetch me up [Music] one of the turning points in Travolta's relationship with the church is when he understood what was happening to Spanky he didn't do anything about it I know that he certainly got exposed to the fact that not everything was on the up and up why that wasn't sufficient for him to leave I don't know I I often wonder what what could possibly keep him there can you recall an incident which occurred when your mother looked younger an auditor learns to keep notes contemporaneously as he is doing a session about every detail of the person's life back to birth and Beyond if you do the whole program you end up with up to a file cabinet full of pre-clear folders on notations about your life and your thoughts and your considerations about your life it's the most intimate detail you're always encouraged you're always threatened to disclose more and more and more and all of it's recorded all this material which is represented to you to be held sacrosanct in fact any information that might do some Harmony organization gets unclassified automatically and gets reported to another branch of the church that deals with ethics Travolta was down in Clearwater we'd finished the renovations every auditing room had two cameras one on the meter and one on the guy getting out of it my scavenge would sit and fix 15 by 15 room cameras of every session you can flip in between them and he was watching these things and it was for training purposes well Travolta saw that and it said I will not be videoed so I was there when I was setting it up and my scavenge was directing it get them into a hotel room hook up secret private videos there were rumors that he was threatening to leave and another Scientologist told me that he was delegated to create a black PR package all the damaging material they could use against Travolta which came from his auditing sessions I know this because I used to do it when I was the head of the office of special affairs we would put a team of people onto going through all of these PC folders and finding things that they believe by exposing them or threatening to expose them they will cower the person that they're worried about into silence there's a particular writing where Hubbard is training these office of special Affairs people on how when you use private information to control somebody to do what you want them to do and to silence them from speaking out against Scientology it's really not blackmail because you're not asking for money but you're holding the secret information over the person's head to silence them as far as travolt is concerned we'll say well there's all these things that we know about that have been rumored in the tabloids but in fact it's more of a two-way street you know he's provided with an auditor whose shoulder he can cry on but he's also provided with the muscle of the church in the form of myself and Mike rinder on many occasions we were sent out to get with his publicist to get with his lawyer and to help squash or intimidate these people that are making accusations against it once that happened uh I think he was really the church's captive Mr John [Applause] [Music] when they were facing lawsuits and stuff like that he'd be brought forward and make his testimony about how great Scientology is he had the opportunity to affect the behavior of the church and he chose not to now I've been at Scientology for 23 years I felt like a Pioneer in many in many ways and I've seen my efforts come to fruition you know in various ways so I think very few people can say that I'm part of a of a frontier in a way you know that that very few people ever get to be part of [Applause] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] policy history and of course this guy was wanted to milk it for everything he had just Grand produce thing where it's all the single person on the gigantic stage all this sort of Nazi symbolism I'd clearly recall getting prepared for the event and miscavige up in that office you know going 18 20 hours a day writing this speech and thinking to myself my God you know this this is not just a victory celebration this is a this is a coup what we are going to talk about is the war to end all wars when you were in Scientology you were in all the way there's no happen and half out a decade into miscavige's leadership a simmering crisis finally came to a bull for years Hubbard had insisted that Scientology was a religion and should be tax-exempt so he had refused to pay any taxes we were facing a tax bill of over a billion dollars and and the total assets uh liquid and material and property of the church was about a quarter of that at the time in the 80s and so just from a real simple accounting basis it was life and death if we don't get exemption we die if we get it we survive now Zeller H said one certainly couldn't contest anyone as holy as the commissioner of the IRS whom I believe gives God his orders lrh faced with this crisis David miscavige formulated a strategy think of the nerve that it takes to decide to take on a war with the IRS the Church of Scientology has been crucifying the federal Agency for its sins on a regular basis both in and out of Courts thousands of scientologists all filed lawsuits not just against the IRS but against individual IRS employees 2 400 total lawsuits all going at the IRS at one time it was a litigation nightmare being miscavige's right hand man I was in charge of all those efforts we were not only suing them in every possible jurisdiction there was we were investigating the IRS for crimes generally or things that would offend the public in the late 80s there were hearings about IRS abuses it had nothing to do with Scientology had nothing to do with non-profits he had nothing to do with churches they had to do with Joe taxpayer and then we were publishing these glossy expensive magazines in fact the expose of Iris price were so hated that possession of Freedom magazine was banned by IRS officials in the IRS building there is going to be a IRS conference in the Catskills right and so we was in a pi find out which hotel it's going to be out get down there during happy hour socialize and this guy's calling who's drinking what and so we go through freedom information act to find out that the taxpayers are paying the bar bill and it's so much money and of course you know in the scheme of things it's nothing but from a PR perspective it's everything IRS officials told me to my face they weren't interested in hearing anything I had to say because and I quote you are a Scientologist you are a Mindless robot those who know me can imagine my response foreign it was short but certainly made the point the IRS and the Church of Scientology how do you define a religion it's not so easy why is one body of thinking of religion and another body not the only organization entitled to make those distinctions is the IRS it's an agency very poorly equipped to do that I mean they're mainly accountants and lawyers they're not theologians but it's the only opinion that matters once the IRS has decided that you're a religion then you are protected by the vast protections of the First Amendment and as the saying goes the rest is history on October the 1st 1993 at 8 37 PM Eastern Standard Time the IRS issued letters recognizing Scientology and every one of its organizations has fully tax exempt the war ended because the IRS surrendered it forgave the billion dollar tax bill and granted Scientology its tax exemption even Hubbard's novels were declared religious texts their sales exempt from taxes what happened is that Fred Goldberg who was the IRS commissioner at that time miscavaged let Goldberg know that if we could find a way to get taxes no status all those lawsuits will go away overnight and as we were going out the door Fred Goldberg goes is he serious and I said yeah and he sort of breathed the sigh of relief and kind of nodded and smiled at the church's Victory party with scavenge projected photos of the church's Executives celebrating the IRS officials it created this tremendous Juggernaut of tight conspiracy of the membership that then existed but what it really did was enable miscavige to milk every last dime out of that core membership I am proud to announce the Discrimination is over your tax donate deductions on donations to Scientology will no longer be disallowed by the Internal Revenue Service in the 80s while Hubbard was in hiding Scientology was going through some very severe litigation in particular a lawsuit in Oregon and one in Los Angeles one of them did produce a 30 million dollar judgment this scared Scientology they realized they were vulnerable and so they asked scientologists okay give us a few thousand dollars you'll get a nice Ribbon or something you're not going to get any courses from it and this was new the idea that you would give them money just to defend against lawsuits and that grew and grew now scientologists are constantly under intense pressure just to hand money over they pitch themselves as being the underdog as being the victim and you identify with that but then they started hitting a lot for bigger donations and bigger and I got a lot of pressure and I think I donated another 250 000 left under pressure they really know how to do it but they really had to do it and he just was after me and after me and then I said we're under attack Paul there's one guy who donated 25 million dollars for no you know just straight donation to this to the Scientology War chest churches are tax-exempt because they're supposed to provide a public good prove that good to the IRS churches aren't supposed to hoard their money they're supposed to spend it on services for the faithful under this pretense the church has made massive investments in tax-free real estate all over the world and when it comes to labor costs they are almost free the max I got paid you know on a weekly basis was 50 bucks um for 28 years see org workers take home something between 6 and 40 cents an hour so if you've got very low labor costs no taxes to pay and wealthy people giving you donations you can see why Scientology has amassed huge piles of money how much are they worth this was a bit of a mystery but just recently I obtained tax records that Scientology does have to turn in three of the main entities of Scientology and there are 20 or 30 of them but the top three just on their own have a book value of 1.5 billion dollars it's stunning how much money a non-profit has been able to amass following our greatest triumph over fourth Dynamic suppression it is time to reach out and create a new era of expense is a crime that we've given them religious recognition and that they can hide behind it meanwhile you get very good people in there their lives are being destroyed when I started this story I stumbled across an FBI investigation of the church they were investigating human trafficking it seemed that people were being confined against their will there were lots of reports of people being physically abused and the exploitation of Labor and child labor all of these things were stations that the FBI had while that investigation was going on a case was being heard in California the headleys who were suing the church for many of these same violations and the Court ruled in that case that these are all essentially practices that are protected by the religious Clause of the First Amendment once that ruling came out the FBI dropped his investigation I think it was an indication that the church is protected before ending Cycles completely on the IRS there is one thing I do wish to do to do sir done thank you [Music] [Applause] knowing the truth will set us free take us from clear to Eternity to a future we thought would never be We Stand Tall [Music] [Applause] [Music] the weak Stand Tall thing this again was part of this whole IRS thing and miscavigepad the song composed by the musician group they had up at the studio he was trying to turn this into this was a result of the power of this movement foreign [Music] which was such [ __ ] because it was all about control when he got absolute control he went absolutely bonkers [Music] you know most religions attacks exempt and many have beliefs and practices that in the modern context would be considered strange is Scientology any different I mean if you go to a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim and ask them what do you believe they can basically describe the uh most important parts of their religion in a minute or two well what does a Scientologist believe you you need to be in Scientology for seven or eight years and in for a couple hundred thousand dollars before you finally learn this backstory of Xenu the Galactic Overlord now if you were told that on day one how many people would join but if they were upfront about it I'd have more respect for them but it's that sort of bait and switch that people are told oh it's an applied philosophy to help you with your communication oh yeah so why is Tom Cruise paying a thousand bucks to have invisible aliens pulled out of his body [Applause] what happens when your zone of influence is the global stage how much must one do to call themselves a Scientologist how much so that when their head hits the pillow they can live with themselves knowing they did all they could do that is our final story this evening it's a story that affects every Scientologist for all of us are the beneficiaries of what he presents Tom Cruise was the guy muscavich and Cruz have been pretty buddy buddy way back to Days of Thunder he was on the set with them and went skydiving with him was hanging out with them all the time and that was when tomcos met Nicole he had really fallen for her they got married and this posed a dilemma for the church because her father was a well-known psychologist in Australia from the church's perspective he's the anime he's a suppressive person because Nicole is still in a relationship with her father that makes her dangerous she's a potential trouble Source PTS and because Tom is related to her this all causes trouble from the church's perspective you have to break that dynamic Nicole her biggest beef was that Tom was becoming increasingly like Dave he really got him to drift away from the church and Tom was not really actively involved in Scientology between 92-ish all the way up till 2001. they were away for more than a year shooting Eyes Wide Shut in the UK and Cruz was not in touch with muscavich and this drove miscavige crazy I was assigned to get him back in and that was coincident with and and I was to facilitate the breakup with Nicole Kidman uh well through a lot of auditing and every session I ever gave to Tom Cruise and there was dozens upon dozens of them over a three-year period I had to write detailed reports and send them directly to David miscavige I would sit there every night with our scotch and watch and listen to miscavig's comment about cruising sex life and what you know how perverted he was why is he getting daily reports on Crows miscarriage really wanted to get him back into being somebody that he could use to lure people into Scientology and increase his own status and I was also involved in the legal team and actually hiring investigators to investigate Nicole men have to stick it in every place they can but for women women it is just about security and Community Tom wanted to know exactly what who she was talking to and so he wanted to tap her phone if you men only knew when I recorded that took Davis I've reported it like I mean he wants to tap her phone and he said God damn it get it done and so I arranged through the scientology's consiglieri to get a private investigator who physically installed a wiretap on her home and those tapes would come in and I forwarded him to Dave miscavige the church then turned his attention to their adopted children to turn them against their mother and make sure that the custody went to Tom Tommy Davis he was my liaison who had to do all the things that are required to please Tom Cruise while he was being put through the Scientology Hoops by me also was part of this whole re-education program so that they would conclude that their mother was a suppressive person and that was successful it was all going according to plan and of course miscavige would really pump the oxygen into that little fire and you know as Kevin was brilliant at claiming people's fears and building up their egos so you're being audited by Marty at the same time he was auditing Cruz oh yeah yeah it was yeah Tom Cruise Tom would go in and then I would go in and Tom would go and I would go in a time ago so you you know and I've been audited by the best Auditors on the planet best auditor I hands down I mean like like kind of Michael Jordan Wayne Gretzky kind of auditor is Marty they stole you know Tom thinks he's supposed to be David miscavage by 2004 Tom Cruise was the most gun-hole Scientologist in the world and miscavige wanted to recognize him for it he called it the freedom medal of valor and they put together this 35 minute video I'll follow a winner in it they just pump up this idea that Tom Cruise is the ambassador of Scientology to the world she's known as the biggest movie star ever Tom Cruise problems this world meeting with ministers ambassadors and the American State Department advancing lrh technology straight into the corridors of powerful it's about improving conditions it allows you to find out for yourself there's things that we can do to help they even did a calculation where they figured between his films and all the opinion leaders that he had met and all the travel he had done on the cruise has introduced lrh technology to over 1 billion people of Earth no question he has been a huge asset to them which is why the story of Tom Cruise Scientologist has only just begun I think it's a privilege to call yourself a Scientologist and it's something that you have to earn Scientology allows you use this word end phenomena every level has an end phenomena you know that you attain and Tom Cruise shows that that video with him in the black turtleneck sweater Scientology someone who can look at the world and really see what it is and only look at it and see it but be able to go and be effective and do something about it he says arrogant and as Untouchable as could possibly be at the same time he looks like an utter crazy paranoia and uh you know she they said so like have you met an SP [Laughter] a you know and I thought what a beautiful thing because maybe one day it'll be like that you know what I'm saying maybe one day it will be wow SPS like they'll just read about those in the history books you know that's where it takes you that's the end phenomena of the Scientology Bridge all scientologists are full of [ __ ] you know they lie oh I'm doing great you got to get on seven you know and they're [ __ ] I've got a [ __ ] migraine right now and I've never felt so shitty you know that's the [ __ ] life [Laughter] there's nothing part of the way for me it's just he drank the Kool-Aid and in the eyes of miscavige Tom Cruise is the perfect Scientology celebrity and nobody's benefited more from his membership I mean the amount of free sea org labor or Seward members make 40 cents an hour and I don't think there's any way Tom Cruise is not aware of that the church has done so much for him they've tricked out all his cars and his motorcycles oh I want a new limo we'll build it for you Decked Out Tom Cruise's hangar in Santa Monica and stole all the audio visual stuff in cruises home Tom Cruise had to express this fantasy of wanting to run through a meadow with Nicole Kidman and so everybody had to work until the soil and then David Miss cavity didn't like it and so the whole thing had to be ripped up again this was at the Gold facility which is this desert facility where there's all kinds of great stuff if you're Tom Cruise you know Wonderful living quarters in the gym when Cruz comes up everyone's told an event you better have a [ __ ] smile on your face everyone had to call crude sir [Music] it's this side by side World there are celebrities like Cruz and Travolta and then you know there are people who tell terrible Tales of what happened to them in the church being imprisoned and really a horrible psychological games Tom was in Spain they were opening up a new Scientology Church in Madrid and he was overheard to complain that he needed a new girlfriend soon after that a young Scientologist pre-med student named nazanene boniadi she was told that she was going to get a special assignment years later nazanine became a successful TV actress and would have a small part in a Paul Haggis film but at the time she was a dedicated young Scientologist who believed in the church's claims for its humanitarian mission in fact she set a monthly record for selling books for the church nazanine may not speak publicly about her experiences because of an NDA the church pressured her to sign but I discovered details from FBI testimony regarding her ordeal David miscavige assigned nazanine's case to a key church official Greg wilhier he put her through a one-month program of on-camera interviews intensive auditing and Security checks she was moved in to the celebrity center separated from her family and certain problems were addressed during this period of time one was she had a boyfriend she is handed of transcript of his auditing session in which he admitted that he had an affair and so she broke up with him then will here took her to an orthodontist to have her braces removed at Burberry and other stores in Beverly Hills he bought her twenty thousand dollars worth of clothes at the celebrity center a man who worked for Cruz's hair stylist colored nasanine's hair to Cruz's liking nasanine was told that her makeover was part of the church's humanitarian mission she had to look her best for conferences with world leaders only after she was flown first class to New York did she discover the actual role that the church wanted her to play she used to be the girlfriend of scientology's biggest star within a month nazanine was living with Cruz while at his house in Telluride Miss cabbage came to visit overcome by a severe headache nazanine had a hard time understanding miscavige which infuriated him the next day Cruz inches from her face pounded his fist on the table and screamed at her for insulting the head of the church two weeks later Church henchman Tommy Davis delivered the news to nazanine the relationship with Cruz was over and they according to her came to her apartment with her mom and found every photograph of the two of them together and took them away and every scrap read letter everything they as if it never existed and she was really upset because she had been really hurt by the whole thing and she made a mistake of telling her fat who immediately went to tell someone in the church she agreed to do punishments like cleaning out the public bathrooms and her hands and knees were with a toothbrush while other people as she knew were stepping over her you done nothing wrong other than tell her friend that she was heartbroken and this is the way she was treated the church claims that miscavige has no involvement in Cruz's personal life and that the search for Cruz's girlfriend never existed I want to tell you something that I have never met a more competent a more intelligent a more tolerant a more compassionate being outside of what I've experienced from lrh and I've met the leaders of leaders okay I've met them all so I say to you sir cob we are lucky to have you and thank you very much Mama's cabbage would do anything for the church's most famous celebrity The Scourge began to turn against the seahorg's highest ranking executives he pretty much had International Management shut down he was into this deep paranoia thing about everybody's out to get him he very definitely wiped out that organizational pattern in order to be able to have ultimate power in 2004 miscavige ordered the top officers of the sea orc to scientology's Gold base in Southern California forced them to live in a pair of double-wide trailers that came to be called the hole the doors had bars put on them the windows all had bars put on them and there was one entrance door that a security guard set at 24 hours a day had to stay there sleep there and stunk and then other ants crawling around did you sleep about an hour two hours a night you were in such a mental state that you're very controlled were very suggestible we were told we needed to come up with what each other's crimes were against Miss cabbage and Hubbard so that we could eventually get out of the hole Scientology is really good at making you think that you're a scoundrel confess your crimes confess your crimes what have you done the place would break out miscavige would get me uh all riled up and I remember one time Mike had done something or not done something I don't remember and I was supposed to go beat him up one executive was made to mock up the bathroom floor with his tongue another was put into a bucket and pummeled by some of the women and called a lesbian there was a very powerful air conditioner which blew straight down and it was set on maximum cold and a guy was made to sit in the chair and had water part on his head until he literally turned blue miscarriage slapped me across the face knocked me on the ground kicked me a couple times flailing fists kneeing him in the stomach getting him on the floor and you think you want to get up and retaliate but you also think I got 75 other people who are all likely to tackle me if I did um and then you get the sheer shock of it here's the equivalent of the Pope suddenly knocking you on the ground and you're thinking I must have really screwed up it was a poisonous environment people were really frightened and this went on for years this isn't a couple of days the nominal president of the church is man named Heber gin she was in there for seven years what is the statement God helps those who help themselves well in Scientology we're engaged in helping people help themselves so they can fully comprehend and understand God One Night miscavige comes into the hole with a Boombox he said I'm going to teach you all a lesson we're all going to play musical chairs and musical chairs is a Scientology Ministry of term for when you move people from different posts rapidly and you create instability they played the damn music you see we're going to play it to Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and he emphasized the line nothing matters anymore and that's your whole attitude that's where you live that's who you are playing that music stop it and everyone have to grab a chair and there's one person left standing [Music] but miss cabbage has warned them is that the last person who remains gets to stay everybody else you're expelled you're gonna be thrown out of the sea org these people were fighting to stay in the hole throwing people around scratching kicking they're tearing chairs apart they're ripping clothing or whatever it took foreign [Music] but then nothing happens [Music] out of the goodness of my heart you can stay but you better come clean you better I better have some good confessions out of you I I mean you you know as much as they get into everything that you ever think or do they never got into my think on this score that I would never go to prison and so it was inevitable when I got when he literally created this prison camp um it was inevitable that I wasn't going to last there it's embarrassing to have ever been involved with you know to think about you know God I can't even believe what I'm talking about but it was bad [Music] I'd say the FBI showed up at the whole and said this is the FBI we're letting everyone out you think everyone would have said oh thank God the FBI is here no I think that everybody one for one would have gone what do you mean we we we're doing this voluntarily we like living in these conditions past week we've been reporting on allegations of physical abuse inside the church of Scientology we spoke with the Ex-Wives of some of the men making the claims of abuse I read all of your affidavits obviously your ex-husbands have made charges against David miscavige saying that they have seen repeated acts of physical violence perpetrated by Mr miscavige is any of that true no no not one ounce of it that's not the character of Mr David miscavige my ex-wife Marty rathbun's ex-wife Tom devaugh's ex-wife that on Anderson Cooper they all came out of the hole they were all sent there to do that they went back to the hole it's just ridiculous this line that my ex-wife said I lived with my grinder for over 35 years I know every square inch of Mike rinder's body she said it because she was told to say it by miscavige and the proof of that is when Tom devaughn's ex-wife then repeated the same thing over again I knew every inch of him you've got to be kidding me everything that happens from the Church of Scientology is scripted don't ever turn the other cheek and acquiesce hit him back Marty Rathburn suddenly went and left on top of Mike render and fought him to the ground and started choking him and beating him and Mr Savage Mr miscavige was not at the at the property at the time do you not have telephones of course we have telephones I think you're being quite rude and quite insulting here's the bottom line here's the bottom line there is no history of violence in the church that there's somebody who ran PR for the church for a long time do you have any regret for anything that you did in that capacity well I think the biggest regret is when John Sweeney at Panorama was doing his program it was the culmination of a lot I mean I've been in the hole for a year and I ended up being sent to England hi Mike he was constantly going well why do you have private investigators following me I'm like that never happened ever ever happen and of course there were I was following John Sweeney oh there it is okay there we are he's got his camera and he's standing there and he's saying I want a response I have credible Witnesses did David miscavich physically assault you and I said [Music] many times many times perhaps more than anybody else I was now sort of at the end of my rope it was a real Moment of clarity for me I don't want to be doing this anymore this is nuts that was actually the last thing that I did before I left so I've been inside times about two and a half years I am kicking ass I felt like I had gotten out of the [ __ ] trap I didn't have to have a problem I said I'm done with auditing but they insisted on getting me back and said believe us believe us believe us I got so [ __ ] up I mean they they I went insane I was like stuck somewhere in a tiny spot behind my eyeballs looking this way I mean I I never experienced anything like it 10 [ __ ] years I was worse than the day that I walked in it was by Design because they needed to keep me in there so basically they had to put a whole new case on me so they could run it and they just kept trying to [ __ ] keep me stuck in it was crazy so I finally said I'm going my way you guys go yours I was pissed I was sad I was disillusioned and I thought maybe somebody could interview me ask me some questions about scientology how I got into Scientology and why I got out post this two-hour thing and it was the number one thing on YouTube for two days before it mysteriously disappeared the best traps you get a guy to just keep himself in jail right and that's what Scientology does I started getting all this communication because of that video you know you saved my family you know you've I finally had the courage to leave after I watched your thing you know I mean like there's blood and tears and then I started to find out you know all the stuff that was really happening you know I lost money I got [ __ ] but then I found out about the abuse and the Sea orc and I felt like [ __ ] me I gotta do something about it and I finally Tracked Down Marty rap and everybody thought he was dead he was in [ __ ] Mexico when I went down there and I basically convinced him to talk and like we got to do something and then he started his blog foreign if it wasn't him doing it it was from him inciting others to do it to others I think that it's a cult I'm doing my own thing I want to get on with my life I am telling the truth suddenly I heard senior members of the church for speaking out so I started to look and I started to read and the night started to reach out to people two of my daughters are gay and told me how they've been treated within the church I didn't know them Paul Haggis daughters were openly harassed by church members for being gay investigating further haggis discovered the church doctrine viewed homosexuality as a disease that only Hubbard's teachings could cure and a California chapter of Scientology had supported a ban on gay marriage I can't be part of an organization that doesn't support human rights for everyone so I said the letter to 25 friends in the church that I was resigning and I'd hoped that they would read this letter and be horrified at the things I'd found out base later I drive home literally 10 people standing in my front yard I recognize them they're my friends I said Paul we need you to tear up this letter and we need you to get all the copies that tear them up and resign quietly so I don't do that I'm sorry I don't do that I'd send a copy to Marty Rathbun he put it on his blog one page on a day and didn't really know my name until the Friday Monday morning I woke up 600 of the top newspapers it was in Bulgaria I mean it was reprinted in seven languages I went oh my god what have I done it did Garner a lot of interest people will judge you one way or the other I figured people would judge me as really stupid but then I was really stupid I was a part of this for 30 years before I spoke out I felt deeply ashamed why didn't I do it earlier why didn't I look earlier people are so indoctrinated and have been in Scientology a really long long time or they've grown up in it they don't know anything else it's so scary to them to have to start all over and it takes a really strong person stand up to them and say no [Music] in 2009 my son was on staff at the church and the truth rundown came out in the Saint Pete Times exposing what was going on with the beatings people in the hole the church was very mad at my son because he knew it was going to happen and he didn't tell them and he didn't tell them because he had a good friend that became friends with Mike rinder and Marty Rathbun and he believed what they were saying in the truth Rundown the church was threatening you know that he was going to get declared a suppressive person if he didn't disconnect from his friend my son he was raised a Scientologist you know and he'd been on staff he made 30 bucks a week he headed up their boy scout troop he was like this consummate youth of Scientology the Continental Justice chief called him on the phone and it was after that the declare came down he was just devastated the church told his friends everything they could find in his PC folder to run his reputation I wrote this petition I tried to put in everything good that my son had done dear Sarah thank you for the letter that you sent regarding the situation with Nick Lister I cannot approve that you continue your connection with Nick no one's going to tell me when I can and can't speak to him no one but me your Committee of evidence findings and recommendations recommended you be labeled suppressive engaging in malicious rumor-mongering to destroy the Authority or repute of higher officers or the leading names of Scientology my husband was charged with that one because he was telling me what he read on the internet about David miscavige they say don't go on the internet don't read don't go to these sites from the time that I got in for 30 years I never read one critical thing about scientology when I finally decide to open my eyes and look I was shocked just shocked at church but if you remember the Church of Scientology and someone in your family or a friend or your spouse is skeptical or critical of the Church of Scientology you were supposed to disconnect yourself from that person and Tommy Davis who is the spokesperson for the church he's being asked about the policy of disconnection anything that's characterized as disconnection or this kind of thing it's just it's just not true there is I confronted him about this and I said Tommy I don't have to search outside to to ask for to check research if and see if other this has happened to other people it has happened to my wife you asked her and me to disconnect from her parents because if something trivial they did years ago my wife disconnected from me my daughter my son my brother my sister my mother all of my nieces and nephews and that is the only family that I have you know you label these people suppressive so that you know everybody automatically they're discredited and they must disconnect from and that's how you keep people in a bubble that's what they do I mean my son was declared because he wouldn't disconnect from his friend I was declared and my husband was declared because we wouldn't disconnect from my son and now guess what happened everyone connected to us just scatters to the wind through all of this time I have a daughter who's very much into the church I have a granddaughter who's on the love of my life and who loves her Nana I was planning on talking to my daughter and trying to tell her what was really happening she hugged me she told me she loved me she said I have to disconnect from you so um I just was concentrating on smelling her hair seeing the way she felt touching her skin my face last time I saw them [Music] it really is the Crux of how controlling is any religion over its adherence and Scientology has perfected a lot of techniques of control there is no logical explanation as to why other than Faith your future your eternity all depends on you going up the bridge scary it's kind of like Christianity with hell if they don't have the bridge they can't go free they don't believe they can get it anywhere else [Music] it's like brainwashing really simple I mean that's a scary word and took me a long time to come to that conclusion that that's what's occurred you take on a a kind of a a matrix of thought that is not your own and I think that's how I and other people got involved and stuck through it for so long because when you're out you look at it and go what the crap what are you thinking you know it's such a hard thing when you do wake up going oh my God because you have this wave of regrets I just started to think that maybe my entire life has been a lie you just don't see it happening to you you justify so much because they prey on people suggesting that you know you should be able to think for yourself and then tell you exactly how you have to think or get out and if you get out there will be consequences come on Marty got anything to say what's your name what's answered his question beat it I should get off my property boy the real sustained campaign began in early 2009 when I spoke to the Saint Petersburg Times and I've been hounded and hunted like wild prey is a policy of the office of special Affairs authored by L Ron Hubbard when somebody's speaking out against Scientology investigate to find out who the instigator is I started getting calls from the church and their their really uh coming after me they showed up at my mother's house the feeling in the pit of your stomach knowing that scientology's Chief dirty tricks Pi was just on my mother's front step they've tried to destroy me there's no question they create Anonymous websites about me and smear me with a lot of garbage www who is tomdavock.com who is paulhagus.com Paul Haggis the hypocrite of Hollywood this guy's uh sex pervert or this guy's a drug dealer in the meantime survey carefully to find out what he most values and protects immediately drop a three-prong program to threaten it effectively I don't value anything more than Monique that's why this campaign ended up on our doorstep you see there I knew they had their goons around and then the guy rolls down his window and I saw the truck and he starts filming and I go okay this is not good what's going on oh we're just doing a documentary documentary a former Scientology deal but it would probably be a good idea if y'all went ahead now that you've gotten what you need to go ahead and read the area sure okay I don't know who these people are I don't know what they're capable of and now that I have my son [Music] have a little Louisville Slugger I keep next to me it's been non-stop Onslaught for five years I told you to leave get out I'm leaving you can't even defend yourself on this can you what's your name I gave you my name Marty what's your name Marty I gave you my name the people on Marty's doorstep were sent by Scientology because the Church of branded Marty a squirrel a term invented by Hubbard for former members who threatened Church teachings had you come all the way from San Jose yeah that's right I got arrested man I got arrested for grabbing this guy's glasses he said don't look at her I heard her of course the guy had been stalking Monique for two years he looks like a layering pervert like Norman Bates from psycho I didn't bring his glasses I just remove them from his from his face they got it all on videotape from their surveillance house that was filming 24 7 365 for five years across the street from us this lawsuit with money grathman it's a brilliant legal strategy if Marty sues the church just says this is a First Amendment fight this should not be in a court of law but Monique was never in Scientology she's suing David miscavige and asking to depose him and Scientology will do anything to keep him out of that situation and the point is Judge if you let me make my presentation on First Amendment law that comes from the United States Supreme Court all of this for every court date the church hires a bevy of high-priced lawyers they are determined to use every legal trick in the book to miscarriage from having to testify about church abuses or whether the religion of Scientology is actually operated like a business controlled by the whims of a single individual in 2014 miscarriage celebrated the ongoing expansion of the church but he was hiding a terrible Secret the church's active membership has dropped to fewer than 50 000 people yet the financial value of Scientology is soaring and how about we just say 2013 is the year we went stratospheric [Applause] church is making investments in buying valuable real estate all over the world that Financial clout gives Scientology enormous power it's a kind of tax-free shell company growing past three billion dollars in assets [Music] the church now no longer has a public face there's no spokespeople they don't do media interviews and that suits miscavige there is nobody that he is willing to have be the face of Scientology other than himself but he's afraid to be interviewed by anybody for fear that they are going to ask him questions that he can't answer or doesn't want to answer where are the checks and balances on his power there is none so there are two things that could happen one is the IRS would reconsider its tax exemption the only other thing is is some of these celebrity megaphones could turn against the church and Tom Cruise should be leading that chorus is there anything that you look back on in terms of your own career in the church I think you know we talked about Karma earlier um and you know it still happens that it's like it's just it constantly get presented with who I was and and you know and I constantly don't like what I see and I sort of constantly keep dying deaths and I you know I don't know how many more deaths I have left but I but I but I I regret and I mean ashamed of um the entire experience you know would I take away from it is that we we lock up a portion of our own mind uh we uh we willingly put cops on be willingly avoid things that will could cause us pain if we just if we looked if we can just believe something then we don't have to really think for ourselves do we and so I can't damn these people who aren't coming out or who are hiding once they come out because they're ashamed yeah I uh I I feel the same shame and I just I'm fighting back by communicating you know it's a it's a peaceful protest I want the truth to be known you're welcome [Music] friends [Music] foreign [Music]