Scientology gets a lot of bad press (and most of it is hard to refute), but we're going to shed a little light on the sci-fi religion of L Ron Hubbard, and explore the aspects of this authoritarian cultus that make it so enticing to initiates and so terrifying to survivors.
What happened to Shelly Miscavige? Why is Tom Cruise reported to be leaving the church when he's up to his neck in it with David Miscavige? There's a lot more to this space-age religion than Dianetics, pseudo-science, and alternative facts. It's all fair game, now. Hail Xenu!
They say you can't take your engrams with you across the Bridge to Total Freedom. We can't make you operating thetans, but we can give you the tools to protect yourself from them. These suppressive persons will take you on a voyage that rivals the power of Hubbard's Sea Org.
Check out our previous episode, "Fake Me to Church," to learn more about authoritarian cults.
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[00:00:11] Katie Dooley: I'm waiting for you to say hello to me.
[00:00:13] Preston Meyer: Hi, Katie.
[00:00:13] Katie Dooley: Hi, Preston.
[00:00:16] Preston Meyer: Oh, man, what a good day.
[00:00:18] Katie Dooley: Today is a blessed day. If you're a Scientologist,
[00:00:22] Preston Meyer: Right? Yay! Dianetics it's the anniversary.
[00:00:27] Katie Dooley: Happy anniversary, Dianetics! Today on the.
[00:00:31] Both Speakers: Holy Watermelon podcast.
[00:00:34] Katie Dooley: Um, I feel like we should say that we're not actually that excited about Dianetics having a birthday,
[00:00:40] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, as far as anniversaries of books go, meh. I've never celebrated the anniversary of a book before today, so there is something special about this.
[00:00:52] Katie Dooley: I guess so. And as far as religions go, also meh. Or maybe even more ehhhhh.
[00:00:59] Preston Meyer: It's not so meh
[00:01:00] Katie Dooley: . We're here living in 2022 and Scientology is living in 3022.
[00:01:09] Preston Meyer: Yeah, they they play with a bigger calendar though to. That Xenu business was like 75 million years ago.
[00:01:17] Katie Dooley: Wow. We're gonna get into Xenu. I just have, like, a fun little note that usually we're pretty tolerant about religions, but we're gonna rake this one over the coals.
[00:01:28] Preston Meyer: Yeah. This, uh, we'll try and be pretty objective, but there will be times where it gets really hard to do that.
[00:01:38] Katie Dooley: Yes. But again, so this is the anniversary of Dianetics. It is actually a very important Scientology holiday, May 9th. Um, so yeah, let's get this crazy show started.
[00:01:50] Preston Meyer: All right. Oh, man. Yeah. So being a Scientologist gets really expensive. It's remember how I talked about how Freemasonry and the ancient Egyptian religions and some of the Druids traditions? They're like tiered mystery schools where you got to move up from one layer to the next. That's an expensive process. Here it is.
[00:02:14] Katie Dooley: I've heard. I was trying to figure out how much Tom Cruise in particular had spent on Scientology, and it's estimated about 25 million. But there was a multi-millionaire in Atlanta who has spent 360 million on Scientology.
[00:02:27] Preston Meyer: Okay, that's definitely more than the cost of going through the the Operating Thetan levels. There's definitely some extra donations there and whatnot.
[00:02:35] Katie Dooley: Still far too much money to spend on this organization. Um, so some stats that I thought were interesting and keep this one in mind in particular as we get into the cost of things, is that on national censuses, there's only about 30,000 Members of Scientology. So that's across that was taken from the US, Canada, Great Britain or sorry, United Kingdom. And I think Australia or New Zealand censuses, it only totaled about 30,000 people. And then when we started talking about how much money they have, I think there's a little bit of like churn and burn where people give them all their money and then leave because they can't afford to keep going. Or then you have these high-profile people who give a fuck ton of money. I've also compared this to Wicca a bit, because Scientology claims to be the newest modern religion, started in 1953, but Wicca was introduced to the public in 1954. And Wicca has 300,000 members in the US alone. Now, they don't give them Wicca millions of dollars, so it doesn't have the profile that Scientology has. But suck it, scientology.
[00:03:52] Preston Meyer: Well see Wicca. Wiccam is an economic powerhouse, but it's not a whole bunch of people giving money to the Church of Wicca. It's just a huge population of people engaged in the market of buying and selling paraphernalia and goods and tools and whatnot. So a much healthier reality. But you said newest modern religion and calling Wicca modern when it's based on a quite old tradition does flavor that a little bit.
[00:04:28] Katie Dooley: Fair. But suck it, scientology.
[00:04:31] Preston Meyer: Right? There are newer religions still.
[00:04:35] Katie Dooley: Absolutely. NXIVM,ehhh...
[00:04:37] Preston Meyer: So L Ron Hubbard,
[00:04:44] Katie Dooley: LRH.
[00:04:45] Preston Meyer: So I always every time I hear L Ron, I think of Elrond from Lord of the Rings.
[00:04:51] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Don't give him that much credit.
[00:04:53] Preston Meyer: But Ronnie Hubbard was a popular writer, or at least prolific writer before Lord of the Rings was ever published. So it's not any rip-off of a name of this dude renaming himself to sound like the fanciest of the elves. He's actually, let's be real, elrond is not the fanciest of the elves. He's just important. Uh, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard was born in 1911, March 13th. Dates not super important. Hella long time ago. More than 100 years ago. So you can reasonably expect the man is dead.
[00:05:34] Katie Dooley: Oh. Is he?
[00:05:36] Preston Meyer: We'll get into that.
[00:05:37] Katie Dooley: Okay.
[00:05:39] Preston Meyer: But he has published more than 235 works of fiction in his life, mostly sci-fi, which is interesting since that's the sort of religion he ended up starting.
[00:05:55] Katie Dooley: Yep.
[00:05:56] Preston Meyer: In 1950, he published a book called Dianetics. Dianetics is a wacky idea about the relationship between the mind and the body. We do recognize the mind and the body are attached, but the way this guy talks about it gets really weird. He hated psychology, and Scientologists kind of stick to that tradition. They still abhor psychology today, but for some reason, Dianetics, which is definitely a kind of psychology, is just the best thing ever. Which is why today is a special day. Uh, Dianetics is a pseudoscience. Um, but it never really caught on. Really, there's obviously some people who like it. Hubbard realized that there was way more money in religion, so that's okay. Let's shift gears a little bit. And he's actually quoted several times saying things like this, that writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make $1 million, the best way would be to start his own religion. Big red flag. So L Ron Hubbard also has a history of lying. Naturally, this is a thing that should also raise alarms. Most of his lies are about his military service. Saying that he was far more decorated than he was. He did get a couple of awards, but really nothing fancy, nothing terribly special.
[00:07:25] Katie Dooley: Not the Purple Heart or whatever he claimed to have but he definitely claimed to have been awarded combat medals for World War Two. He didn't have any. Yeah, some pretty big ones he didn't have at all. Which is... I mean, the military keeps track of that. This is very easy to prove.
[00:07:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, he was in active service in the Navy during the Second World War. But not everybody gets all the medals. That's not the way it goes.
[00:07:52] Katie Dooley: No, I will say before we jump on to the next section, this is a very brief overview of all that Scientology is, and we can, if anyone wants, we can do a full episode on LRH, or we're about to talk about David Miscavige or some of the more nitty gritty details of Scientology, but it is vast and wild. So I feel like we're just glossing over things, but we have to for an hour-long episode. So after L Ron Hubbard, the current leader of the Church of Scientology, is a man by the name of David Miscavige. He was the captain of the Sea Org or the Sea Organization, Sea Org for short. A private navy and the chairman of the board of the Religious Technology Center. So this made him the de facto leader of the church once LRH died...
[00:08:45] Preston Meyer: I love the suspicion on that word.
[00:08:48] Katie Dooley: Well, he's coming back or he's already back. They believe in reincarnation. So anyway, his personal website, highly recommend if you want to go down a crazy rabbit hole, advertises that he's been awarded by the Colombian National Police for humanitarian contributions.
[00:09:07] Preston Meyer: I thought that was such a weird thing to see prominently placed on his web page but...
[00:09:14] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I thought it was weird how many video testimonials he had about being a great person. Like, I fully as a business owner. Testimonials are great, but there's like a point where when you have 300, I start to not believe it.
[00:09:27] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Yeah I saw I flipped through these and I saw one for this old guy and he was just credited as CEO of a software company. Generic. Meaningless. Super weird. I had to google the dude's name. It makes sense that that's the only credit they gave him because the company is super small.
[00:09:49] Katie Dooley: Ah, he's he is the company.
[00:09:53] Preston Meyer: I mean, pretty much he's since retired. The company is now defunct, but that's the way it goes.
[00:09:59] Katie Dooley: Uh, David Miscavige grew up in new Jersey, and over the course of more than 20 years, David fought to get tax-exempt status for the church. And eventually he decided that they needed to harass IRS employees. And it was. It's wild. This is like a whole actually quite interesting part of the history of Scientology. Um, and it eventually worked. He is married to a woman named Michelle Miscavige. She was also in the sea organization growing up. And we'll talk more about her later.
[00:10:29] Preston Meyer: Poor Shelly.
[00:10:30] Katie Dooley: Poor Shelly. Yes. She was known as known as Shelly. Or is known as Shelly. Foreshadowing! And David in the church spent a lot of time and energy trying to convince people that he is only a conduit for Hubbard's message, rather than being a real person with his own agenda. But as wild as Scientology was with Hubbard, it's even wilder now, so...
[00:10:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah, because Scientology needs to work.
[00:11:03] Katie Dooley: KSW - Keep Scientology Working!
[00:11:07] Preston Meyer: And of course, we can't really talk about Scientology without talking about people like Tom Cruise.
[00:11:13] Katie Dooley: Okay. Like he's the third highest in the church. L Ron. David Miscavige. Tom Cruise. Like, not even a joke.
[00:11:22] Preston Meyer: He's a big deal.
[00:11:26] Katie Dooley: There are a lot of kooky celebrity Scientologists Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, Juliette Lewis, Danny Masterson. Masterson, to name some. And then formerly, Leah Remini and Leah Remini will talk about as well, and whose she was actually born into it and has since left and been incredibly vocal against Scientology. She has a great podcast and TV show. Neil Gaiman, Laura Prepon, Priscilla and Lisa Marie Presley are all former members, but Tom Cruise is beyond the couch-jumping crazy eyes. He is David Miscavige's right-hand man.
[00:12:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah, he's he's a big, important fella. He's like, second to the Pope, kind of important.
[00:12:06] Katie Dooley: Yes. Which is terrifying for an actor.
[00:12:11] Preston Meyer: I mean, America has hired Hollywood faces for president more than once and every time, it has been disastrous.
[00:12:20] Katie Dooley: I feel like that's like something as a nation they need to reflect on. Anyway, Miscavige was Cruise's best man at his wedding to both Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes, and Tom Cruise has his own home next door to Miscavige's at the Scientology headquarters in California.
[00:12:40] Preston Meyer: So they're buddies.
[00:12:41] Katie Dooley: Apparently, it's a really creepy bromance.
[00:12:44] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah?
[00:12:45] Katie Dooley: This is all from. This is such a weird episode to even study because they ended up on, like, TMZ websites.
[00:12:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Cruise has spent a lot of time trying to convert other celebrities to Scientology. Cause, you know, that's what you do if you're part of an evangelical style religion, and you need to convince more appealing people to your organization to help it grow. That's what you do. And Cruise has that kind of pull. He tries so hard. So tried getting the Beckhams in, the Pinkett-Smiths. He's lobbied politicians all over the US and Europe to get the church recognized as a proper religion too,, which has had some pretty mixed results. France hates this business.
[00:13:39] Katie Dooley: Yes. Which, man, we have so much to talk about. Also, an interesting fact is that anytime you see an article come up about saying that Cruise is like leaving the Church of Scientology or whatever, I guarantee you he has a movie coming out and that's like planned because people know how, even if you don't know how gross Scientology can get, it's weird. At the best, they always are. Like, "oh, he's not really a Scientologist anymore". Then they release his film and then he ends up couch-jumping on Oprah or releasing crazy promo videos with crazy eyes for Scientology.
[00:14:18] Preston Meyer: He's so cool. He does his own stunts.
[00:14:23] Katie Dooley: I mean, it is pretty cool how often he's jumped out of planes. I'll give him that.
[00:14:27] Preston Meyer: The Mission Impossible movies are fun, but crazy guy... Yes. Bryant, my husband and sound guy, we were just talking about how, like, even if Tom Cruise wanted to leave the church, he basically couldn't. And there's the sunk cost of all the money he's put in. But Scientology, I saw you put a question mark in the notes, and I didn't have a chance to expand on it, but one of their policies is to put everything in writing, so when you're getting audited, it's all written down. So they know everything about Tom Cruise. It also gives him a lot of power. So they've actually helped him find all of his girlfriends including Katie Holmes. They like interview and vet them for him so he doesn't have to do that work.
[00:15:07] Preston Meyer: I mean convenient for him.
[00:15:10] Katie Dooley: Creepy for the creepy for the poor woman being interviewed.
[00:15:14] Preston Meyer: Yes, that's pretty gross.
[00:15:17] Katie Dooley: Dear listener, dear listener, that is not how you find a mate.
[00:15:21] Preston Meyer: I mean, arranged marriages are actually not terribly uncommon around this world. They're getting less common as years go by.
[00:15:30] Katie Dooley: I don't know, there's just something about, like, David Miscavige staring at a bunch of women and I'm like, ehhhh,
[00:15:35] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:15:36] Katie Dooley: It's one thing if it's your parents looking out for your best interests, but...
[00:15:40] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we'll get into this a little bit more for how this works, generally speaking. But the sunk cost this that's an interesting turn of phrase. There's a lot of things he's gotten for free.
[00:15:54] Katie Dooley: That's true.
[00:15:55] Preston Meyer: That they will bill him for if he left that at this point would be crippling.
[00:16:00] Katie Dooley: That's true. And there's a lot of he gets a lot of perks that probably other members would have to pay for, and they've just given him because he's Tom Cruise. We'll get into how Scientology has this weird relationship with celebrity, and they put a lot of value on celebrity anyway.
[00:16:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Scientology. Like I mentioned before, France doesn't really like this business. It's a really interesting case study on how different countries use differing definitions of religion we talked about before. There is no one definition for religion that everyone can agree on. That doesn't help.
[00:16:35] Katie Dooley: Right? And this is even, you know, a good episode to pair this with is our parody religions episode of, you know, the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster trying to get tax-exempt status to see how, you know, maybe we can be a little more is decisive the word I want to use or...
[00:16:52] Preston Meyer: More discerning.
[00:16:53] Katie Dooley: Thank you. Yes, discerning. Thank you, in how we pick what is considered a religion or a charity in whatever nation we're in.
[00:17:02] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So the IRS did give tax-exempt status to the Church of Scientology in the United States in 1993. It's a big win for David Miscavige because he'd been fighting for 37 years with the IRS doing all kinds of really shady stuff, including blackmail, harassment, and of course, just straight-up tax evasion.
[00:17:25] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I think there was a case where a bunch of people broke into the IRS to steal documents. Um...
[00:17:31] Preston Meyer: They were also harassing IRS employees in their homes.
[00:17:34] Katie Dooley: Yeah, yeah. Privately and personally.
[00:17:36] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Gross.
[00:17:38] Katie Dooley: But it helps. I mean,
[00:17:41] Preston Meyer: It got the job done.
[00:17:42] Katie Dooley: It got the job done. Um, tax-exempt status is huge for a, I mean, any religion or charity. Um, but when you are dealing with the kind of money that the Church of Scientology is, it's huge. And then also it kind of legitimizes it as a church or a religion. Ehhhh.... You're gonna hear that sound a lot from me this episode.
[00:18:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Legitimizing this religion feels icky. But here we are
[00:18:12] Katie Dooley: Uh, here we are hearing Canada, the Church of Scientology, does have tax-exempt status and is allowed to perform marriages, but is not a federally registered charity. So it's more like a... France is actually openly hostile to the church, as Preston alluded to, and they fined them for fraud in 2009.
[00:18:33] Preston Meyer: Good move.
[00:18:35] Katie Dooley: New Zealand, for example, doesn't legally recognize Scientology as a religion, but they are a tax-exempt charitable organization. So there is there's a Wikipedia article you can look up. Not every country in the world, but probably every country scientology is in and see what they... How the country has chosen to dealt with it. It is everything from France being openly hostile and not considered a religion to it's a religion and tax exempt and as all of the rights and privileges of a religion. So it's wild.
[00:19:06] Preston Meyer: Let's take a look at this Dianetics thing.
[00:19:08] Katie Dooley: Yeah. What do Scientologists actually believe? We know they spend a lot of money, and we know there are a lot of celebrities
[00:19:08] Preston Meyer: Right? So it's mostly really tied pretty tightly to the original publication of Dianetics. The full name of the book was Dianetics: A New Science of the Mind. It was published in the May 1950 issue of a pulp magazine called Astounding Science Fiction.
[00:19:33] Katie Dooley: Red flag
[00:19:35] Preston Meyer: And then a few weeks later, a full book came out called Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. And this is the book that...
[00:19:43] Katie Dooley: Was published today.
[00:19:45] Preston Meyer: Published and republished. They actually lost the rights to it a little while, for a little while, when L Ron Hubbard just kind of really lost control of everything. It was terrible, but well deserved. But he managed to get the rights back and managed to secure all of it to a point where he could start a religion. Anyway, this book is generally trashed by real experts of psychology. This is a really important detail, but also good old Ronnie hates psychologists and psychiatrists. So it makes sense.
[00:20:24] Katie Dooley: And I mean, this is where the church is very good at public relations and marketing is their sort of spin on it is that we're giving too many people too many drugs, which, you know, probably, um, but...
[00:20:41] Preston Meyer: A lot of little statements that in isolation are actually.
[00:20:46] Katie Dooley: Probably true.
[00:20:47] Preston Meyer: True. Um, one of the big things that he pushed in this book is the idea that humans are instinctively trying to survive.
[00:20:55] Katie Dooley: Yep.
[00:20:55] Preston Meyer: And then everything else complicates that. Yes. That's true. Easy to get on board, but that's how they get you.
[00:21:03] Katie Dooley: That is absolutely how they get you.
[00:21:04] Preston Meyer: Little bits of truth, little things that you agree with mixed with a couple of things that you don't instinctively agree with. But then you just kind of accept because they're in the pudding. And eventually that pudding gets pudding gets worse and worse and you don't notice. That's what a cult is.
[00:21:23] Katie Dooley: Wow, Preston, you've done it. We're SPs.
[00:21:28] Preston Meyer: Oh, no.
[00:21:28] Katie Dooley: Well, get on what that is. But this was the moment.
[00:21:31] Preston Meyer: I guess so.
[00:21:32] Katie Dooley: Well done, preston.
[00:21:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Anyway, Ron claimed that he spent 12 years doing research for this book, but both scientists and his friends say there's no way that's true.
[00:21:46] Katie Dooley: Just like I wrote it one night.
[00:21:48] Preston Meyer: Like, he may have just jammed it out sitting at a typewriter throughout 1949. And that's it.
[00:21:54] Katie Dooley: Well, I mean, if you were working on a research, I mean, I knew when you were going to university if you were working on a serious, huge research project for a decade. I think I would know.
[00:22:03] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:22:04] Katie Dooley: Hey, Preston. I don't see you around so often. What's keeping you so busy?
[00:22:08] Preston Meyer: I'm doing research for this great paper.
[00:22:10] Katie Dooley: Well, tell me more.
[00:22:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's not what Ron was doing.
[00:22:15] Katie Dooley: That conversation did not happen with L Ron Hubbard or any of his friends.
[00:22:20] Preston Meyer: To be fair, he was always writing, and so I think people just got used to the fact that he was always writing. Remember, he produced about 250 books.
[00:22:29] Katie Dooley: That's a lot of books.
[00:22:30] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's Stephen King level of prolific writing. So except the quality.
[00:22:37] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I was gonna say Stephen King is much better at writing than L Ron Hubbard is.
[00:22:43] Preston Meyer: As far as volume goes, or maybe, to be fair, let's compare them more to somebody like R.L. Stine.
[00:22:50] Katie Dooley: Yeah, that's probably more accurate.
[00:22:54] Preston Meyer: But sci fi. Anyway, the basic idea is that we need to get rid of fears and other mental blocks that keep us from being happy. And of course, this goes all the way down into healing psychosomatic illnesses.
[00:23:12] Katie Dooley: And I'm sure it's later on in our notes. I just don't remember where. But Scientologists believe that we are reincarnated so that we have to get rid of these blocks and fears from past lives, which is what auditing is, which we'll we'll get there. But, uh, it's not just, you know, my daddy didn't love me in this life. How far back did your daddy's not love you? And you have to go through all of that.
[00:23:39] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's a struggle.
[00:23:43] Katie Dooley: Which, again, generational trauma we know is real. But that's not reincarnation. Anyway. Good thing I'm covered in thetans.
[00:23:55] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I guess, except according to the church, that's a very bad thing.
[00:23:59] Katie Dooley: I mean. Ron Hubbard says the name was conceived by his wife, Mary Sue. And a thetan weighs about 45g, or 1.5oz. But what the heck is a of that.
[00:23:59] Preston Meyer: A Thetan.
[00:24:14] Katie Dooley: Thetan. Excuse me.
[00:24:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's actually deliberately named after the Greek letter theta. Yeah.
[00:24:19] Katie Dooley: Thank you.
[00:24:20] Preston Meyer: A Thetan is a living soul. The individual. The individual that operates your body. Katie proper. The eternal Katie is a Thetan but then there's also other Thetans.
[00:24:33] Katie Dooley: My reincarnated Thetans.
[00:24:36] Preston Meyer: Sure.
[00:24:36] Katie Dooley: Or other things that have glommed on to me?
[00:24:39] Preston Meyer: Yes, that. Yeah, yeah. A person does not have a Thetan. They are a Thetan, except the lesser body Thetans. Though you do have those. The terminology gets a little funky, a little inconsistent, but not to the point that it's totally incomprehensible, but.
[00:24:58] Katie Dooley: Enough that you need to pay someone to help you figure it out.
[00:25:01] Preston Meyer: Yeah, yeah.
[00:25:03] Katie Dooley: Convenient. Yes. So you are infested with Thetans and you are also a Thetan. But you only want your Thetan, not the other Thetans.
[00:25:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And so all of these infesting Thetan parasites 75 million years.
[00:25:16] Katie Dooley: Oh, that's nothing.
[00:25:17] Preston Meyer: Since Xenu banished them to Earth, which is the secret of OT3. But we'll get more into that story later.
[00:25:26] Katie Dooley: So thetans are immortal and perpetual, and they willed themselves into existence at some point several trillion years ago. After they originated, thetans generated points. Points to view or dimension points causing space to come into existence. They agreed that other thetans dimension points, existed, and that's how they brought into existence the entire universe. Is that like the Spider-Man meme where they're all pointing at each other? Hey, and recognizing that they exist.
[00:26:01] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:26:01] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Okay, the universe has no independent reality, but persists because most thetans agree it exists. Thetans fell from grace when they began to identify with their creation, rather than their original state of spiritual purity. Mhm. Eventually, they lost their memory of their true nature, along with the associated spiritual and creative powers. Now, most of thetans think of themselves as nothing but embodied beings. Oh, I think of myself as a body being,
[00:26:34] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:26:34] Katie Dooley: Oh, no.
[00:26:35] Preston Meyer: See, You find yourself where you are.
[00:26:38] Katie Dooley: Okay. But through the powers of Scientology, you can get your spiritual and creative powers back to your true thetan form.
[00:26:48] Preston Meyer: That's enticing. I'd like to have that power now. So if there's somebody listening to me.
[00:26:54] Katie Dooley: Hey, we're pointing at each other. I'm pointing at Preston. He's not participating. Yay! There we go. Thank you. If you don't figure out thetans are reborn again and again in new bodies through reincarnation.
[00:27:07] Preston Meyer: So there's this great process of auditing.
[00:27:11] Katie Dooley: And the Bridge to Total Freedom!
[00:27:14] Preston Meyer: So in real neuropsychology, engrams are theoretical units of memory storage in the physical brain, more or less. It's really complicated. That's the best way I could bring it down to one digestible phrase is.,,
[00:27:31] Katie Dooley: I like it.
[00:27:31] Preston Meyer: Theoretical units of memory storage in the physical brain. In Scientology, engrams are a little different. They use the word differently. Engrams are traumatic memories that need to be rooted out so that we can heal. I mean, getting rid of trauma to heal, that's a good.
[00:27:48] Katie Dooley: That's a good thing. I'm sold. No.
[00:27:54] Preston Meyer: There's so much that feels easy to sell, but there's there's ickiness to it. It's sticky and gross. And ew. Anyway. When all your engrams are gone, you can and you can reliably stop making new ones, you are certified clear. Which is a big deal.
[00:28:18] Katie Dooley: Yes.
[00:28:19] Preston Meyer: And so to accomplish that, you have to reveal your darkest, most traumatizing, most damning secrets to an auditor who may or may not use those secrets to control you or blackmail you.
[00:28:29] Katie Dooley: Again, everything is. This was a L Ron Hubbard piece of doctrine is that everything needed to be written down. So all auditing sessions are written down and stored in your Scientology file.
[00:28:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah. No. Confession is a thing that exists in an awful lot of religions, but this is different.
[00:28:51] Preston Meyer: It is because, I mean, I've never I've never confessed in a religious form because I'm not. But my understanding is that is that it's all willing. You go to confession when you want and you tell them what you want them to know.
[00:29:06] Preston Meyer: I've never been hypnotized while meeting with my bishop.
[00:29:09] Katie Dooley: Also important, but it sounds like, especially as you go up the bridge to total freedom, they really start to dig. Which, you know, if you're with a psychologist or a trauma specialist, sure, that knows what they're doing and when to push you and when to let you sit with it. But they literally just want your dirt.
[00:29:28] Preston Meyer: Well, and the process is like, oh, it's. You go in and they hypnotize you and they tell you to go back to a memory that you are ready to face. So okay. That's fair. They're not, at least in the documents that I've been able to to read. They say, go back to a thing that you're ready to face, and they make you go through it over and over and over again, knowing that it does have trauma attached to it. But you did say you're ready to face it. They didn't pick it for you. You pick it for yourself, and then you keep going through it until you can smile about it. I mean, dealing with trauma is good. This feels weird, but eventually you're getting into stuff that is like serious shame. Very likely, occasionally some criminal stuff just seems likely.
[00:30:28] Katie Dooley: I mean, for all the people on all the planet. Who? Yeah, probably.
[00:30:33] Preston Meyer: And then they do this thing where they promise that at the end of this session I'm going to say canceled. And this isn't like cancel culture. This is the thing that lets you know that you're allowed to feel okay about the end of the session, because we promise that when I say cancelled, you are no longer hypnotized, and you will be in the present. I mean, you just spent an hour or two hours or more digging through trauma. Ehhh... Okay, now, go on your way.
[00:31:09] Katie Dooley: Bye bye. Have a good day.
[00:31:13] Preston Meyer: Thanks for your moneies. I mean, guaranteed there's at least one psychologist who is also that same level of crappy.
[00:31:22] Katie Dooley: Oh, absolutely.
[00:31:23] Preston Meyer: But that. That's not religion. And we're not dealing with that.
[00:31:27] Katie Dooley: No. And at least they have checks and balances by psychological associations.
[00:31:33] Preston Meyer: Right? You can pull somebody's psychological license.
[00:31:36] Katie Dooley: Yes. You cannot pull your auditor's license.
[00:31:39] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Well are they. I would imagine if you have the job, you are licensed, more or less.
[00:31:46] Katie Dooley: Yeah. You would have some sort of training through the church, but I think anyone can do it.
[00:31:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, ehhh. Yeah, a clear person is somebody who no longer has his own reactive mind and therefore suffers none of the ill effects the reactive mind can cause. Sounds good. Surface level. But all of these words have a really slightly - they've got extra baggage in Scientology. And that extra baggage feels weird too.
[00:32:27] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And I part of me is like, I think there's some things you want your reactive mind for.
[00:32:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah. To be able to react reflexively is a good thing, but to be fully controlled by it is problematic.
[00:32:41] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:32:42] Preston Meyer: So again, it's one of those things that's kind of tricky and like telling a person that they can they can be in be in control is nice, but it doesn't have the same effect as showing them and allowing them to realize it, which is really the philosophy behind all of this auditing too. At least, what is being told to the people giving in their money. But mostly it's give us your secrets. Can we control you?
[00:33:15] Katie Dooley: When you're being audited, you use what's called an E-meter, which is basically like two tin cans that you hold and it creates an electrical circuit. And so they'll say something and they'll watch a spike happen on this E-meter. So they're saying, so you have a reaction to it. This is how they're monitoring your reactions.
[00:33:34] Preston Meyer: Um, it's kind of like a lie detector, but it's that's not what it is.
[00:33:39] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it's just trying to see if you're having some sort of reaction to it. So they will pick at whatever this scab is until the E-meter doesn't show anything,
[00:33:50] Preston Meyer: Until you're cool with it,
[00:33:51] Katie Dooley: Until you're cool with it and you can.
[00:33:54] Preston Meyer: And that's why Tom Cruise is fully dead inside.
[00:33:58] Katie Dooley: They have killed him.
[00:33:59] Preston Meyer: I mean, he still has a pulse. He still does his own stunts, but...
[00:34:04] Katie Dooley: He's emotionally dead inside.
[00:34:06] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:34:07] Katie Dooley: A thetan, who is completely rehabilitated, can do everything a thetan should do. Such as? Move MEST.
[00:34:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that. So in this quotation, MEST comes up a few times. MEST is an acronym for matter, energy, space and time.
[00:34:24] Katie Dooley: So it can move MEST and control others from a distance or create his own universe. A person who is able to create his own universe, or living in the MEST universe, is able to create illusions perceivable by others at will to handle MEST universe objects without mechanical means, and to have and feel no need of bodies or even the MEST universe to keep himself and his friends interested in existence. So Tom Cruise can literally create a level three vision spell.
[00:34:53] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Um, for those of us who are familiar with the Riddle of Steel role-playing system,
[00:35:01] Katie Dooley: What would be a Dungeons and Dragons equivalent?
[00:35:03] Preston Meyer: I mean, generic conjuring of magical beasts, maybe, I don't know. I don't know DND well enough.
[00:35:11] Katie Dooley: Right. Neither do I. Um, but, hmmm.
[00:35:16] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's quite the claim.
[00:35:17] Katie Dooley: That's why he can do all his own stunts because he's actually living in a different plane of reality. He's not going to die.
[00:35:26] Preston Meyer: I mean, that's what they say about Ron is that he didn't die. He was so clear that when he was living in his motorhome in the desert in 1986, instead of dying, the church claims that he chose to shed his body so he could continue his research in another universe.
[00:35:45] Katie Dooley: Wow. Wow. Ron. Good for you.
[00:35:50] Preston Meyer: Right.
[00:35:51] Katie Dooley: Just... It's not funny, but it's funny. Another piece of Scientology doctrine is a Suppressive Person or an SP, which we are now. An SP is someone with an... They say it's someone with an antisocial personality.
[00:36:05] Preston Meyer: When you're anti a specific society. Sure.
[00:36:08] Katie Dooley: Yeah. They are people in your life who are trying to prevent you from going clear in your Scientology journey, or the Bridge to Total Freedom. In practice, however, an SP is basically anyone who speaks out against Scientology. So Remini from King of Queens fame, and Mike Rinder, who is a former senior executive of the Church of Scientology and Sea Org with their popular podcast, Scientology Fair Game, are SPs because they talk about how shitty Scientology is all the time. And because Preston called it a cult about ten minutes ago, he is now an SP as well.
[00:36:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah, but we're small potatoes.
[00:36:48] Katie Dooley: Yes. Yeah. I don't think we'll be, uh fair game.
[00:36:53] Preston Meyer: No.
[00:36:53] Katie Dooley: Which is another piece of Scientology doctrine. So the title of the Remini Rinder Podcast, Scientology: Fair Game, comes from a policy that states that threatening SPs like Remini and Rinder can be harassed by any means possible. They are fair game. So there have been some very prominent figures in the church who have left that are fair game, including Mike Rinder, Ron Miscavige, so David's father and longtime Scientologist, David, was born into the church, and Mark Rathbun, another former senior executive. So they are all fair game and they experience harassment from the church on the regular. Friends and family are also encouraged to disconnect, similar to disfellowship with SPs in their life. So, for example, this one's actually really sad as Nicole Kidman has not spoken to her two children with Tom cruise because she is an SP and they were raised in. Yeah,
[00:37:50] Preston Meyer: But she got out so good for her.
[00:37:51] Katie Dooley: She got out married that country singer who I can't think.
[00:37:56] Preston Meyer: Keith Urban.
[00:37:56] Katie Dooley: Keith Urban has a big farm in Australia and they have a kid, so I hope she's better. You know, I don't like, want to care about celebrities, but that's pretty sad that you can't, like, see your kid. And I'm sure there's other stories that are not celebrity stories. So you don't hear about them of people not ever seeing their kids again.
[00:38:12] Preston Meyer: Let's move on to Xenu.
[00:38:15] Katie Dooley: Xenu! Bryant, like, put in a guitar riff here. Xenu!
[00:38:21] Preston Meyer: Xenu or Xemu, depending on sources. Both spellings are acceptable.
[00:38:26] Katie Dooley: Because nobody could read L. Ron Hubbard's handwriting is kind of what it comes down to.
[00:38:29] Preston Meyer: So there was a time where he did, he said Xenu like pronounced it with an n, but then immediately afterwards spelled it.
[00:38:38] Katie Dooley: Xemu.
[00:38:39] Preston Meyer: X-e-m-u. Yeah, it was it was weird. And so you'll have books that will use one consistently or the other. Anyway, this figure is very controversial.
[00:38:54] Katie Dooley: Very controversial. Yep.
[00:38:56] Preston Meyer: No active Scientologist will ever confirm the existence of the belief in Xenu, but a lot of people who have left the church have been willing to come forward and say, here's the weird thing they taught me.
[00:39:06] Katie Dooley: So this was actually I didn't follow up on it for the research for this. But when I had previously rabbit holed down the Scientology path, that was actually what got Leah Remini out of Scientology was she got to OT level three and she was there with her mom, and they're like, here's, Xenu, and she was like, what the fuck? Like, after growing up in the church, she was, well, probably into her 40s because this was like after King of Queens. She left the church in 2013, when she couldn't find her best friend and she was like, what the fuck is Xenu? So that's when she really started, like questioning. And then the Shelley thing, which we'll get to.
[00:39:47] Preston Meyer: Any church that holds back on significant doctrines that are important narratives higher up. But the the peons don't get to hear why, what do you think you're doing?
[00:39:59] Katie Dooley: Well and then like, so like Remy was in the Sea Org. Like she was in it.
[00:40:04] Preston Meyer: Mhm.
[00:40:05] Katie Dooley: And then to throw something at her that she's like what? Huh? Anyway.
[00:40:11] Preston Meyer: Super weird.
[00:40:12] Katie Dooley: Super weird. But there are interviews where they asked people in Scientology and they're like, what about Xenu? And they're like, that's not even real.
[00:40:20] Preston Meyer: What?
[00:40:20] Katie Dooley: Yeah, they they gaslight you like right back. Yeah.
[00:40:24] Preston Meyer: Uh. It's terrible. So anyway, Xenu was the leader of the Galactic Confederacy, but his totalitarian regime wasn't very popular. So he got the help of a bunch of psychiatrists.
[00:40:35] Katie Dooley: What?
[00:40:36] Preston Meyer: To evaluate the expendable and seditious parts of the population. He trapped them in a gel made of alcohol and glycol, so that they couldn't escape, and shipped them off to the Australia of the galaxy, an underdeveloped world called Teegeeack, which is Earth.
[00:40:55] Katie Dooley: Okay.
[00:40:57] Preston Meyer: Uh, anyway, the spaceship didn't just look like generic airplanes. It specifically, Hubbard insisted, they really looked exactly identical to DC8 planes, but without the engines.
[00:41:11] Katie Dooley: Okay.
[00:41:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah, he was very specific about that. And it's... That feels weird. Anyway, spaceships don't even need wings.
[00:41:25] Katie Dooley: Nope.
[00:41:25] Preston Meyer: But here we are. So they dropped them on Teegeeack. But that wasn't enough. They needed to be dumped into volcanoes and nuked. Of course, he called them hydrogen bombs because that was the verbiage of the 50s.
[00:41:45] Katie Dooley: And this is 75 million years ago.
[00:41:47] Preston Meyer: Yes.
[00:41:47] Katie Dooley: That we were nuking thetans.
[00:41:50] Preston Meyer: We weren't this no galactic civilization of which we are not part of.
[00:41:54] Katie Dooley: Right. Okay. So they had nukes long before we had nukes?
[00:41:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:41:58] Katie Dooley: Okay.
[00:41:59] Preston Meyer: It would be weird if a spacefaring community didn't have nukes. It'd also be weird if they insisted that their spaceships have wings, but.
[00:42:09] Katie Dooley: Okay. But here we are.
[00:42:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah. But of course, thetans are indestructible and Xenu knew that. So Xenu's military captured the hundreds of billions of disembodied thetans with an electric ribbon and forced them into two cinemas. One in Hawaii, one in the Canary Islands to watch a 3D movie that lasted 36 days. What?
[00:42:37] Katie Dooley: This doesn't even sound real, Preston.
[00:42:39] Preston Meyer: No, but this is the story.
[00:42:41] Katie Dooley: Oh, dear. I guess that's the whole point. Is that it doesn't sound real.
[00:42:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And so all of these disembodied thetans chilling out in two cinemas, hundreds of billions.
[00:42:55] Katie Dooley: But they're tiny. They're like only 1.5oz.
[00:42:59] Preston Meyer: I guess.
[00:43:00] Katie Dooley: They don't need big seats.
[00:43:01] Preston Meyer: Well, we don't know how big they are. They just don't weigh much.
[00:43:04] Katie Dooley: They weigh much. I guess so.
[00:43:07] Preston Meyer: Because they're disembodied.
[00:43:08] Katie Dooley: Right.
[00:43:11] Preston Meyer: Uh, anyway, this movie that they're watching for more than a month, which I have to assume is based on our calendar because it's written by a dude who understands only our calendar.
[00:43:22] Katie Dooley: Yes.
[00:43:22] Preston Meyer: He likes sci-fi, but he's not that far into crazy time measurements. These movies are supposed to be the brainwashing event behind the existence of the various religions of the world and every other unsubstantiated belief, and every other sort of thing that could ever cause trauma.
[00:43:41] Katie Dooley: All the isms.
[00:43:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah, all of them. It's quite the burden to throw on this.
[00:43:49] Katie Dooley: I'm surprised. Honestly, I'm surprised it only took 36 days to explain sexism and racism and ageism and ableism and every world ism.
[00:43:59] Preston Meyer: And fascism and capitalism and Christianity and...
[00:44:03] Katie Dooley: Every world. Wow. That's actually. I'm impressed. Yeah, cause we've been doing this for a year, and we've barely scratched the surface on any of those religions.
[00:44:13] Preston Meyer: Right. Hubbard specifically said that the idea of the crucifixion is born from this trauma that's remembered from these propaganda brainwashing videos.
[00:44:28] Katie Dooley: So he doesn't think it's real. It was just in the video.
[00:44:32] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:44:32] Katie Dooley: Okay.
[00:44:34] Preston Meyer: It's quite the position to hold.
[00:44:37] Katie Dooley: I mean, again, I am impressed that a spacefaring civilization was even creative enough to hang an Arab man on a wooden cross. 75 million years ago.
[00:44:51] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:44:52] Katie Dooley: Because they would have been there living in 3022, writing something for the year zero on a shitty ass planet.
[00:45:01] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:45:01] Katie Dooley: Wow. They were just so creative.
[00:45:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The way that Hubbard describes the way the people of the galactic community, the Galactic Confederacy, were living their lives identical to living in the 50s and 60s.
[00:45:18] Katie Dooley: Wow. Like nothing better.
[00:45:21] Preston Meyer: Nothing better at all. There are so many great science fiction writers living in his time, and I don't think he read anything anybody else wrote because he could not think of anything that wasn't already in his face in day-to-day life.
[00:45:37] Katie Dooley: Which means you're a really shitty sci-fi writer,
[00:45:40] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:45:41] Katie Dooley: Like it's just garbage. Can you just, like, imagine? This is way funnier than it should be. Oh, like, can you imagine a sci-fi writer today just writing about 2020? Oh. I'm dying. And there, there were some cars were gas-powered and some were electric. Whoaa! and you could fly from Toronto to London in four hours. Whoa!
[00:46:30] Preston Meyer: Like he wrote sci-fi. He did write about things that didn't exist. But I guess he just he recognized that they were all bullshit and just said, this is stuff that nobody's going to believe if I say they existed in the old Empire, so they didn't.
[00:46:47] Katie Dooley: Oh my goodness. I'm literally weeping on this side of the mic. Uh...
[00:46:54] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So anyway, these thetans who had to go through this really long 3D video in these giant cinemas in the Canary Islands in Hawaii are now sticking to humans and giving them anxiety disorders.
[00:47:07] Katie Dooley: So there is like archeological proof that there were two giant cinemas in Hawaii and the Canary Islands. Right?
[00:47:16] Preston Meyer: Is there?
[00:47:17] Katie Dooley: No, I'm being facetious.
[00:47:20] Preston Meyer: Here I was thinking you did more research and found something I didn't see.
[00:47:23] Katie Dooley: No, no, I'm being facetious.
[00:47:29] Preston Meyer: Ah, that's what I get. Xenu was eventually deposed by all these people. Well, not the same people that he tried to get rid of, but some of the people who were left behind. And he was locked away on Teegeeack which remember that that is our earth. This is our home. Some people say that it's in the Pyrenees mountains. Other people are like, no, no, that was a Martian outpost. That's different. Either way, Xenu is still here today because he's immortal. A little piece of me is like, is there another level that hasn't been published that calls his rebirth the actual manifestation of the end of the world the equivalent of an anti-Christ.
[00:48:17] Katie Dooley: So, I mean, this is actually a thing in Scientology where because people have reached the end of the bridge to total freedom that they keep adding, because people aren't actually being able to move physical objects with their mind.
[00:48:32] Preston Meyer: Well, there's eight Operating Thetan levels, and I mean, the last one is very exclusive. And of course, you have to repeat levels sometimes if you're not getting it, if you aren't getting the benefits or don't fully believe what you were told, you just keep doing it. Which of course costs more money.
[00:48:52] Katie Dooley: Absolutely. Yes. They've definitely found ways to prolong it because at some point they need more money from you. But be like, what's been promised has not come true.
[00:49:03] Preston Meyer: Which and what a great cop out of, oh, you just haven't gotten it yet. Go through it again. Do it again.
[00:49:11] Katie Dooley: Well, and we've had this conversation in past episodes. This is one where I'm like, does David Miscavige know this is a whole bunch of bullshit, and he's just reaping in the money from it, and he's okay with that?
[00:49:22] Preston Meyer: Or is he a total dumbass?
[00:49:23] Katie Dooley: Or is he actually insane? I mean, either way, he would be insane to be able to just like, take people's money and know it's a bunch of bullshit because I'm pretty sure he's not moving things with his mind. So either he's like, really upset with himself that he hasn't gotten clear, like L Ron Hubbard, or he's like, what a great job. Never gonna leave.
[00:49:46] Preston Meyer: Well, imagine being able to tell people, you've got all this power, you can control the world, but I'm going to have to pay a security force to suppress all these other suppressive persons and harass them in their homes and murder people, make people disappear. When if you had control over the world in a psychic, telekinetic kind of way, you could you could pinch off a vein or artery in somebody's brain, give them an aneurysm, and they would die on the spot. Why would that not be the way you handle your suppressive people if you actually had power?
[00:50:22] Katie Dooley: Right? I hope Mike Rinder and Leah are okay.
[00:50:28] Preston Meyer: Ah. It's terrible.
[00:50:30] Katie Dooley: It is. So now we're going to get into practices of Scientology.
[00:50:34] Preston Meyer: I mean, we've scratched that surface a little bit. Ickies. But let's get into the other stuff.
[00:50:41] Katie Dooley: So in 1969, Yvonne Gilliam established the first celebrity center to achieve the goal of attracting powerful people.
[00:50:51] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Hubbard had said this thing back in about '55 that is now called Project Celebrity. The idea was that the best way to grow your group is to attract people, to have more power, to influence others. Which reminds me of a book I lent you a little while ago, the How to Start Your Own Religion. That that was one of the chapters, and it was find somebody like Harrison Ford to be the face of your religion and you are set for life.
[00:51:19] Katie Dooley: I mean, especially when you look at the numbers like and obviously the Celebrity Center is in LA and they have special courses for people who want to be actors. If you look at the numbers and think there's only 30,000 Scientologists. Like it wouldn't take you very long. It would take you a fuck ton of money, but it wouldn't take you very long to move up the ranks enough to actually start meeting real celebrities. And if that's what you want to do for a living, I can see how a desperate actor would, you know, get into that. You probably aren't meeting Tom Cruise because he's the right-hand guy, but you'd probably meet some B-listers and work your way up. Or even people that aren't actors, but people in the industry. I mean, and then just the fangirls that these people or yeah, if you really wanted to meet John Travolta. Yeah.
[00:52:11] Preston Meyer: Or if you want to get into politics, they appeal to artists and politicians too.
[00:52:15] Katie Dooley: It's a good tactic, but also a toxic tactic.
[00:52:20] Preston Meyer: For sure. And there's actually several of these celebrity centers all over the place where they have...
[00:52:25] Katie Dooley: Celebrities. There's probably a celebrity center in London.
[00:52:29] Preston Meyer: I think so. I went through the list and there's there's a good handful of countries that have celebrity centers, but I clearly didn't write those names down.
[00:52:39] Katie Dooley: That's fine. Maybe we'll throw it in the Discord after the episode airs.
[00:52:42] Preston Meyer: Now there's another organization that I think is.
[00:52:46] Katie Dooley: Terrifying.
[00:52:46] Preston Meyer: An interesting topic. So like I mentioned before, good old Ronnie, he was in the Navy during the Second World War and then in the reserves for another five years after the end of the war. So the Sea Organization, usually just called the Sea Org, is an actual paramilitary navy that had a full fleet of ships. And they don't anymore or. Well, they sold off all their ships years ago and then bought one new one a little while ago. It's kind of crazy, though. Hubbard said that their mission was to explore time and space. They floated in the two-dimensional space of the ocean. But time and space, here we come.
[00:53:33] Katie Dooley: Oh, boy. So members of the Sea Org were, and probably still are given a small weekly allowance, but they also had their rooms and meals taken care of, which sounds kind of good.
[00:53:45] Preston Meyer: If you're in the actual Navy, you get paid a little bit and room and board is covered.
[00:53:50] Katie Dooley: But then it gets a little scary. Because they sign a billion-year contract,
[00:53:56] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:53:57] Katie Dooley: Never sign a billion-year contract. I don't care what it's for. The only...
[00:54:01] Preston Meyer: When you believe in reincarnation though, this has meaning.
[00:54:05] Katie Dooley: But what if the. I guess so, but the what of the reincarnation version of you's changed. What if you're different? Yeah. What if you've gotten rid of a thetan and now the car's not right for you?
[00:54:18] Preston Meyer: Unfortunately, that is exactly directly contrary to their beliefs.
[00:54:23] Katie Dooley: The more thetans you get, the more the Sea Org is for you.
[00:54:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:54:28] Katie Dooley: But that would be so scary because then you could get audited and they'd be like, oh, what is this, thetan? It says you didn't like the Sea Org. That means you had a contract with the Sea Org, which means you need to get back on that ship.
[00:54:39] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Yeah it's terrible.
[00:54:42] Katie Dooley: Right.
[00:54:43] Preston Meyer: So if you leave the Sea Org you are billed for every item and every service you ever received during your service.
[00:54:51] Katie Dooley: That's your food and board!
[00:54:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Which is terrible. That is absolutely crippling cost if you've been in it for a while. So people don't like leaving. If you do, this bill is not legally enforceable. People have fought it and succeeded in their fight. However, you can't get any more services from the Church of Scientology until you pay this bill. So hopefully you were planning on actually leaving the church if you also...
[00:55:23] Katie Dooley: Leave the Sea Org, yeah.
[00:55:25] Preston Meyer: What's weird, though, is that the Sea Org is a really elite, I guess, group.
[00:55:31] Katie Dooley: It's definitely not for everyone. Not every Scientologist is a member of the Sea Org.
[00:55:35] Preston Meyer: Right? If you were in the Sea Org, you're forbidden to marry outside the organization. Like, generally speaking, not even other Scientologists. Which is really weird because if you get pregnant in the Sea Org, you have to leave the Sea Org.
[00:55:55] Katie Dooley: This is how David and Shelley met. They were both in the Sea Org.
[00:55:59] Preston Meyer: Nice. So it's really weird. You can't have babies and be in the Sea Org. So Scientology does speak out publicly against abortion, but privately they encourage and sometimes even force women to get abortions so that they don't get demoted out of the Sea Org.
[00:56:22] Katie Dooley: So they're just Republican politicians. I said it.
[00:56:26] Preston Meyer: I don't think there's a lot of Democratic appeal within the Church of Scientology.
[00:56:32] Katie Dooley: I just mean, like Republicans are usually vocal against abortions. And then you hear about an affair and an abortion.
[00:56:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. The Republicans are two-faced at best. Anyway, the Sea Org did sell all of their ships in 1975, moved to land, but then in 1987, they bought a new ship, La Boheme, which they renamed Freewinds. And it's a pretty fancy boat. It's a decent size, a little bit bigger than a football field, and that's the only place where you can reach OT eight, which is currently the top operating thing.
[00:57:17] Katie Dooley: So you can just like go for a boat ride. Or do you have to join the Sea Org to reach operating thetan level eight?
[00:57:23] Preston Meyer: I don't know the answer to that.
[00:57:25] Katie Dooley: Okay, I'm curious,
[00:57:27] Preston Meyer: But because the boat is operated by the Sea Org for sure.
[00:57:30] Katie Dooley: Oh, absolutely. I just like Tom Cruise isn't a Sea Org member because he has a career
[00:57:30] Preston Meyer: He's OT8.
[00:57:38] Katie Dooley: I think even John Travolta's up there, but they also make a lot of, um, exceptions for powerful celebrities. So it's hard to say.
[00:57:47] Preston Meyer: Good old David Miscavige met his wife in the Sea Org, as you mentioned. And whatever happened to her?
[00:57:52] Katie Dooley: Nobody knows. She's probably dead, is the short answer.
[00:57:55] Preston Meyer: Oh, good.
[00:57:55] Katie Dooley: Um, this was the question that got Leah Remini in trouble and eventually was part of the reason she left Scientology. So. Shelly Miscavige is the the wife and has not been seen since 2007 in public. As recent as 2020, the Church of Scientology has said that she's fine and alive. But that's a really long time to not see someone.
[00:58:21] Preston Meyer: It sure is.
[00:58:22] Katie Dooley: Remini filed a missing persons report in 2013, and unfortunately, the church has so much pull that they basically were just able to turn the police away by telling them that Shelly is fine.
[00:58:32] Preston Meyer: That's suspicious. Right? This is after she's been gone for six years.
[00:58:36] Katie Dooley: Yes. And Remini filed the missing persons report after the Tom Cruise Katie Holmes wedding, where David Miscavige was best man and his wife wasn't there. So you're the leader of the church. You're the best man at the wedding of the year, and your wife's not there.
[00:58:53] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Suspicious.
[00:58:54] Katie Dooley: Don't be suspicious. Um, so, you know, I made this point that. Remini is a celebrity. And, you know, I made the point about Nicole Kidman, and it's easy to be not sympathetic towards celebrities. Remini and Shelly Miscavige grew up together in the church.
[00:59:11] Preston Meyer: Best friends.
[00:59:12] Katie Dooley: This is like your best friend going missing and nobody telling you what is happening. So yeah, like, we have one weird cult leader's wife and a celebrity, so it's easy to be like, whatever. But like, please imagine your best friend disappearing and nobody having answers for you and the police not giving a shit. Like that's terrifying.
[00:59:34] Preston Meyer: And all your other close your circle are gaslighting you.
[00:59:39] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So yeah, that might make someone leave a church and become a suppressive person.
[00:59:46] Preston Meyer: You'd think, yeah.
[00:59:47] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So some people believe she's being held at the Church of Spiritual Technology, a Scientologist compound in California. That's like former senior execs. Mike Rinder, Mark Rothman if she's even alive. Um, they think she's being held there, uh, probably against her will. I mean, I'd like to go out in public in the last. What is that, 13 years? Yeah.
[01:00:12] Preston Meyer: Uh, that's that was 15 years ago. She's been gone, 2007. It's a long time.
[01:00:19] Katie Dooley: It's a long time to not know where someone is. But she's fine, guys, she's totally fine.
[01:00:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah. When I was living in Jersey, um, which is where David Miscavige grew up, I didn't actually look up the town. It said he moved around a little bit. It's not even where he was born. But he grew up in Jersey, and I lived there for a couple of years. And I came across a group called the Nation of Islam, which is a dangerously racist cult with actually minimal interest in the Prophet Muhammad, but they use the name Islam anyway. Louis Farrakhan is a big deal. He was the leader for quite awhile, and he's been using Dianetics since 2010.
[01:00:58] Katie Dooley: Wow. Weird.
[01:01:00] Preston Meyer: Which is the year that I learned about them and ran into them. So that's interesting little detail. For my personal experience, and he's been encouraging his whole branch of Muslims to connect with Scientology and get audited and just fully embrace Scientology, which feels really weird.
[01:01:21] Katie Dooley: It does. And I'm curious what Scientology thinks of a very racist cult. They probably just want the money. They probably don't give a shit.
[01:01:30] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Louis Farrakhan is a very gross figure. A lot of people call him Black Hitler because he is super racist. He teaches. He didn't start the story, but he actively advocates for the idea that white people are the worst part of humanity, created by and deliberately created by a black scientist.
[01:01:55] Katie Dooley: That last part's weird. I almost agree with the first part.
[01:01:59] Preston Meyer: I mean, white people have been pretty terrible to this planet, but honestly, on every cultural group on this planet has done a lot of damage, so...
[01:02:09] Katie Dooley: It's because of that video. The 36-day movie, Preston. We've all been brainwashed for so long.
[01:02:16] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So Scientology is definitely saying, hey, Islam not so great. And Farrakhan's like, well, you know what? We're not that kind of Muslims, so. Sure.
[01:02:27] Katie Dooley: Oh, dear. Oh, boy.
[01:02:29] Preston Meyer: It's weird. But that's just one example of how Scientology is creeping its gross little tendrils into really weird places.
[01:02:41] Katie Dooley: I mean, they will go anywhere you will have them. Actually, and before we wrap up with your wrap-up quote, I will just caution to our listeners is obviously, we encourage you to explore and learn about other religions. Preston and I are going to go visit some other church services in a little bit here. Be very careful when you approach Scientologists.
[01:03:03] Preston Meyer: Don't use your real name. Don't use your real phone number. Do not give them your home address.
[01:03:09] Katie Dooley: You can get their books from the public library as opposed to buying them if you're interested in reading anything. But yes, they even my religious studies professor was like, they will harass you to get you to come back and spend more money, so go for it. Watch a bunch of Scientology TV like I did this week. Just don't give them any personal information.
[01:03:30] Preston Meyer: Yeah. High risk. I've got one final great quote from good old Lafayette Ronald Hubbard "Writing action pulp doesn't have much agreement with what I want to do, because it retards my progress by demanding incessant attention and further actually weakens my name. So you see, I've got to do something about it. And at the same time strengthen the old financial position. I have high hopes of smashing my name into history so violently that it will take legendary form, even if all books are destroyed. That goal is the real goal, as far as I'm concerned." Mission accomplished bro.
[01:04:13] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Uh, yeah. What a weird guy,
[01:04:17] Preston Meyer: Right?
[01:04:18] Katie Dooley: And there's even more about L Ron that we could have covered.
[01:04:21] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah.
[01:04:22] Katie Dooley: Um, so, yeah, I'll just reiterate. If there's any piece of this that you want us to deep dive into, we are more than happy to, but we're at over an hour, and, uh, we've just, like, glossed over all of Scientology, so...
[01:04:34] Preston Meyer: There's, like, every religion. There's a lot to it. And there is a lot of baggage here.
[01:04:43] Katie Dooley: Well, there's a lot to pick through. I remember trying to read Dianetics before and I mean now. And oh, it's brutal. Now that I have a better understanding of where it fits into the Scientology puzzle, I probably should read Dianetics again, but yeah. Oh, boy.
[01:05:00] Preston Meyer: It's tricky though. You can you can watch a lot of Scientology publications and definitely feel the appeal that draws so many other people in. You just be very careful because it's dangerous.
[01:05:17] Katie Dooley: Yes. Remember, Tom Cruise has spent $25 million on Scientology. Uh, Leah Remini has said it's easily $500,000 to get... I forget what level, but easily $500,000 to move up the Bridge to Total Freedom. So, um, if it's your jam and that's where you want to invest your money, cool. But just know it's about you're looking $1 million easily.
[01:05:37] Preston Meyer: Have I got a great alternative, though? The Holy Watermelon Podcast.
[01:05:43] Katie Dooley: Wow. Tell me more about this religious organization.
[01:05:46] Preston Meyer: Oh, man. It's great.
[01:05:49] Katie Dooley: We help people.
[01:05:49] Preston Meyer: I would love to get to a point where we have the funds as an organization, as the Holy Watermelon Podcast, to help people escape situations like this. We're not there yet. It'll probably be a long time, but it's a goal that one day we can accomplish that. Right now, basically, we're accepting donations through Patreon, and also we've got a Spreadshop.
[01:06:16] Katie Dooley: Spreadshirt merch shop. Yeah. Where you can buy some sweet, sweet, Holy Watermelon gear. If you want to tell us how much of a suppressed person you are, feel free to join us on our Discord or Instagram or Facebook. Thanks for joining us.
[01:06:31]
Both Speakers:
Peace be with you.
