Aaron Smith-Levin: Scientology | Lex Fridman Podcast #361
- If Scientology was just
getting auditing when you wanted about the subjects you wanted and you could take it or
leave it, that would be fine. It's the fact that it's part and parcel to this entire organization
and this entire experience that has, as a part of that experience, taking everything from you, demanding everything from you, controlling who you can speak with, controlling who you can
have relationships with, who you have to erase from your life. This is where, and it's hard to, it's hard to place one pinpoint on "This is where Scientology goes wrong." It's really hard to do that, because the good parts of Scientology and the bad parts of Scientology are all just Scientology. - The following is a conversation
with Aaron Smith-Levin, a former Scientologist
raised in Scientology, and have worked in the
organization full-time for many years as a staff
member and a Sea Org member, including the job of training
Scientology auditors. Today, he educates the
public about Scientology on his YouTube channel called
"Growing Up in Scientology." This is The Lex Friedman podcast. To support it, please check out our
sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends,
here's Aaron Smith-Levin. Well, let's do a full
overview of Scientology, it's ideas, how it operates, how it wields its power and influence, and let's start at the very basics. What is Scientology? - Scientology is a belief
system created by L. Ron Hubbard that does fundamentally
believe that we are all immortal spiritual beings, called thetans, that we have native, God-like potential, that there is nothing more
powerful in the universe than a thetan, like, so God-like is, you know, quite literal here, and that, through various
decisions thetans have made, they have fallen away from
their native God-like power to, fallen down to a state where most thetans aren't even aware that they are thetans, aren't even aware that
they ever have lived before or have these powers, and that
thetans are now in a state where they're trapped in
bodies, trapped here on earth, trapped in this prison
of a physical universe, trapped on this prison of a planet, and that only Scientology
can restore a thetan to its native state. - Are these multiple beings,
like is there one thetan inside of me that's
trapped in this prison? - Well, the thetan would be you. - The thing would be me. - The thetan is you. - But I'm presumably limited
in some fundamental way. So this thetan that is me is limited. So there's like 8 billion
thetans on the planet? - There's one primary
thetan animating each body. Later in Scientology, you
learn there's actually like tens of thousands
or hundreds of thousands of like sick, unconscious,
half-dead thetans stuck to you that are now an additional
cause of problems for you. - [Lex] Sure. - But fundamentally, at the lower levels, the non-confidential levels, there's just one thetan per body. - Well, I mean, it's an interesting idea. I just would like to kind of
explore the philosophy of that. So there's a being that's all
powerful, that's immortal, and its projection, its
manifestation on this earth is fundamentally limited,
and you're trying to, the process of Scientology is the process of letting go of those limitations. You know, that's an interesting idea. I mean, a lot of religions
have this kind of idea that there's, not just religions, but like we have the capacity
as human beings to do, to achieve greatness in all kinds of ways. - [Aaron] Yeah. - And that's the question we have with our cognitive abilities. We start with a embryo and
build up and into this organism and like this world of
opportunities before us, what are we capable of? And the idea that we're
capable of almost anything is a really powerful one, and there's a lot of religions, there's a lot of philosophies,
there's a lot of advice, self-help that kind of
explore those ideas, and so it seems like with Scientology, this, the application of
this religious philosophy means that we're limited, and we'll have to break the
through those limitations, and there's a process to break
through those limitations. - That would be correct. So what can make it
challenging to adequately and completely describe
Scientology in the beginning is what Scientologists
believe actually changes as they progress further into
or further up in Scientology. So the explanation as I've given it, is pretty consistent
with what you would get at the lowest levels. - Got it.
- Right. You're a thetan, I'm a thetan, everyone's a thetan, and we have a reactive mind. L. Ron Hubbard would say the reactive mind is a collection of these recordings, mental recordings of any moments
of pain and unconsciousness you've ever had in your life. It's like the subconscious mind. It is always recording in moments of pain and unconsciousness and
that these are called, these recordings are called, L. Ron Hubbard called them "engrams." Now, when L. Ron Hubbard first
wrote "Dianetics" in 1950, this was before Scientology came along a couple years later, right? So in 1950, when he wrote "Dianetics," it wasn't a spiritual endeavor. It was supposed to be a mental health, a science of mental health. So, as of that time, the
earliest engram you could have was the incident of birth. Being born was an engram, and technically, in "Dianetics", he said you could have prenatal engrams, like when you're still in the womb, but there was no concept of past lives as of 1950 version of "Dianetics," right? And so, the idea there was
that the reactive mind is essentially a stimulus response mechanism created through evolution
millions of years ago to protect the individual from
things that would harm them. In other words, things that would bring about
pain and unconsciousness. So you have these recordings
of things that hurt you, created pain and unconsciousness, and in present time, these
things will react upon you in a way to cause you
to avoid similar things reacting upon you in a
subconscious, unconscious way. - So the reactive mind
protects you from the trauma that is inside your subconscious mind? - Yes, and the idea is
we've now, as human beings, evolved to a state where it no longer serves us beneficially, it
only serves us negatively. This was Hubbard's theory, and he said, so you can get rid of
these engrams by, you know, basically recalling
them and going over them again and again using
Dianetics auditing therapy, and if you get back to the moment of birth and erase the earliest engram, all the other subsequent engrams
on the chain would vanish. - Oh, nice. So there's a chain? - Earlier, similar, earlier, similar, earlier, similar, earlier similar. Okay. So that gives you a
pretty good understanding of how L. Ron Hubbard thought of the mind, because that carries on, has applicability later on in Scientology. - I mean, that's a pretty
powerful model of the mind. I mean, Freud had similar conceptions that a lot of our traumas are grounded in, sort of poor formulation of sexuality or imperfect formulation of sexuality in early childhood or something like this, and then we're trying
to figure out the puzzle of whatever we formed in early childhood. - [Aaron] Right. - I mean it's similar, similar kind of. - It is similar. That's probably what Hubbard took it from. In the early days of Dianetics, before he decided psychiatry was evil. - [Lex] Yeah. - He actually credited Sigmund Freud with some of the shoulders
he was standing on. - Sure. - [Aaron] In writing "Dianetics." - So he still admired
psychiatry at that time? So that's an interesting
moment of Dianetics. So what else? You mentioned Dianetics,
auditing was there, too. So if we just, before Scientology, what are the ideas that formed
what we know as Dianetics? - As I've just described
'em, that is the fundamental. - [Lex] That is. - That is pretty much the
nuts and bolts of Dianetics. - Was it applied? Was it applied often? - Oh, yeah, no, it's what
Dianetics in the early days was all about was just auditing. Auditing is the process of
the one-on-one counseling. Recall a moment of pain
and unconsciousness, run through the engram over
and over and over again, find something earlier, similar. That is Dianetics auditing. One of the main things that
changed with Scientology is that birth or prenatal engrams were no longer the earliest
engrams on the chain. - [Lex] Yeah. - The idea is you have to
get the earliest engram on the chain for the later
ones to blow, which is a race. And so, but all of a sudden,
now, with the addition of an immortal spiritual
being into the equation, well now, the earliest incident could be trillions of years ago in
other galaxies and universes. - Other universes, so before the appointment of this universe? - Oh yeah, yes. - Is there a model of physics
integrated in any of this? - [Aaron] No.
- Okay. - The model is you have
the physical universe, and then above that you
have the theta universe. So we used the word thetan earlier. So in Scientology, I'll
use the word theta. I dunno, theta's just
basically thetan power, thetans collectively. So, Hubbard would say you
have the theta universe, which is senior to the physical universe and creates the physical universe. And remember, I said, I said
native, God-like potentials, so we're not talking about
the God who created the earth. We're just, like Scientologists
don't believe in a God, but we'll get into that later. We're talking about
just creating universes, like just think like matrix, like just. - [Lex] Yeah. - When I say creating a universe, essentially just creating
different thetan simulations. - But it sounds like a little bit more like the ideas of Plato, which is there's these platonic forms, there's abstract forms that are bigger, more general than our
particular reality here, and those forms are used
to construct the reality. - [Aaron] Well, I grew up in a cult, so I'm not familiar
with the works of Plato. (Aaron laughing) - [Lex] You can't use that
as an excuse for everything. (Aaron continues laughing) - I would like to, you know, non-jokingly - [Aaron] Yeah. - Steelman the case, because
a lot of philosophies, a lot of religions, a lot of
even scientific endeavors, are a little bit full of uncertainty. You can call it bullshit,
but you're on unsturdy ground because we're surrounded by mystery, and you have to take these
ideas somewhat seriously and see where those ideas go wrong. This happens with communism, this happens with capitalism, these ideas sound beautiful
in their ideal forms, and then they somehow go wrong, and some go more wrong than others. And so I don't think sort of, it's easy to sort of caricature
and make fun of the ideas. I think if you take them seriously, you'll start to understand like, when you're in it, it was serious. It can be very convincing. It's, you know, the devil is going to
be a charismatic person, he's not going to be a caricature
of a ridiculous person, so that helps us understand which ideas will sound appealing, but
will become dangerous. - I totally agree. In fact, it's one of the
thrusts I have on my channel is wanting to talk about
Scientology in a way that would actually resonate
with current Scientologists. - [Lex] Yeah. - Not just resonate with
former Scientologists. I want people who are
still in to be able to hear how I talk about it and go,
"Wow, he's being really fair." - [Lex] Yeah. - "And really accurate. He's not just a hater,"
you know what I mean? - If you look at the, you know, let's take, one of the worst
places on Earth is North Korea. You have Kim Jong-un, and the reality is there's a
lot of citizens of that nation that deeply love the leader, because they've grew up in that way, and you, I mean, through fear, through all kinds of manipulation, through propaganda and so on, they're not allowed to love
members of their own family. They're not allowed to have romantic love. They're only allowed to
have love for the leader. And to reach those people, you have to empathize with the fact that, in their eyes, in some
sense, this is a great man. This is a God, a Messianic figure. You can't just make fun
of the ridiculousness of the situation that this
pudgy person waltzing around creating propaganda, like how's this the? (Aaron laughing) - [Aaron] With a funny haircut. - With a funny haircut. Like, it's so easy, Hitler too, to make fun of, to make a caricature of the person, but this is a real person, a real person that influenced the minds of millions of people, in the case of Hitler, you know, tens of millions of people, and created a huge amount of suffering, not because of the caricature version, but because he was a charismatic leader. He was somebody that people
deeply, deeply loved, and that just, over time, I mean, with the abuse of any kind of ideology, this happens over and over. And so, yeah, it's interesting
because Scientology is so close to the core
of what is America, because so many Americans
are involved with it, so it's interesting to study
the beauty and the power of the ideas that underlie
it and where things go wrong. - Yeah. And I'll just say it's
interesting to note, you would never get a representative of the Church of Scientology to sit down and have a conversation with you and even be as fair and
accurate about Scientology as I'm going to be, which is noteworthy. - Do you honestly deeply
believe that's the case? There's not going to be
a high-level official that would sit down for a conversation? - No. - I disagree with you. - [Aaron] I hope you're right. - Because I think that, given the current dynamics
of what's happening, I think in order to save, from their perspective, in order to save the the
Church of Scientology, they have to be transparent and authentic. Basically steelman their case, but better. - You would think so. - Well, we'll talk about the other ways you could do that, which
is through manipulation, through propaganda,
through controlled media, and all that kind of stuff. - They paint themselves into
a corner of not being able to send a representative
out into the world to speak honestly about it, because you're literally not allowed to. So when faced, you know, if you're just sitting down with an entertainment journalist, a representative might be able to fudge their way through an interview, but sitting down for a
long-form format interview with someone who is gonna ask them about Xenu and the body thetans and Leah Remini and Lisa McPherson, that's a no-go zone. So I'm representing why
it will never happen, but shit, I would tune
in for that interview. I mean, I hope you do get someone. - You don't think David Miscavige will sit down for an interview? - I would love to be wrong. - You know, in general, journalists, in these
kinds of situations can be, can attack in a way that doesn't empathize and doesn't come from a
place of deep knowledge and understanding, and
I think it's possible to have serious conversations
with people like that in an empathetic way, but it's
also in a challenging way. I think there's a huge
amount of trust required, and obviously, for a very
secretive organization, the amount of trust, yes,
might be too much required. - Yes. Anyone over there, if
they've done their homework, knows you're gonna be as fair as anyone in the world's going to be, and yet, there's simply things they're not allowed to talk about, and they're not even allowed to say, "I'm not allowed to talk about it." - So that's a fundamental part
of the Church of Scientology is the secrecy? - [Aaron] Yeah. - So that's where you're
trained as you go up through the ranks, is "Secrecy, secrecy." - It's not even a matter of training, it's that there's an entire,
the entire upper half of Scientology's Bridge
is simply confidential. I mean, and I never even did those levels when I was in Scientology. I didn't learn what
Scientologists actually believe on those upper levels until
after I got outta Scientology, and I was freaking born and raised in it. - Let's go there, let's
go to your personal story. So you spent 30 years in Scientology? - Yeah, I was four years
old when my mom got in. - And then about seven years ago got out. - [Aaron] Yeah. - And you're on what YouTube channel now, and you're an educator? - So I was four years old when my mom got introduced to Scientology. - [Lex] Yeah. - And she got in really
fast, really quick. So, but I was 12 years old
when I was taken out of school and started officially full-time
working for Scientology. Okay, so, in various
capacities I worked for them from the ages of 12 to the age of 26. - [Lex] Yeah.
- Okay. So, and then I was 34 when I officially parted
ways with Scientology, which was really more them
officially parting ways with me, but we can get into all that later. That's just kinda how Scientology does it. - And what do you do now
in terms of Scientology? So now I run "Growing Up in Scientology," the YouTube channel, but
what I primarily do is I help run an organization
that helps people who are escaping from Scientology. I'm the Vice President of
"The Aftermath Foundation" and we created the foundation
after the television show, "Leah Remini" Scientology
and the Aftermath," and there was such an
outpouring of support from non-Scientologists
all over the world, "What can we do to help
people leave Scientology?" that we decided to create a foundation, and it's been incredibly successful. We've helped people
escape from all regions and echelons of Scientology. We've accomplished, what we've
accomplished is far beyond what we actually envisioned
would be possible. It's been a huge success. - So we'll talk about the negative aspect, the abuses of power, but let's just explore the
ideas a little bit more. So the public facing
three fundamental truths of Scientology, maybe
correct me if I'm wrong, man is an immortal spiritual being, like we said with thetans, his experience extends well
beyond a single lifetime, so infinite memory backwards. His capabilities are unlimited, even if not presently realized. The capabilities are unlimited, are? - Yeah, God, So that when I say God-like, I really just mean, you
know, Thanos, like unlimited. Scientologists don't believe in a God, so when I say God-like, I just mean the most powerful entity, the creator, the prime mover unmoved, except we are all that. You know, a thetan in definition, in Scientology, a thetan has
no position in space or time. A thetan does not actually
exist in the physical universe. It might choose to locate
itself in the physical universe, right, and then forget
that it made that decision and then sort of get caught and trapped in the physical universe, but that, once the thetan is
restored to its native powers, everything you see here
in the physical universe is just a thetan playing a game. Like literally, we are in a simulation right now of some thetan. So like physics doesn't have to make sense when we're talking about it this way. Like technically you're
a thetan, I'm a thetan, we're here, but it could, this could also all just
be another thetan's game. - So thetans all the way down. - Yeah. It's just thetans everywhere. Thetans, it all comes down to the thetan. - Is there an idea of a God? 'Cause I read there's a kind of, there is a sense of a supreme being. Is that basically the
thetan that's at the core, at the bottom of it all? - [Aaron] Yes. - Not per, not defined, undefined. - Correct. Scientology has this
concept of the dynamics. L. Ron Hubbard breaks life
into a different dynamics and the, a dynamic meaning
a thrust towards survival. So he would say, you know, the first dynamic is you yourself. Second dynamic is your family. Third dynamic is any other
group that you're a part of other than your family. Fourth dynamic is all humankind. The fifth dynamic is
plant and animal life, all non-human life. Sixth dynamic is the physical world. Seventh dynamic is sort of like
spirituality, collectively, thetans, us as thetans. And the eighth dynamic,
L. Ron Hubbard says Scientology doesn't deal
with the eighth dynamic, but we recognize that
people have this idea of a supreme being, and so, Scientology says you
can call the eighth dynamic, "The Supreme Being dynamic,"
but we call it "infinity," just the allness of everything
without having to define it. And then they sort of do a little dance and they're like, "Scientology, the purpose of Scientology
is to get you to the point where you have your own
understandings or realizations about the nature of the eighth dynamic. We don't tell you what you
have to believe about that". And technically speaking, that is true. Technically speaking, that is true. There's no point in Scientology
where they sit you down and say "You're now required to revoke your belief in a supreme being," It's just that everything in Scientology is inconsistent with a
belief in a supreme being. You can still find Scientologists who, through cognitive dissonance, will tell you they believe
in a supreme being. Mostly, they're lying to you. - How is this inconsistent
with a supreme being, because like thetans? - [Aaron] Because thetans have
created everything, not God. - Okay, so thetans created everything. Did they, they're also a creative force, they're not just the force
that runs everything. - [Aaron] Right. - But can't those be just
the fingertips of a God? - Sure. The only way you could
reconcile a supreme being is if you say a single supreme
being created all theta. - [Lex] Yeah. - Like the spiritual big bang. - [Lex] Yep. - But that's not what most
people think when they say, when they talk about God. They're talking about a creator of. - The physical universe. - [Aaron] Yes.
- But there's no theta. - Right. I mean, even as I've
described Scientology so far, none of what I've said is something I even subject to ridicule. This is pretty common
sense stuff actually. I mean, if you believe in
spirituality or spirits at all, there's nothing I've
described so far that's crazy. - [Lex] Yeah. - You know, believing in past lives isn't particularly unique or special. - [Lex] Right. - The fact that Scientology
does this little dance of pretending to believe in a God. I mean, it's even like a PR line. Scientology representatives will tell you, "You can be a Christian
and be a Scientologist." Well, lemme tell you what, Christians don't believe in past lives and lives on other galaxies
and planets and universes. They, but, and Scientology knows that. Scientology knows you can't be a Christian and be a Scientologist,
but they will say that. It's just an example of sort of the fundamental baked-in dishonesty. - Because it's so
important to Scientology, on the organization level,
to have tax exempt status, I wonder, how do you,
do you know the process of what it takes to prove that an organization is a religion? - While going through
that process with the IRS, for the second time, by the way, Scientology actually had tax
exemption in the early days and the IRS pulled it and
then they got it back in 1993. While going through that process again, the IRS actually took issue with the fact that Scientology was claiming you could be a Scientologist and a member of another religion. The IRS actually said,
"Pump the brakes there." - [Lex] Yeah. - "If you're gonna say that, we're gonna say you're not a religion." - [Lex] Yeah. - And they actually put
in writing to the IRS, "No, no, no, no, no. That's not what we meant! That's not what we meant! We meant in the beginning you can be both, but eventually, you just
have to be a Scientologist." - So you mentioned the eight dynamics, but you also mentioned survival, so that seems to be a core principle, that human existence is about survival. Can you elaborate what
is meant by survival? Are we talking about the
survival of the human species? Survival of the individual humans? Survival of the manifestation
of thetans in human form? What do we, what's survival? - So it would be all of that, because survival is the dominant force across all the dynamics that, I mean, L. Ron Hubbard, it was either Dianetics
or science of survival. He says he "Discovered the principle upon which all life exists," and that is all life, no
matter what it is trying to do, are you ready, Lex?
- [Lex] Mm-hmm. - It's trying to survive. - That's pretty powerful. That's pretty powerful. (Aaron laughing) - See, here's the thing.
- Is it? - Here's no, I gotta tell you, I gotta. - You might get me back in, Lex. - No, I'm not, I'm not
trying to get you back in. I'm trying to take you,
get you to take seriously, the power of the ideas behind Scientology, because I think those
ideas are not bad ideas. They resonate with a lot of
ideas throughout philosophy, throughout religions, throughout the history
of human civilization. The interesting aspect
is how it goes wrong. - But here's the thing,
Lex, here's the thing. It is consistent with
prior efforts or studies. It's just that L. Ron Hubbard said this was a watershed breakthrough that it was being discovered
for the first time. That's kind of what I'm mocking really - Yeah, but you can mock
Nietzsche for saying "Man is will to power." You can mock Freud. - [Aaron] But did he claim to be the first person to ever say it? - Well, Nietzsche had a bit of an ego, so. (Aaron laughing) - Like, and he's full of contradictions, but I'm pretty sure, the implied thing is that
he was the first to say it. - [Aaron] Yeah. - There's a lot of scientists, there's a, one of the people I really
admire is Stephen Wolfram, who wrote a book called
"A New Kind of Science" that explores complex
systems and cellular automata and these mathematical systems that have been explored before, but he boldly kind of defined, "I am presenting to you a whole new way to look at the world" and if you just set a little bit of the ego behind that aside, there's actually beautiful ideas in there. They have, of course, been done
before and explored before, but sometimes, people declare
- Sure. - [Lex] "This is the coolest." - That's the only thing
I'm really mocking is - [Lex] Yes. - He said this discovery that
life is trying to survive is greater than the discovery of fire. Okay, I mean, it gets a
little silly, but that's fine. We can agree that the fact
that life is trying to survive has meaning and is meaningful
and can be, is valuable, and it's true, I mean,
life is trying to survive. - Also, there's a non-trivial definition of "What is life?" here,
so this idea of a thetan, the thing that permeates through lifetimes - [Aaron] Yeah.
- Through people, there's some fabric that is bigger than individual biological bags of meat. That's a, philosophically,
an interesting idea. Of course, if it's not grounded in a little bit more physical reality, then it becomes a little too woo-woo. And the way L. Ron Hubbard and
Scientology define survival is very much intertwined
with how they define ethics. Ethics, anything, you know,
to be ethical is pro-survival, to be unethical is counter-survival, but we were talking about just
the concept of the dynamics, like what does survival refer to? And it actually does refer to all of them, but just keep in mind, when it
comes to the seventh dynamic, thetans collectively,
involved in here is the idea that a thetan cannot die. There's no such thing as killing a thetan. A thetan can only, can only survive. And so, anyway, this
concept of the dynamics is one of the most fundamental
and important concepts in Scientology, but,
because I mentioned that, it also gets tied up with
ethics, and this probably speaks to what you were just talking about, is you can have the ideas and the concepts and you can have "How do they go wrong?" because they hold that Scientology, applying Scientology, getting
people into Scientology, is the key to basically saving every spiritual being in existence. When you're analyzing what is ethical, it becomes whatever's good
for Scientology becomes, by definition, ethical, because anything that's
good for Scientology, which is a third dynamic, is inherently good for all the dynamics, so that's where you get the
ends justifying the means to do anything possible,
use any means necessary, to forward the aims of Scientology. - That's kind of where a
lot of Soviet implementation of communism went wrong, is
the ends justify the means, the equality, the justice for the workers, if we have to kill,
murder, imprison, censor - [Aaron] Yeah.
- In in the name of that, then it's for the greater
good in the long term to achieve the ideal of communism. - In some respect, Scientology
created a near-perfect communist experiment in
its Sea Organization. What is it, "From everyone
according to their ability to each according to their
need" or something like that? Scientology's Sea
Organization is a damn near a perfect communist experiment, coming from someone who
doesn't necessarily know what the perfect communist
experiment really is, 'cause I'm not, I grew up in a cult, Lex. - You can't keep using that as an excuse. - [Aaron] It's a funny
tagline I use in my videos. - I like it. - But like, it is interesting
that an organization that is so hyper-capitalist
and so money hungry and is known to be very wealthy, at its' core is run by this
group of Sea Org members that live a communist lifestyle. - We're gonna jump around. - [Aaron] Yeah.
- Let's go. What is Sea Org? What is Sea Organization? What is this organization? - The Sea Organization is
the most dedicated version, the most dedicated
brand of Scientologists. So there's three like
echelons of Scientologists. There's public, who just live
normal lives in the real world and they pay to do Scientology
courses in auditing. Then there's staff members who
also live in the real world but work on two and a half year contracts or five-year contracts at their local Scientology organization, and then once they finish their contract, their debt is paid or whatever. And then there's the Sea Org members. These are the guys who signed
the billion-year contracts. They don't have lives
in the outside world. They don't own property. They live in Scientology-provided housing. They eat in Scientology-run cafeterias. - Is there an actual contract
that says a billion years? - It's symbolic, but yes. - [Lex] Okay. - Like no, it's not a
legally enforceable contract. (Aaron laughing) They haven't succeeded in enforcing it in any subsequent lifetimes yet. - Marriage contracts should
be like that, a billion years, 'cause then we, not
"'til death do us part," but a billion years. It really makes it very concrete of what you're signing up for. - Yeah. Those are the billion-year guys. You hear a lot about "The
billion-year contract, the billion-year contract." That's the Sea Org, and all
of Scientology management, international management,
middle management, continental management,
and even some lower level service orgs are composed
100% of Sea Org members. You're not allowed to
marry or date someone who's not in the Sea Org. You're also not allowed to have children. - With anybody outside of
Sea Org, or in general, you're not allowed to have children? - Sea Org members are not
allowed to have children unless they leave the Sea Org. You're expected to have an
abortion and stay in the Sea Org, 'cause it's the greatest
good for Scientology, if you accidentally get pregnant. - Interesting, 'cause it distracts from the focus of the work? - [Aaron] Yeah. - What about sexual relations? - Only once married, but that's why people get
married after like three days. You're like, "Hey you, you
look, you look all right. Let's get married." - Are you allowed to have divorce? - Yeah, you get divorced
a lot in the Sea Org. I've known people who
get married and divorced three times by like, by the age of 25. - [Lex] Oh wow, okay. - Because, in the Sea Org, getting married is
practically like dating. - [Lex] Right. - Also, unless you're married, you're living in dorms with
a bunch of other people, so in order to get your own room, you also have to get married. So there's many benefits. - Oh wow, okay. So you mentioned communism, in which way, is there a hierarchy inside Sea Org? Is there a redistribution of influence, position, money, power in the Sea Org? - Everyone in the Sea
Org makes $50 a week. - [Lex] Everybody? - Except David Miscavige, but, right, and some posts might have a
cash bonus incentive structure, but fundamentally,
their pay is $50 a week, so even the head of a big
Scientology organization is getting 50 bucks a week. - Are celebrities also part
of Sea Org or no, not usually? So this is really the management layer. So what's the idea behind $50 a week? Is that basically live a humble life? - They don't have to
give you anything at all, It's just cons- oh, you mean like what's
the idea behind not paying? - Yeah, basically not paying. - Everything you need is
already being provided for you. You're not here for the money. You're working all the time anyway, it's not like, you don't have days off. I mean, you're working all the time. There's not, it's, there's
no concept of the weekends. There's no, "Oh, thank God it's Friday." Friday's just another day. - And how are the positions,
the tasks, the jobs allocated within the Sea Org? - [Aaron] What do you mean? - Like what kind of tasks you're doing, what kind of stuff you're doing? - It's very similar to
just any other business as far as you're gonna
have your human resources, you're gonna have your sales, you're gonna have your accounting, your operations, your quality control, it's just that, in
Scientology, your operations is delivering courses in auditing, so. - [Lex] Got it. - Your operations and your quality control are where most of the activity occurs as far as delivering Scientology, and then you've got your, you'd call it business development, but that's just bringing
in new members, right? So the function of a
Scientologist organization is very, very comparable
to a normal business in the normal world. - So let's talk about the
products of this business, auditing and courses. So what's auditing? - So auditing is, so we described earlier, Dianetics auditing. Scientology auditing is
very similar to that. - So at first glance, it
looks like psychotherapy, a kind of therapy? - All Scientology auditing
is going to look like that. It's one-on-one talk therapy. You're in a room by yourselves,
no distraction, no noise. - One-on-one.
- [Aaron] Yeah. - So like this? - Yeah, but, and in Scientology, they have what's called an E-meter. - [Lex] Right. - Almost all auditing employs
the use of an E-meter. - What's an E-meter? - So an E-meter is a
device that just measures the resistance to a small electrical flow, except Scientologists
believe that this E-meter can be used to simply direct the progress of an auditing session, to determine whether
the auditing has reached a good satisfactory, conclusion. All auditing sessions have to end on a satisfactory conclusion, like that's the job of the auditor. There's, you don't just, it's not like, "Sorry the session sucked,
see you next week!" It's not like that. Every auditing session has
to end on a positive note, and if it doesn't, there's
corrections to be made. So the E-meter. - What does it look like visually? Like? - Oh, you can pull it up. Pull up "Mark VIII. E-meter Mark VIII." - So there's a few dials. - [Aaron] Yep. - There's basic information
about time and duration, I'm presuming, then a dial that
just goes zero to something. - Okay, so let's say that
the meter's in front of me and you're the one holding the cans. - I'm holding the cans, so you're doing the auditing of me? - [Aaron] Yeah.
- Okay, okay. I'm holding the cans. - No, literally in the beginning
of an auditing session, when you're calibrating the
sensitivity of the E-meter, you do a can squeeze. So I go "Squeeze the cans please." - Okay, so I'm just
like squeezing the cans. - Yeah, and I'm just
changing the sensitivity, 'cause when you squeeze the cans, I want to get about a
one third of a dial drop on the needle. The idea is you don't want, if the needle's too sensitive, then every time you shift
around in your chair, the needle's gonna bounce
all over the place, so you're trying to set the
sensitivity to this thing and that's all. The knob there on the bottom to the left, that's the sensitivity knob, and that determines just how much, how sensitive the needle's gonna be, and the bigger dial is
called the tone arm, and that is changing, I
wanna say voltage or current, but I'm not intending, I'm gonna get, one of those
words is wrong, right? - But it is a real device.
- [Aaron] It's a real device - That you can actually
calibrate to probably, you know, get an outcome that you want? - Yeah. So here's even how, just how a Scientology
auditor believes it works. You're holding the cans, there's a tiny little
battery in that E-meter that's sending and el-, you're completing the circuit
when you pick up the cans, right, so you got a
little thing going there, and that needle will respond
to your physical movement, but that's not what we want. We want you to sit the hell still so that we can read this thing when I'm asking you questions. Okay. - So you're sitting
there still, very still. - As still as you can.
- [Lex] Yeah. - Comfortable, right? And I'm gonna go, "Is there something you're
withholding from me?" and what I'm looking for is, right when I say at the end of "me," I'm looking for the needle
to dip to the right. - Having a needle, even
if it's kind of random, can really be like a
catalyst for a conversation. - That's what it's used for. except it's an enforced conversation, so I'll give you a really
good example of this. So you're holding the cans, say, "Is there anything
you're withholding from me?" and I get an instant read and I go, "Is there anything you're
withholding from me?" You're gonna go, "I don't think so." - And I don't see the needle. - No, you don't see the needle. Okay. I go, "Well, what did you think of when I asked you the question?" Now, if you've already
had a lot of auditing, you know how this goes. It means I got an instant read and we're not going to move on until this question gets resolved, okay? So you're gonna go, "I don't know what I was thinking of" and then I'm gonna,
I'll be like, you know, "Take a look and I'll help you out here." I'll try to steer you. Okay. So I'm looking to get
roughly the same read while you're thinking about whatever. "I mean, what was that? What was that right there?" - And you can start digging to what? You can start. - I just want an answer
to the question, okay? - And I can go to memory. - Yeah, and you can give
me any answer you want. There's no way for me to
know if you're giving me the right answer, but I want
you to give me something. - [Lex] Yeah. - If you say you can't give me anything, I'm gonna keep using the E-meter until you give me something. - [Lex] Yeah. - Okay, so let's say
you give me something. I'm gonna get all the details about that, and until like time,
place, form, and event, I wanna know everything that happened. I want to know all the details. And by the way, I'm writing all this down, so I'm taking notes of
everything you're telling me that it's a bad thing that you did that you haven't told me about. Okay, so I'm keeping notes. When you represent to
me that you've told me everything there is to tell, I'm looking for the needle to give like a smooth back and forth motion like this, and Scientology calls
that a floating needle. That means, in Scientology
land, we're done with that. So now, I might go back
to check the question. "Okay, good. I'll check
the question again. Is there anything you're
withholding from me?" Ooh, if I got another read, we gotta go through the process again. Okay. If you tell me "I've told you everything" and I don't get a floating
needle, I've gotta go, "Okay, is there an earlier, similar thing? Have you basically done
an earlier, similar thing? Is they're an earlier, similar time you haven't told someone something? Or is there an earlier
similar thing that you did to the thing that you just told me?" We're gonna keep going earlier, similar, earlier, similar, earlier, similar until I get a floating
needle, and that's where, I'm explaining it this
way so you can see how no matter what the
specific auditing session happens to be about, there's still the potential
in any auditing session that you're going into past lives. - [Lex] Yeah. - Just because you have
to go earlier, similar until you get a floating needle. Okay, now here's how Scientologists think the E-meter actually works, meaning why does the E-meter work? So we talked before about
these mental pictures, right, these recordings? - [Lex] Mm-hmm. - Okay, well we spoke about engrams, just recordings of pain
and unconsciousness. Well, Scientology would hold the bad recordings aren't the
only recordings that you have, those are just the recordings
in your reactive mind. You also have an analytical mind, which is just your conscious memory, conscious recording of
everything from present time to the last 76 trillion years. - [Lex] Yep. - And Hubbard would
say that these memories are actually a perfectly
detailed recording, I think he says like 56
perceptions or something, and that it's perfect and you
can access that information, you just have trouble doing so. Okay, so he says that these recordings, these mental pictures, have actual electrical charge in mass. Now you asked before, is there
any actual physics in this? I don't know. Where are you supposed
to store the pictures of your last 76 trillion years
that have charge in mass? I don't see it, but
Hubbard says it's there. Okay. So he says that these things have mass and when you recall them
or put attention on them, you create an electrical flow, which maybe through
magnetic fields or whatever impinges upon the electrical
flow of the E-meter and it shows up as a read on the needle. That's how Scientologists believe that's why the needle reads. Now cynics would say the needle only reads on palm sweat and movement. Well, I know that's not true. - [Lex] Mm-hmm. - Right, I can't tell you everything the needle does read on, but
I can tell you it's not just moving your hands and sweaty hands. - It does correlate to thoughts probably. - Some way, some how. - 'Cause if it didn't
correlate to thoughts, this process would be way too inefficient, because you, it would be too, there's going to be a bunch
of people who are just not - [Aaron] Yeah.
- You're not gonna get the, what is it called? The floating needle. Like no matter what. - I can't explain to you how
you get a floating needle, but it sure as hell isn't hand sweat and it sure as hell
isn't squeezing the cans. - Right, so you, eventually most people will get to the floating
needle and somehow. - [Aaron] You get floating needles. - There's like a feed, there probably is a feedback mechanism that each person realizes how their mind and body
- [Aaron] Yeah. - Because you want a resolution, right? - It's probably - [Lex] You want your needle
to float, for both people. - Yes. - And it's probably a great
experience when you're like, "Yes!" it's a gamified feeling, right? - Well when you're training
on how to use the E-meter, there are drills where you practice, generating with your mind,
various needle reactions. So, you know, there is a
drill where you sit there and you consciously try to
create a floating needle by recalling happy thoughts. - [Lex] Yeah. - "Go to your happy place." And at the end of every auditing session, you actually have to go to a third party, sit down in front of an E- meter, and verify that your needle's floating. - [Lex] Nice. - Every single auditing
session not only has to end on a floating needle, but then you have to go to someone else and have the floating needle verified. Any Scientologist who's a
seasoned recipient of auditing knows how to make their
needle float at the examiner. (Aaron laughing) - Well I gotta be honest though, this process, again, sorry
to be sort of going there, but it feels like this is a very rigorous talk therapy session. Is there good aspects to this? - Sure. A lot of people find
auditing very helpful. I mean, I've heard some describe it as quite thoroughly addictive. Me personally, I never
enjoyed getting auditing. That's probably more a function
of having been raised in it and it was never something I wanted to do, it was something that was forced
on me as a child, you know? And also I was never, I don't like talking about
private secret stuff. - [Lex] Yeah. - Like you kind of have to
want to be an open book. - [Lex] Sure. - To honestly and thoroughly participate in an auditing session. - 'Cause there's not necessarily a belief that this is gonna be private. - There's no expectation of privacy, but there's no expectation
that your stuff's gonna be leaked for
blackmail either, I mean. - [Lex] You kind of. - You trust the people
in the organization. - Even despite rumors and stuff like that? But the rumors are coming from people that are lying to you, essentially. - If you're a Scientologist
and you're participating in an auditing session, you know that anyone
in the organization is, has the ability to know
the stuff that you talk. It's not like, "Oh my God,
I'm only telling my auditor 'cause I think no one's ever gonna know." - [Lex] Yeah. - You know that people know.
- [Lex] Yeah. - But you also trust the organization. - How quickly does it go to past memories? - For people who are seasoned, like they actually like going past-life. - [Lex] Yeah. - I hated it. I would make sure, I was really good at
making my needle float. I didn't want to have some auditor, 'cause I never believed
in the past-life memories. - [Lex] Yeah. - So I didn't wanna be in that impassable, you know, reach an impasse
in an auditing session where I was being asked for
something I couldn't provide, 'cause I knew this auditing session has to end on a good point. - [Lex] Yeah. - But Scientologists enjoy,
for the most part going, they call it whole track, whole track is past-life, going whole track. Your time track, they
call it the time track, is your whole memory, but whole track refers
to anything past-life. - [Lex] Okay. - So going whole track or deep whole track with high reality. Meaning it's not like, "Oh, I have a fuzzy memory and
I'm not sure if it's real." Like your real seasoned
Scientologists are like, "Oh yeah, I was on this planet" - [Lex] Oh
- "at this time circling, and this is what I was
eating for breakfast." - Fascinating. Before the origin of
life on earth or before? So billions of years
ago, on a distant planet, what you were eating for breakfast. - [Aaron] Or other universes. - I wonder if there's a
nice shortcut to sneak up to actual trauma that happened
to you as a therapy device. I just, so putting Scientology aside, I just, I'm thinking about,
as a technique for therapy, discussing, basically, you
know, some people have trauma, and one of the things you do with therapy is like bring the trauma to the surface, that's the stuff that
happened to your childhood. Maybe it's a more convenient thing to do to kind of map that
indirectly onto a fictitious telling of what happened to you, something like that trauma,
on a distant planet elsewhere. It could be a nice way to sneak up to it. - Yeah. And it goes both flows there, not just things that have happened to you, but things that you've done. - [Lex] Yeah. - So, you know, you
could be being asked for, you know, you'd be going back to, "I wiped out a civilization." - [Lex] Oh wow.
- "I committed genocide on, this race on this planet." - [Lex] Oh wow. - Oh, yeah. - So you can actually
take on a whole new guilt? - [Aaron] Oh, yeah. - So I, okay, all right, you might actually take on a
lot more guilt than let go of, because if you feel like
self-critical aspect of the brain, boy, 'cause I'm, my brain
is really self-critical, so I could see myself manufacturing, if I was forced over time, some kind of story where I did genocide a whole population of
like Pluto or something at a distant, somewhere in Alpha Centauri. - [Aaron] Yeah, so I mean. - And now I walk around with that guilt. "Wait, I'm actually a horrible person." - So imagine though, if you had, not only are you looking at, you know, if someone's being self-critical, trying to identify destructive
patterns of behavior in your present life, but
what if you really internalize the fact that "I haven't only
been this way for 40 years." - [Lex] Yeah. - "I've been this way
for 40 trillion years." - [Lex] Yeah. - But Scientology would
argue that, as a thetan, you're inherently good. All thetans are basically good, so the goal of the
auditing procedure there would be essentially to figure out, find the moment, find what
it was that caused you to make that shift as a being, to dramatize, you know, evil
intentions and stuff like that. So even if you're going whole track looking at all the
horrible things you'd done, the goal is to find like, "Well, what happened just prior to that? What was like the prior confusion and what did you misunderstand
just before that?" and whatnot. So the goal is basically,
so Scientologists, after a lot of auditing, are also convinced that
they have fixed the reason for any non-optimum conduct. - And underlying this is a belief that, at the core, we're all good? - [Aaron] Yes. - There's a lot of really
powerful ideas in Scientology. - [Aaron] That's true.
- Which is so interesting that it goes wrong. - [Aaron] Yeah.
- Okay. What about the training? You mentioned the training of the auditor. That's really interesting.
- [Aaron] Yeah. So what's, how lengthy is that process? - It can take years. - I mean, one of that
questions I wanna ask is, are people in Sea Org, like as an auditor, do you believe everything? How much, is there a crisis
of faith that creeps in? In religion, you have a crisis of faith when you start to wonder
like, "Does God even exist?" So in this case, how often
do you start to doubt that some of the core beliefs
of Scientology are false? - Scientology would say that Scientology is not about beliefs,
it's about application of the techniques of Scientology auditing to improve someone's spiritual
awareness and ability. So the belief level of Scientology is pretty much the stuff
we've already discussed. - The effectiveness of
the auditing process? - So the effectiveness
of the auditing process, this is one of the things Hubbard says, is that standard tech, standard, Scientology, they call it the tech, the technology of how to deliver auditing, standard tech, works 100% of the time when applied 100% correctly. Well that's kind of unfalsifiable, right? - [Lex] Yeah. - Because anytime it doesn't work. - It wasn't applied correctly. - Exactly. That's a nice little escape hatch to pull on having a crisis of faith. "Well, it didn't work!" "Well, then obviously, it
wasn't applied correctly." - [Lex] Yeah. - That's where quality control comes in. Their job is to nitpick, and you can always find one thing that wasn't done correctly. - Communism didn't work because it wasn't implemented correctly. It's the, it's always, it's always, it's always an escape
hatch with ideologies. - [Aaron] That's right.
- For sure. - That's right. I would probably argue that auditors are not in a position of
having many crises of faith, 'cause actually, they're
usually seeing people, for the most part, improve in some ways through the process of auditing. Now, auditing can create like a state, somewhat of a euphoric state. You feel great, you're
just blown outta your head, you know, you feel, you're
on top of the world. I've had that in some of my auditing. - As an auditor, sorry? - [Aaron] No, as the
person receiving auditing. - Okay. - And so, my point is, as an auditor doing a lot of auditing, you know, you're gonna have
someone in front of called, the pre-clear is the
person in front of you who's getting the auditing,
called the PC or the pre-clear. They see, over and over and over again, these PCs having these
sort of euphoric states and floating needles, and "I
feel great and fantastic." "Oh thanks, you saved my
life" and da da da da da. Like, I've always said, if people didn't find Scientology helpful, nobody would ever stay in Scientology. - Right. - Right. And so, auditors are pretty much the ones doing the heavy lifting
of what it even means to be a Scientologist. Those guys aren't the ones that you end up having crises of faith. I mean, doing Scientology auditing, it doesn't require that you believe, just have faith that
you believe something, you just have to go through these motions, and Scientologists, one of
the reasons Scientologists think this is all scientific
is 'cause it's like, "I don't care if you
believe why this works, I care how you feel at the
end of an auditing session." - And empirically speaking,
like anecdotal data is, it actually seems to
improve people's lives within the context, so taking the outside world out of it, within this particular organization, you're actually measurably
seeing improvement? - [Aaron] Yes. - Is that, to some degree, real, because like if you look at
a book like "Animal Farm" where the pigs start to
rule the other animals, and over time, the life of the animals gets worse and worse and worse
while the pigs keep saying that it's actually getting
better and better and better. Again, communism, same thing. The rationing is getting
worse and worse and worse, less and less food, but
there's constant reporting that there's more and more food. We're winning! Hashtag. - I would argue that what
you've just described, it could be an identical
description of what it feels like and what it means to go up Scientology's Bridge to Total Freedom. You are reinforcing to yourself that everything's getting
better and better and better, and you'd be like, you don't spend time
with your family anymore. - Yeah. - You're broke, even though
you make a lot of money. You're always stressed. You're at the beck and
call of these people who seem to run your lives, like how a Scientologist
feels about their own life is, it's very interesting to compare that to how that person's life looks to their non-Scientology family members. - Mm-hmm. - I get contacted by a lot of people who've never been in Scientology, but they're like "I got a
family member who's really deep and I just, can you help
me understand some things? Why is this person's life like this? Why is this person's life like this?" So I don't wanna say that
Scientologists do not actually, I don't wanna say, "Oh,
it's all in their heads. They think they're being
helped, but they're really not." That doesn't feel honest, you know? But it's this thing where, if Scientology was just getting
auditing when you wanted about the subjects you wanted and you could take it or
leave it, that would be fine. It's the fact that it's part and parcel to this entire organization
and this entire experience that has, as a part of that experience, taking everything from you, demanding everything from you, controlling who you can speak with, controlling who you can
have relationships with, who you have to erase from your life. This is where, and it's hard to, it's hard to place one pinpoint on "This is where Scientology goes wrong." It's really hard to do that because the good parts of Scientology and the bad parts of Scientology
are all just Scientology. - Yeah, so there's definition
of what's bad for you, and it's probably, in the
beginning, is bad for you. This almost just sounds like a template of a toxic relationship. You know, there's a bunch
of stuff in this world that is just not good for you, so the authoritarian says like, "I'm just protecting
you by blocking you off from those negative things," and they're probably, they
are probably negative things, but then this like, this
freedom starts closing in to where you can't no longer speak freely, think freely, act freely, and then there's some, I
mean that's why sort of power corrupts and absolute
power corrupts absolutely. That person doing the controlling actually starts getting that like dopamine rush of the
controller, that's exciting, and it's a vicious negative cycle. So you start out as a, it starts out good 'cause you're trying to
do good for the person, but then it somehow goes to shit. - [Aaron] Yeah. - So what are the aspects that just, that are often controlled, about a person who's in
Scientology, especially Sea Org? - Well, information control,
access to the internet, access to any information
critical of Scientology. - Is some internet access allowed? - Public Scientologist has no restrictions to their access to the internet, they're just not allowed to read anything critical of Scientology. - Oh, okay. So they're self, they're
supposed to self-control what they read or not, and
what's the explanation? Is it always assumed that anything critical of Scientology is a lie? - Mm-hmm. They've really pushed this thing that unless you've been in a
Scientology organization yourself, or unless you've actually
been a Scientologist, you couldn't possibly know
the truth about Scientology. If you're only getting information from people who aren't
members or former members, then you couldn't possibly be getting the correct information. Now, they don't realize the
math there doesn't make sense. If you can find out the true information by becoming and being a Scientologist, then that means you can
get the correct information from a former Scientologist, because they traveled that path and they got the correct information. - [Lex] Mm-hmm.
- So they still create this, they try to create this
unfalsifiable loop, where unless you are personally doing it, you don't have correct information, and you go, "Well, what about the people
who did personally do it, got the correct information, left, and are now sharing
that with others?" "Well, no, those are lies." "Well, okay, so just anything
you don't like is a lie then?" And you go "Yeah, pretty much. That's kind of how it,
that's kinda how it works." - So what about the control
of negative information on the internet? What, like the actual operations? I've, you know, preparing, I should admit, I don't know
too much about Scientology, and I was doing a bunch of reading and the Wikipedia page on
Scientology, interestingly enough, is not that negative about Scientology. So like, it made me ask, you know, you have to
be a little bit careful how you consume stuff from Wikipedia. You have to consider, because
money can buy things there, there's certain special
interests and so on, but like, it made me wonder, like with a lot of controversial topics, what is true and where do I look? Where do I go for truth? So like, how much sort
of deliberate action is there to control what is true on the internet by Scientology? - Well, these days, they've pretty much, I think, thrown in the towel, but - [Lex] They have. - Scientology middle management
was editing Wikipedia so often from IP addresses that were traced back to
the Scientology buildings, that Wikipedia locked them
out from any IP addresses associated with Scientology
from being able to edit it. It's like Scientology was so infatuated with trying to control the information, and in the early days of the internet, they had a certain degree
of success with that. They just, it's just hopeless these days. - It's the scale, the scale is not there, but actually, I'm very
surprised how bot farms, how effective that can
be at a very small scale. - [Aaron] Mm.
- If you just pay a hundred people, just spread narratives, but the bad stuff, the reason that's effective
is you can kind of create conspiracy
theories that create chaos and nobody knows what is true, that, bot farms can do, but actually really nicely
control a narrative is hard. So to create chaos, it's easier to do. To basically say like, you know, do PR control is very hard. Yeah, so especially, on the internet, especially
when the critical eye is there, the internet can smell bullshit, which is one of the really,
really powerful things about the internet. - And I gotta tell you, it's one of the reasons
I do my YouTube channel. It's one of the reasons I
decided to upload every day. I've uploaded every day
for the last six months. I just wanted there to be a
non-stop flow of information of any kind in any variety, as long as it's fair and balanced,
intelligent, interesting, that Scientologists who
stumble upon the internet will go, "Oh, look, someone's
talking about my thing. Let's see what they got going on" and "Oh, I know this guy." The fact that Scientology
crushes so much information, before, before YouTube, before, like, I have the only like
big Scientology channel, and that only got big
in the last six months. - [Lex] Mm-hmm. - Okay, so before that, there were channels, there was things, but it's almost like it took a lot of, like people felt like it had took a lot of bravery and courage to like, say something on the
internet about Scientology, and so people would pop up and there weren't very many voices, and I was like, "I want
this to be prolific." I want to be prolific. I want to have 30 or 40
other channels being prolific so that Scientology couldn't possibly successfully control
the narrative about it. - Have you been personally attacked? - AaronSmithLevin.com is a website created by the Church of Scientology. Have you seen it? - No. What kind of content is on there? - Oh, "Aaron's an abusive father and a horrible husband and the worst staff member we've ever had" And, oh, I openly talk about it, because I think the fact that Scientology even does things like
that is fucking hilarious. - [Lex] Yeah. - And anything they try to do to me, I'm, the way I think about it is, you know you're just
giving me an opportunity to turn the mirror back on you and show everyone how horrible you are. - Does it stick? - [Aaron] No. - So you find that there is ineffective. - It's completely ineffective. They are so over the top, and well, I'll tell you how the website even came into being. So I was on the first season of "Leah Remini: Scientology
and the Aftermath." Every single person who
participated in that show got a website. (Aaron laughing) It's just that everyone
else's website is like, WhoisMarkHeadley.com, WhoisMikeRinder.com. Well, I bought, WhoisAaronSmithLevin.com, but I was too stupid to buy Aaron, I didn't buy AaronSmithLevin.com, so I'm actually the only one who has a website in their name. - Oh, nice. - [Aaron] Yeah, and I'm like.
- Dot com. - I can probably get a
lawyer to get it back for me, but I'm like, "Why?" I want everyone to see
what a nasty, petty, disgusting organization that this is, and nobody believes anything
Scientology says, anyway. - Does the general public know that it comes from Scientology? - Pull it up. It says right on the bottom, "Copyright 2000, whatever, Church of Scientology International." Like they didn't even try to hide it. - So AaronSmithLevin.com. - Yeah. "A man with no moral compass." - "Aaron Smith, who is he really? Aaron Smith Levin, a man
with no moral compass. Read about Aaron Smith-Levin, an angry man spreading hate
from the Internet's shadows." An open mouth shot. And you're saying like at the, wow, there's testimonies. - Oh, there's videos
from former co-workers. - "The slightest thing just sets him off and he just goes totally nuts." Well, that one is true. I didn't understand why you slapped me before the interview.
(Aaron laughing) I felt that. - They've got links to
everyone else's website on the bottom. It's so funny. - Who is?
Okay. - [Aaron] But look like.
- Leah Remini - 2021, Church of
Scientology International. All rights reserved. Here's an example of just Scientology's complete lack of self-awareness. So me and Mike Rinder, we went halfises on like a
house flip project, right? You know?
- Wait, Mike Rinder? - [Aaron] You know Mike Rinder. - Do I? You gave me a bobblehead of the guy. I don't know him. I just, I would like to
talk to him about them, but this, there's a
very fine gentleman here with a bobblehead. - The reason we created
that, the bobblehead. - [Lex] Yeah.
- Is because on Mike Rinder's hate site, Scientology created a gif or a gif, how do you say it? What's the right way to say it? - The correct way is gif. - Gif, good.
- [Lex] Yeah. - Scientology created a gif of
Mike Rinder as a bobblehead. It was an insult, like "Oh, all he does is sit
next to Leah Remini and go 'Yes, Leah, yes, Leah,'" and so they made a gif
of him with a bobblehead. So we were like, "We're gonna
make Mike Rinder bobbleheads and we're gonna sell ''em on theSPshop.com to raise money for The
Aftermath Foundation. - [Lex] I love it.
- Yeah, and now that I've. - [Lex] So go out and buy. - Yeah, go to theSPshop.com and get yourself a Mike Rinder bobblehead. Now look, now that my profile's
getting a little higher, this head was made to bobble like this. - [Lex] Yeah. - This smooth, shiny head
- [Lex] Yeah. - Needs its own bobblehead now. - It does, it 100% does. I can't believe it doesn't exist. - So, but let me show you, so here's what's happening here. We just hired some day
laborers off of what, like Craigslist or something? - [Lex] Yeah. - So what Scientology did was they had a private
investigator stake out the house flip project. They were clearly running license plates of anyone who visited the property, because otherwise, how would they find out the laborer's names, look,
do background checks on them. - [Lex] Yeah. - To find out they had criminal records, and they published this as if it's gonna reflect negatively on me. - [Lex] Yeah. - Oh, we hired someone to do
work who had a criminal record? Who gives a shit? You know, one of the biggest problems people with records have
is finding employment. - [Lex] Yeah. - There's nothing bad about hiring someone who's got a criminal record. It doesn't reflect negatively on me. - [Lex] Wait.
- But it shows you what they think about those people. It shows you what they think about people who are trying to put
their lives back together and maybe, you know,
actually work for a living, and it also shows that
they're surveilling us. Like they don't realize
that, putting this up, they're publishing information
that they could only have if they're surveilling me and Mike, and it doesn't occur to them, "Maybe we shouldn't put that up." - Just the general process,
sad to say, of journalism where they're looking
for any kind of dirt, and it's, they're trying
to conjure up a story and there's something about
drama and negative stories that get clicks and so on. So this is a general process. The more, especially the
more celebrity you become, the more these kinds of attacks come, and they look for any kind
of thing that could be, you know, it doesn't
even have to be facts, it could be just asking
"Who is he really?" seems to have traction on the internet. - [Aaron] Yeah. - What is the actual truth of the man you keep claiming you are, of the good man you keep claiming you are? - [Aaron] Right. - It's fascinating, but
sometimes it can be effective. But I think if you're being
transparent and authentic and just putting yourself out there completely in your story, completely, then that's the best way to fight it. - That's the other reason to be prolific on the internet, right? The reason Joe Rogan can't get canceled is because anyone can
watch thousands of hours of the authentic Joe Rogan. You can't misrepresent him, 'cause he spent thousands of hours representing himself genuinely. - Yeah. The nice thing, when you're
representing yourself genuinely, you should be a good person, so if you're a good person,
then the internet will know. - Yeah. - They can smell out the bullshit. Who is David Miscavige? It's even like, 'cause
you said L. Ron Hubbard founded Scientology. - [Aaron] Yeah. - Let's go to the story
of how we transitioned from that to David Miscavige. - The current leader of Scientology, he was actually not selected
by L. Ron Hubbard to take over, but ended up usurping
power and taking over. - This sounds like Stalin and Trotsky and communism, similar story. It's the person, oftentimes
in these situation, it's not the natural successor to power, it's the one that takes power. - Right. I think the quote, sometime it gets attributed
to David Miscavige, is "Power is not given, it is assumed." - Yeah.
- Something like that. The last six years of
L. Ron Hubbard's life, he was off into seclusion,
essentially hiding from lawsuits. Now, by the time Hubbard
went off into seclusion, Miscavige had sort of already risen up through the ranks of the Sea Organization. Now Miscavige was like a teenager, either like 11, 12, 13
or something like that. Miscavige was not born into Scientology, but he was a young, a young boy when his father got into Scientology. - [Lex] Mm-hmm.
- Okay. So Miscavige did start
working as a Sea Org member, So there's one organization that existed to essentially serve Hubbard directly and to represent his interests, and that was called "The Commodore." He was the Commodore of
the Sea Organization, the Commodore's Messengers Organization. We're gonna call it the CMO. Miscavige started working
for the CMO pretty early on in his Sea Org career, by
the way, as did Mike Rinder. Mini Mike. Okay.
(Aaron laughing) And so, he just became known as a doer, like a guy who will get it done. No excuses, no stops,
you know, get it done. So he had made a name
for himself in the CMO around the time, by the time Hubbard went off into seclusion. Now, when he went off in his seclusion, he took two other CMO, I'm
gonna call them Messengers, right, Commodore's Messengers. He took two other messengers with him, Pat and Annie Broker. Now, it has been said by people, Mike, Mike Rinder has told me, he goes, "The reason Pat
and Annie went off with LRH isn't necessarily because he
desperately wanted them to, but partly because we could
afford to let them go. We didn't necessarily need them." - Sure, sure. - Okay, and between the two of them, Annie was the one who was like a really compassionate
person, intelligent person, caring person. - Was there a possible
trajectory of this world where she was the one that took over? - Yes. In fact, Pat and Annie Broker were the two people that were
supposed to take over. Okay. But because Pat and Annie were
with Hubbard in seclusion, Miscavige basically had the complete run of the operation without
any oversight from Hubbard. The only way any information would get from Scientology world to Hubbard is Miscavige and Pat Broker would meet at a confidential location and Miscavige would give Broker any information
he wanted to go to LRH. So if Miscavige wanted
to get rid of somebody, all he had to do was feed
LRH false information that this person was doing, had been caught doing
something treasonous, and then he would get, in response, some order from L. Ron Hubbard
to get rid of this person. So are there so many similarities between various communist
regimes and fascist regimes? - Well, Hitler did the same thing when he became the supreme leader. He had to take power. Yeah. He had to wait for the president to die, but the whole time there's
a control of information and a slow aggregation of power. Of course with nations is different, 'cause if you control the
military, you control a lot. So there's, you have to
also get the Generals on your side and so on, but I'm sure, in this situation there is similar kind of dynamics. You have to get certain
people on your side, control the flow of information, let the original founder,
the original leader, die off. - [Aaron] Yeah. - And make sure that you are the one that's left with the power. - Right. So whereas Pat and Annie are off with LRH, all of Scientology's
attorneys and accountants and lobbyists and whatever,
they all know Dave. Dave's the one they deal with. So you know, LRH passes away. Pat and Annie make this appearance. Nobody knows Pat and Annie, everybody knows Dave, and so he ended up getting
rid of Pat and Annie. This is a very short, perhaps slightly
bastardized version of it, of Miscavige, basically, they had been ushering
just suitcases of cash to L. Ron Hubbard during this time, and you know, Pat like,
so you have Miscaviage handing boatloads of cash to Pat Broker. Pat would do crazy things like hide the money in the walls of houses and dig pits and everything, so Miscavige basically
threatened to turn Pat Broker over to the IRS for tax evasion. That's, Pat Broker's still alive. - Is he a Scientologist or no? - No, he basically went away
and kept his mouth shut. - [Lex] What about Annie? - She died a handful of years ago. She stayed a loyal Sea Org
member until the very end, but literally like Miscavige
put her on menial tasks like, like she had no authority whatsoever. She was just put on menial tasks. I mean, washing dishes, but
not really groundskeeper, just, just stupid low-level
assistant, paper-pusher stuff. She never operated with
any actual authority, even though she was supposed
to be the one to take over, her and Pat. - So on David Miscavige, difficult question, but
can you make both the case that he is a good man who is misunderstood and the case that he's not a good man? - First of all, I believe that Miscavige is a true believer in Scientology. I do believe that. - [Lex] That's a really
important question. - Yeah. - Do you think he believes
in all the thetans and all of that? - He definitely believes in that. I think he believes in Scientology, but in a different way than
all other Scientologists, because he's aware of
a lot more information. - [Lex] Yeah.
- Damaging information about L. Ron Hubbard and the
true story of Scientology than most people, so his
version of belief is different. I'll give you one example here. So Scientology's Bridge to Total Freedom goes up to what they call OT eight, operating thetan level eight. - [Lex] Mm-hmm.
- Okay. Scientologists have all been
told that L. Ron Hubbard, before he passed, finished, completed, putting together 0T 9, 10,
11, 12, 13, 14, and 15, it's just sitting in the
vault waiting to be released. This is part of the
Scientology belief system, because remember I said going up Scientology's
Bridge to Total Freedom is how you're supposed to get back to your native, God-like state. Well, all the Scientologists in the world who've already done OT eight know that they haven't gotten there, but they still believe in Scientology because they're told there's more. "But wait, there's more!" - [Lex] Mm-hmm.
- Miscavige knows there is no more. So Miscavige knows the fundamental promise of being able to achieve full
operating thetan is a lie. He knows L. Ron Hubbard
didn't accomplish that, so therefore, no one else is
going to accomplish it as well. If L. Ron Hubbard had accomplished it, Miscavige knows, well
he didn't write it up. He didn't leave instructions for how anyone else would accomplish it, so no matter what, Miscavige knows that
the fundamental promise, what Scientology is
saying they will be able to deliver to mankind is a lie. Now, it's gonna sound like
I'm contradicting myself, 'cause it sounds like I'm saying "Well he knows it's bullshit." I think he believes that L. Ron Hubbard just failed to finish his work and he's kind of hoping L.
Ron Hubbard's gonna come back to finish the job, 'cause L. Ron Hubbard did tell the people at the international management base, at least a core of them,
that he was coming back. Now, we know that David
Miscavige believed this, because right around the 21 year mark, he was supposed to come back
like 21 years after he died, right around the 21 year mark, David Miscavige was getting busy putting some things in
place that had to get done in case L. Ron Hubbard came back. So we know he at least
believed to that level. - Did he believe that like L. Ron Hubbard can sort
of enter his own body? - [Aaron] No, that's not
how it works in Scientology. - Okay, so you can't have
a transfer of thetans? - If you were full OT, you could. - Can you describe the OT again? So OT levels, OT 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to the 8. What are they? What's, how do you get to level one? - I'm gonna answer this question by first connecting some dots. - [Lex] Yes.
- Okay. We spoke earlier in the interview about achieving your native, God-like - [Lex] Yes.
- State. That, in Scientology,
is called native state. Okay, native state and
full operating thetan mean the exact same thing. - [Lex] Mm-hmm.
- Okay, because at native state, you
are a fully operating thetan. You know, operating meaning
operating in your full capacity, so OT means operating thetan. So the upper confidential
half of Scientology's Bridge are called the OT levels,
the operating thetan levels, and these, and remember,
they're confidential, so most Scientologists
have not done these levels. They don't know what's on them. It is on these levels that you learn about the Xenu and the body thetan story. - Can you describe Xenu please? - We spoke earlier about how at the lower non-confidential levels
of Scientology's Bridge, Hubbard's saying that
what's wrong with you is your reactive mind. - [Lex] Yes.
- Okay. Well in Scientology, once you've gotten rid
of your reactive mind, that is what's called
the "State of Clear." - [Lex] Mm-hmm. - Okay, so after you've
finished State of Clear, the next thing on the
Bridge is the OT levels. Well, if you've already gotten
rid of your active mind, what the heck are you supposed to do now? Well now L. Ron Hubbard says, "Okay, first what was wrong with you was just your reactive mind, but now the next thing
you have to resolve, the next thing that's wrong with you, is you actually have tens
of thousands of thetans stuck to your body, and they all have their
own reactive minds. - [Lex] Oh, wow. - You have to audit the thetans. - How do you audit the thetans? Are these like different
shades of your inner mind and you just have to try
to access them somehow? - You use the E-meter,
just like we spoke about, except now, you've got a
divider that separates the cans so they don't short circuit and you hold both cans in one hand and you have the E-meter in front of you, so now you're auditing yourself. You are telepathically
talking to the thetans that are stuck to you. You are thinking the commands instead of saying them out loud, and you sort of do
drills where you practice looking for E-meter reads at
the instant you have a thought. You are telepathically auditing spirits that L. Ron Hubbard says
are stuck to your body. Does this sound like a recipe
for a mental breakdown? - Or a heck of a mental journey. Wherever that leads,
it could lead anywhere. It probably could lead to
a very bad place, right? - It very often does. And you combine that with the fact that Scientology is against any forms of mental help or health
outside of Scientology, and you have a recipe for disaster. Now you might go, "Where did all these spirits come from that are stuck to your body?" This is where Xenu comes into play. So Hubbard says that 75 million years ago, Xenu was basically a dictator at, the Galactic Confederation
is like 70 something or 80 something planets, sits
somewhere in the Milky Way, and Xenu was like a dictator, an overlord, for either one of these
planets or the whole system, and they had a population problem, and Xenu was like, "We need to get rid of
like half the people, so we called them all in for tax audits." L. Ron Hubbard didn't like the IRS, so of course, the story
has to do with tax audits. Okay, called ''em all in for tax audits. Said "Psyche, bitches!" Froze them in glycol, loaded
them up on space planes, flew them to Earth. Remember, the story has to be earth, because the story is what's wrong with us. Flew them to earth,
dropped them in volcanoes, blew them up with hydrogen bombs, and then captured them
with like spirit magnets. I'm making up words 'cause, okay. - [Lex] Okay. - And these disembodied
spirits of these people that got blown up have just
been blowin' in the wind here on Earth, and they
attach themselves to things and they can be in the environment and they stick to bodies and everything, and so, and they all have reactive minds. So at Scientology's upper levels, if you get sick or you have cancer or there's something wrong with you, Scientology will say "That's
one of your body things. You need to get some auditing
to fix the body thing." - So this story, you do it with
a kind of bit of a chuckle, but when done seriously, so
it's just told in a serious way, like or written down? - [Aaron] It's written down.
- And you read it? - By most accounts,
Scientologists struggle when they read this for the first time, because this is not consistent with what Scientologists are hoping
for is on the OT levels, they're hoping for some
real life-changing magic. - [Lex] Yeah. - The way these things
are described and sold, they're, remember, they're
hoping that these OT levels are gonna make them, give them the ability to go like completely independent
of their body at will. - [Lex] Yeah. - Esterize from your body,
go back into your body, you know, like have
some real spirit powers. - So first is kind of a shock, this is, but then you still
probably believe, you hope. - [Aaron] Yeah. - And you might turn on yourself
self-critical that this is, "I'm just not strong enough yet." - Yeah, also part of the Scientology, remember, it works 100% of the time when used 100% correctly, and if it doesn't, it could be because something's
not being done right, but it also could be because
you're doing bad things that you're not telling people about. Like if you're committing
present time over its crime sins, Scientologists would be like, "That's part of the reason
auditing isn't working on you is because you're
committing criminal behavior that you're not being honest about." So every Scientologist
is sort of incentivized to make auditing work on them, okay? Now Lex, this is where
it gets a little crazy. On OT three, you learn about the OT, the body thetans for the first time. When you finish OT three, you attest to having achieved this state of having no more body thetans. And then you start OT four, and he is like "Psyche! You got more! You got more BT's! Except those other BT's,
they had drug problems, and that's why you couldn't
find ''em the first time. So we're gonna do a something
a little different here, do something a little different here, gotta get rid of these BT's
that were addicted to drugs." Okay? Then you finish OT four
and you're thinking "Man, I hope we get to
the good stuff soon," and then you get to OT five and he is like "Psyche! You got more BT's! You couldn't find these BT's 'cause they were all bunched
up together in clusters, and first you have to
break up the clusters, and then you can get rid of the BT's." and you're like, "Okay, gotta do that." - And this was all L.
Ron Hubbard approved? - Yeah, this is from L. Ron Hubbard. And then, after you finish OT five, you get rid of all the BT clusters, OT six is just a training course to teach you how to audit OT seven. Well, OT seven is now more BT's, except it's in the environment and stuff. You're trying to locate BT's. You can find ''em on your
body, but it's just more BT's. Okay, and then OT eight is,
remember we talked about, in all these auditing sessions throughout the entire Scientology Bridge, you have people who've
run hundreds or thousands of past-life whole track incidents. These memories have become
part of their self-identity, of who they even think they are. - [Lex] Yeah.
- OT eight, you go through all
these past life recalls, and essentially, I'm
oversimplifying this a little bit, he goes, "Psyche! All those past life
memories weren't yours. They were your BT's." And he goes, "Now that
you've discovered this, now you know who you are not, and you are ready to find
out who you really are." Well now, you're supposed to
find out who you really are on OT nine and 10. Those don't exist! - Do we know they don't exist? - Yes. In fact, the whole story
of how that became known. - [Lex] Yeah.
- Is part of how David Miscavige was able
to get rid of Pat Broker and take over power, because it was believed
that Pat Broker had been, was in possession of the
upper unreleased OT levels, and when Miscavige
determined that he was not, and there weren't in fact any levels, that was bad, that was a bad
day to be David Miscavige, 'cause he now knew he had
something on his hands he could not get himself out of. He's like, "Oh, shit." - So there's no gap for faith to seep in that there is a level
nine and 10, 11 and 12? - Oh, the faith is there. Scientologists believe
that these things do exist. - [Lex] Yeah. - L. Ron Hubbard didn't
leave anything behind. - Does David Miscavige believe they exist? - Oh no, he knows, he knows they don't exist. No meaning when I say exist. Oh, I don't mean do advanced levels of spiritual awareness exist? When I said is, I mean, did L. Ron Hubbard write down
what anyone is supposed to do - [Lex] Yeah.
That's called OT nine? That doesn't exist. - So you're saying
David Miscavige believes that they can be written
down so they exist, sort of in a platonic sense, and L. Ron Hubbard is the only one that can write it down? - [Aaron] Yes. So his faith is really deep? - Oh, you mean his faith
that only L. Ron Hubbard could have ever been the one to do it? - [Lex] Yeah.
- Yes. The full principles,
beliefs of Scientology. He is, do you have, are
you sure he believes? - About what exactly? - Everything about Scientology? That it's true? - To the best of my ability to know that, I believe it to be true. Like, I'll give you small
and even stupid examples, like Mike Rinder's told a story where, at the international base, Miscavige actually had like a copper, a contraption built into the ground, like grounded into the ground, to come out where you could hold it and hear something he sort of came up with to your BT, it could ground your BT's, could get your BT's that, if you were feeling
overstimulated or something, I'm probably slightly
bastardizing this story, but he came up with this as a great idea, of something to help someone de-stimulate if their BT's were getting
a little too overactive use. Now, so that, that's a stupid
story that's sort of like, well it shows you he believes
in the concept of BT's if he's creating little
rods to get rid of them, to ground them into the earth. - Well, he could be
conjuring up the stories because he understands the
power of myth and narrative and so on to, to inspire - [Aaron] Sure. To, but like, but also
if we look at history, both with, this is the interesting thing, because I've been reading a
lot about Hitler and Stalin and it seems like both of
them, in different ways, believed in the stories
they we're telling, even when the stories,
this is the fascinating, especially with Hitler and propaganda, where they were literally
conjured up at first. - [Aaron] Hmm. - But then you start to
believe you're own propaganda. With Stalin, I think
what he always believed is the bigger ideal of pure communism and anything justifies
the journey to communism because it will ultimately
be good for humanity to achieve the state of pure communism, and then, he's a God-like figure that can bring humanity there, but like with Hitler, it's
interesting because like, there's constant propaganda
that he knows is not true, a little bit, there's gotta be doubt, but then he like did, all
doubt was removed very quickly. - [Aaron] Yeah. - So I guess humans are just,
this is how they operate. - Yeah. The conversation about David Miscavige gets really interesting,
because I could give you a, if I wanted to make the
argument that he didn't believe, I could give you a dozen
examples to make that argument. - [Lex] Yeah. I just happen to think that he believes in a different way. - [Lex] Yeah. - Whereas your average Scientologist believes that L. Ron Hubbard
was practically infallible, that he thought of everything in advance, he took care of everything before he left, and Miscavige still believes in like the main structure of
this thing, but he's like, "Oh she, it's befalling
to me to figure out how to actually make this thing happen." I think Miscavige sees
himself as someone who has, to a certain degree, had to go back and fix L. Ron Hubbard's mistakes. - Do you think he sees himself
as doing good for the world? - [Aaron] I do. - What about for the
people of Scientology? - I think, in his own way, he does. I don't think he wakes up thinking he's screwing Scientologists. I think he sees everyone
else as screwing him. I think he sees that it is his job to expand Scientology throughout the world and accomplish the aims of Scientology, and he sees that it's not happening, and he thinks if everyone
else would just stop, if everyone else would get out of his way and stop creating problems
for him, it would happen. Like I do think he seems to sees himself as someone who is doing good. I think that's fair to say. I think the evidence shows that. - What about the effects of, clearly power and influence
that he's had, and money? - Yeah. Without question, that has
served as a corrupting force. - It has?
- Without question. - Have you seen sort of evidence of that, that he's changed over time? - After the 1993 IRS exemption
that Scientology won back, and this information
comes from Mike Rinder, that's when David Miscavige, as soon as the checks on
his power were removed, Miscavige's behavior changed markedly. - Can you tell the story
of Shelly Miscavige and the mystery surrounding her? I saw that there is
quite a bit of mystery. - Yeah. So Shelly Miscavige, for many years, held the job of, her post
in the Sea Organization was David Miscavige's assistant. That was her post. It's important to truly understand
that and what that means, because the fact that
she was Miscavige's wife is meaningless, and this is
something that's hard to, for regular people in the
regular world to truly grasp how meaningless it is in Scientology, for Sea members who are spouses. It means nothing. - Your role matters more within Sea org. - Your role's the only thing that matters. So let's say, let's say if
Shelly was married to Dave, but she worked in a
different organization, she would never be seen with
him, ever publicly, ever. Wouldn't travel with him. Wouldn't go to events with him. Nothing. Sometime around 2006, 2007, and I'm very oversimplifying this, okay, Shelly basically pissed off Dave to the point where he's like,
"Okay, I'm done with you. I'm gonna take you off of your post." Okay, at that point, she was reassigned to another
confidential Scientology base up in Twin Peaks, California. Why am I, the reason I'm
providing this type of detail is because we hear that Shelly's missing. - [Lex] Yeah.
- Okay. Well you realize the
same people who report that Shelly's missing
are also the same people who will tell you exactly where she is? Okay, she works at this secretive CST, Church of Spiritual Technology base out in Twin Peaks, California. I have personal confirmation
that she was seen and spoken with by someone
who knew her well in, I'll say 2019. Shelly Miscavige is missing in the sense that she's hasn't been seen with David Miscavige
since about 2006, but because she's no longer his assistant, you would never see her with him. - As opposed to like
the mystery of a person that might be murdered? This is more of reallocation
within the organization. - Yes, certain people
who cover Scientology who have published stories
where Shelly Miscavige's family member told a story
to another family member who told the story to a friend who told the story to
a former Scientologist who told the story to a journalist who published the story, has created the impression
that some of Shelly Miscavige's family members are actually
talking to the press, when in fact, that has never occurred. And so the very people who are publishing about Shelly Miscavige missing
have contributed to the fact that Shelly Miscavige does no longer speak to those family members because she thinks they're talking to the
press when they never have. It's pretty messed up. - It's sad that she, 'cause
those family members, what, would be a way for her to recover, to flourish as a human being? To escape? - Yeah. So I believe the information
that I have that I've verified, I'm putting out inform, I'm the one representing it's true without revealing my sources. - [Lex] Sure. - That Shelly was still
actively in touch regularly with family members outside
of the Sea Organization until about 2014. So I mean regularly. Okay, so there's no
question about her safety during that period, and then someone else
who knew Shelly very well did see her and actually
have a conversation with her in a public place in 2019 or 2020. Now, somebody could still
come along and be like, "How do we know she's okay? It's been three years." Yeah, okay, you could
say that about anybody. You know, there's a, the nature of working in the highest levels of
Scientology management at these super secretive bases. It's a very weird and unique situation. - [Lex] Yeah. - It has isolation baked in. - How is secrecy enforced? Why is sec, why is everybody
holding onto their stories so intensely, people that
are within the organization? Like, it's hard to leak information. - Oh, they wouldn't wanna leak. They're true believers. They see, they see, like there's a, there's sort of a conspiracy theory that runs right through
all of Scientology, which is that Scientology represents like an existential threat to the powers that really control this planet. - Do they have a face to the
powers that really control? Do they have names to it? Like who's controlling? - It's Xenu's homies? - Well, I'm sure that's not what they say. Xenu embodied in? - It's actually sort of
a multifaceted conspiracy in that, on the one hand, L. Ron Hubbard points his fingers at like the international bankers. - [Lex] Okay. - Which has shades of anti-Semitism to it. - Yeah. And then the IRS is some is going to be quickly baked in or no? - The IRS, no. The IRS is so low on the totem pole. - [Lex] Oh. - As far as the, I mean
the international bankers, he would say runs everything. - [Lex] Got it.
- But use, that these bankers also use big pharma and big psych to control the population, and Scientology's famously
against pharma and psych, and so this is sort of how
L. Ron Hubbard characterizes like this big war between Scientology that's trying to set everyone free. - [Lex] Yeah.
- And big pharma and big psych that's trying to enslave
everyone on the planet. - Yeah. Controlling their mind, controlling their body through chemicals. - And who controls the press? Big pharma and big psych. - So there's a lot of correlation to other kinds of conspiracy theories? - [Aaron] Yeah. - Wow, that's fascinating. - But you asked a question where, why would all these people
hold onto their stories? They don't, they would never wanna leak, like by even, anyone
who would want to leak would not not even wanna
be a Scientologist anymore. Like if you truly believe, if you truly believe in Scientology, and you got your shoulder to the wheel and you're a Sea Org member, you think Scientology is
literally the only thing that can save every being on this planet from a fate of eternal
amnesia and slavery. - [Lex] Yeah.
- Right? And so it's like, I mean, you've seen "The Matrix," right? So you've got everyone, once you're unplugged from the matrix and you realize, yeah, you
could get plugged back in and live your nice life,
but you're a slave, that's how Scientologists see this planet. They actually, they they refer
to earth as a prison planet. - Just on an individual level, how's it possible to
reach a person like that? Like is there something
you could say to that? Like what's the journey of
reaching a person like that? - I personally, because
when I was in those shoes, I say there's nothing
anybody could have said to me to get me to change how I felt and thought about Scientology. It's almost foolproof. - [Lex] Yeah. - That the more evidence
you try to present, that there's something wrong
with what Scientology is doing, the more you're just
working for the psychs. - [Lex] Yeah. - You know, it's very, very difficult. I mean, most people who leave Scientology leave because they have had
some personal experience that was just such a grave injustice that it just pushed them beyond the point of what they were willing to experience. Very rare, I've never, I'm
not sure I've really ever heard a story of someone
going, "Yeah, I just woke up. You know, I just gradually
realized it was all BS and drifted away." You know, it's usually like, "No, I really believed and
they treated me so horribly, I almost had no choice but to leave" and then the stories get pretty crazy. - Meaning you don't care
what's true anymore, you just have to leave? - [Aaron] Yeah. - Just the unpleasant
feeling, the suffering. - Yeah. And this sort of goes back to
the conversation we're having about like, "Well does
Miscavige really believe?" and I said I could make
an argument for the fact that he doesn't, right, because I go, it wouldn't be that hard to change the way Scientology treats people. Just a little bit, and you'd
probably stop losing anyone, because Scientologists already believe to such a strong degree.
- [Lex] Yeah. - You have to be pretty
freaking horrible to people to make them leave. And that's where you go, "Well does Miscavige even
want Scientology to expand?" because if he was really
being clever about it, it seems like he could at
least stop the bleeding and yet he doesn't, so that's where you make the argument, "Well, if he doesn't then
he must not want to." - So his mind is corrupted to
the point where he's not able to actually be a good
businessman, essentially? - It seems that way. The numbers of Scientologists
have been going down and down and down since the early 90's. - Is there a good, I mean, it's very difficult to get to this number, but is there a good estimate
of what the current number of Scientologists,
practicing Scientologists is? - Oh yeah, I did a video about this. It's actually quite easy
to get to the number. It's not more than 35,000
in the entire world, and that's being very
generous and charitable. That's, I was intentionally generous. I broke it all down in a
spreadsheet and everything. - Yeah, what, can you
give like some insights of how you get that information? - Sure, there's about 175 to
200 Scientology organizations in the world. Anybody who's ever worked
at these organizations know there's not more than 35
to 50 staff members per org. There's not more than 100 to 200 public Scientologists per org. I broke down the number of Sea Org members who'd be working at every
continental management unit, middle management,
international management. I broke down the mission
network, and I was generous. I mean, my numbers were like
if L. Ron Hubbard came back and they were doing an event. - [Lex] Yeah. - L. Ron Hubbard was coming back and announcing OT nine and 10, how many Scientologists
could we scrape together in every city to come to this event? It wasn't more than 35,000. Now, contrast that to
what Scientology says, millions, 10 million people. - Is this less people
than there used to be? - Yeah, at its peak it was
about 100,000 active members. - [Lex] But never the millions? - Never.
No. - Has David Miscavige used violence? Has there, in your understanding
of it, in your estimation, sort of harassment, assault and actual, I don't know how to define
assault, but violence? - Oh, yeah. Dozens of former Sea Org members
from the international base have told stories of being
assaulted by Miscavige. In fact, Mike Rinder is
probably the one person who's been assaulted by
Miscavige more than anyone else. He's personally probably been
assaulted dozens of times. - Who is Mike Rinder? The man here. - One of the highest ranking
executives in Scientology. - He's an author. - There you go, "A Billion Years." - Oh, "A Billion Years." - It really is a fantastic book, 'cause Lex, the guy was born
and raised in Scientology and worked personally with L. Ron Hubbard and worked personally with
David Miscavige for decades, like doesn't get much
more insider than that. - "A candid and deeply
felt memoir of a life lost to false belief and
courageously regained." Lawrence Wright. "A Billion Years: My Escape From a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology." Mike Rinder. - It's a fantastic book. He also narrates his own audio book, too. I know you like the audio books. That's how I listen to them. - Yeah. - So Mike famously, you know,
I just said a moment ago, like someone who's treated so horribly, even though he still
believed in Scientology that he had no choice but to leave, and he tells the story in that book and he still believed in Scientology for years after he escaped, for years, 'cause there's this thing called the Independent Scientology Movement or the Free Zone or whatever, there are people who do Scientology outside of the Church of Scientology. There's just not many of them, but Mike was one of those people who was actually doing
Scientology even after he left. Now he no longer believes in that anymore and he doesn't do it, but even though he still believed, even though everything he knew was what he was leaving behind, he still had to leave it behind. - And by the way, I just
opened to a random page, and he says, "When I signed on for Sea Org in Adelaide in 1973, the recruiter promised I would train as a Scientology executive under the direct tutelage
of Hubbard on the Apollo." So this is another thing I
should probably ask you about. - [Aaron] Oh, we could go for days. - "I was also told that after I learned all I needed to learn at
the foot of the master, I would return to Australia
to help expand Scientology in my home country." So what was the thing
that really broke him? - The final thing is
when he got to a point where he was no longer being forced to lie to protect L. Ron Hubbard, he was now being forced to lie
to protect David Miscavige. - [Lex] Yeah. - And specifically, it
was about the allegations of having been assaulted by Miscavige. Mike Rinder was at some event, it might have been a grand
opening for a building, a Scientology building in London, and I believe it was John Sweeney, at that time, a BBC journalist who, you know, stuck a camera in
a microphone in Mike's face, "Is it true David Miscavige assaulted you? Is it true?" and Mike denied it on camera, and then turned around
and to himself was like, "This is what my life has been reduced to? Lying to protect David Miscavige? This used to be about L. Ron Hubbard. This used to be about Scientology." - [Lex] Yeah. - "Now it's about
protecting this douche bag?" And Miscavige had just issued orders that was gonna send Mike off to Australia. Miscavige, like Miscavige is sadistic. - [Lex] Mm-hmm. - That is without question. - Sadistic meaning? - He enjoys inflicting pain upon others. So he very specifically
was gonna tell Mike, tell Rinder, or "Tell that cocksucker we're shipping him off to Australia. He's never gonna see his
wife and his kids again," essentially, and that's
when Mike was like, "They were the only reason
I hadn't already left." - [Lex] Yeah.
- So if I follow the orders, I'm gonna lose them. If I leave Scientology,
I'm gonna lose them, but at least if I leave Scientology, I'll be free of something. It's fuckin' sad. - And he still believed
Scientology to some degree after he left? - Yeah.
- Is what you're saying? - Yeah. - Has he spoken about what it took to let go of believing in Scientology? - Yeah. He does a very good job
talking about all of this in the book, and it took him, it took
him like four or five years to get that book done, like, it's a polished version. It's a polished version of his story, and I think Mike's about getting ready to start his own YouTube channel, so that'll be a lot of fun. Actually, Mike comes on
my channel all the time. - Yeah, you guys do a
thing together, right? - Yeah, we do "The Three Amigos" with me and Mike Rinder and Mark Hadley. (Aaron laughing) That's why I gave you Mark's book, 'cause I thought maybe you would know him from our little "Three Amigos," our "Mondays with Mike and Mark" videos. Mark Hadley, "Blown for Good: Behind the
Iron Curtain of Scientology." - So he escaped from the
international base on a motorcycle. It's a wild story. I won't even try to do it justice, but. - Who's a better writer
of the two of them? (Aaron laughing) - You're not gonna get me there, Lex. - I'm trying to be an
investigative journalists once. - Mike and Mark are both on the board of The Aftermath Foundation with me. - [Lex] Yeah, yeah. - So.
- Who's better looking? (Aaron laughing)
- No, I'm just kidding. - It's one of my justifications for just putting up content every day is every video is just an excuse to, in some little way, promote
The Aftermath Foundation, and I do that, again, one to
genuinely help people escape, and two, 'cause I know it
drives David Miscavige crazy. - If you look in your own
heart, is there anger there? - I don't think it's anger. I don't hate, I don't hate Scientology. I don't hate David Miscavige. I don't even hate my
experience in Scientology. - So you are able to accept the good? - [Aaron] Yeah.
- From your experience? - Yeah, absolutely, but it's also the only
path that I traveled. - [Lex] Right.
- So I tend, okay, a little less so these
days, but earlier in life, I tended to attribute all
my positive characteristics in me to Scientology, 'cause in my simplistic way of thinking, I was like, "What else could
it possibly be attributed to?" - [Lex] Right. - That's a very black and
white way of seeing it. - That's a beautiful way to see life. No matter what happens to you, you attribute, like you
focus on the positive. - [Aaron] Yeah. - And you feel like if
sometimes people have traumatic experiences with parents and so on. - [Aaron] Yeah. - And if you focus on the positive, it's a good way to let go.
- [Aaron] Right. - Of the trauma associated with it. - True, but like another example would be like, I didn't go to school, Lex. I stopped going to school
in the seventh grade, but people go, "But you sound so smart" and what am I supposed to do, am I supposed to say, "Well
it's 'cause of Scientology," like how do I answer that question? Like, if it's the only path I traveled, - [Lex] Yeah. - How do I answer that question? I don't necessarily wanna
give Scientology credit, but what the hell am I
supposed to point to? - [Lex] Sure.
- You know? - I mean, you said
there's, you kind of enjoy, I mean part of it is
you joking and trolling, that you enjoy knowing
that your YouTube channel drives David Miscavige crazy. I mean, that means you still, I mean, there is a joy you have, right? - There is a joy. I'm not gonna deny that. - I don't know what to make of that, 'cause there's a, I
suppose there's an intimacy when you're part of a tribe of that kind. - It's almost like, let me try to, let me try to frame it. I wasn't trying to get
kicked out of Scientology. I was trying to not get
kicked out of Scientology. I, you know, so what happened first, first my mom got kicked out for basically talking some
smack about David Miscavige, and then they go to me and they go, "Okay, you've gotta
disconnect from your mom or you're gonna get kicked out," and I lied about that, and I was like, "Okay, I'll
disconnect," but I never did. For a couple years. I
lied my ass off about it. Eventually they were like, "This guy's gonna keep
lying to us," right, and they're like, "Yeah,
like all right, you're out." So then they go to my wife, and say "You gotta divorce your husband or you're gonna get kicked out," and she goes, "No." - That's a hell of a statement from her. - It's gonna get harder from here, so I'm not quite sure how to. Okay, so I'll try to,
I'll try to do my best. - You don't seem like a man
who's afraid of hard things. - Okay, so she's like, "No." So then they go to her
parents and they say, "You've gotta disconnect
from your daughter and your three granddaughters, or you're gonna get kicked out," but they have three other
kids who are Scientologists, who have spouses who are Scientologists, who have grandkids. So I feel like, up until that point, everybody was sort of making
a decision for themselves and what would be best for themselves, until they get to her parents, and then they're like, "Which grandkids are we gonna lose?" Okay? At the part where they were trying to get me to disconnect from my mom, there were hours that I
spent talking to them going, "You know, guys, there's another way." - [Lex] You know. - "It doesn't have to go this way. There's another way that
ends well for all of us," and that wasn't even considered. And I go like, "They created this monster, and that's a fact," and
that's why I take joy in it. When people ask me, "Is Scientology a destructive cult?" I don't even have to get into
all the academic discussions of what's a religion and what's a cult and what's the difference, I go, "As long as they
destroy families like that, they're a cult." - So they cut people off
deliberately one by one, and it doesn't have to be that way. - [Aaron] Right. - And why is it that way? - I mean, it started with L. Ron Hubbard laying out a policy
framework, a policy structure, that if interpreted and applied
in the worst possible way with the worst possible judgment
can be abused in that way. I would make the argument that if an Annie Broker had taken over, that Scientology policy does have enough little caveats baked into it, that even the policies about disconnection could be interpreted and implemented in a non-destructive way. There is room for judgment and discretion, and Miscavige has just created the worst possible version of Scientology, and that's where you sort
of get that argument of "Does he even want
Scientology to succeed?" 'cause he seems to be hell bent on making sure that he doesn't. - [Lex] Yeah. - And I don't want to
see him make it succeed, but it does bring that
question up of like, "What are his motivations? Can he not see that he's destroying the thing he's supposed to be expanding?" - That's also, you know,
there's ways to measure cost and that would probably
be the most costly aspect of Scientology is the suffering associated with the separating of families. - [Aaron] Yeah. - I mean that actually just puts, makes a very concrete,
what we value in human life is the connection to our loved ones, like everything else doesn't matter. Like getting $50 a week, like that, like getting
money stolen from you, getting the truth stolen from
you, none of that compares. You can even frame that as the good, as it could be a lot of
positives, whatever, in the tribe, but separating families,
separating loved ones, that's the destructive thing So no hate though? - No, I genuinely don't hate them. - Do you forgive them? - 100%. There's no one I look at
in Scientology that I go, "How dare you." If I was in their shoes, having to, you know, operate
under David Miscavige's orders, I would've done the same
thing and I would've loved it. Truthfully, I don't blame any of them. I mean, I take the opposite approach. If they knew what I knew,
they'd be doing what I'm doing. - [Lex] Yeah. - If they knew what I
knew and believed it, they'd be doing what I'm doing. They're not dumb. It's not dumb people in Scientology. - They're ambitious, they're dreamers, they got hope, they're driven,
all that kind of stuff. - Yeah. And it's one of the reasons I like putting up content on my channel, so they can see, "Hey," like if you are a Scientologist, you look at that and you go, "Hey, he seems like he's doing well. He's kind of, he's happy He's a positive guy. He's a good communicator. He knows what he's talking about. He's not lying. He's not exaggerating." I don't exaggerate anything on my channel. I don't make up anything, and this actually comes
from an experience I had. From 1998 to 2000, I was living in L.A. I sort of had a two year period in my life where I actually had almost
no contact with Scientology, and during that time, I found
my way onto the internet, and there was a website, it might have been ESMB,
Ex-Scientology Message Board but whatever it was, it was, at that time, the main source of critical information about Scientology on the internet. And I looked at it, and remember, I was still a true believer, and I looked at this
and it was so offensive, insulting, hyperbolic, exaggerated. I was like, "Oh, just
a bunch of bullshit," I was in Scientology for 16 more years. If what I had seen on the internet about, critical of Scientology, if what I had seen when I had seen it was something that
actually resonated with me that I was like, "Oh," that I believed was true,
that seemed credible, I would've gotten outta
Scientology 16 years earlier. So I was like, "How can I help create an
experience on the internet that if a Scientologist stumbles upon it, it will resonate with them
instead of repelling them?" And that is exactly what
I have set out to do and what I believe I've accomplished. - There's the content, the message, but also just showing
that you can be happy outside of Scientology. - Exactly. - [Lex] You can have a fulfilling life. You can be a good man. - Yeah. - All of that. What benefit do you think Tom
Cruise gets from Scientology? So why is he still in Scientology? - He genuinely loves it. And also Miscavige does, there's one celebrity who does have the most unique experience in Scientology, and that is Tom. Scientology hires all of Tom's staff. There are no, all of Tom's staff are subject to interrogations
by Scientology, not only in the hiring process, but during the employment, like David Miscavige and
Scientology runs Tom Cruise's life and his production company
and his household staff. - Do you imagine there's some
personal connection there where there's just, they
like each other a lot? - Best friends. I mean, it's them against the world. - [Lex] Yeah.
- Is how they see it. I think it's pretty easy
to see how that works between the two of them. - I think this idea of
them against the world, us against the world, is a really power, powerful, intimate, like, I kind of see like friendships and relationships that way,
that, not in a dark sense, but it's like the world is
full of cruelty and absurdity and unfairness and so on, and it's nice to huddle
together like the penguins in "March of the Penguins" against the cold.
(Aaron laughing) - [Aaron] 100%.
- And they're just like, and so especially with the
ideology of Scientology, it, this idea that you can be anything. You can essentially, I mean, you can manifest it essentially
through like believing it and you don't really
put it into those words, but believing that you're a God is a really like, inspiring,
positive thing to think. - If they could figure
out how to do all that without destroying families
and bankrupting its members, they might actually have a future. That's why, like, it's funny, 'cause sometimes I feel like
it's like I'm rooting for them to like succeed and do it right. - [Lex] Yeah.
- And I'm not, but it's an interesting
academic discussion to have of like, we can all see how much
people will sacrifice in the names of belief and religion. - [Lex] Yeah. - We can see how much
Scientologists sacrifice based on what they already believe. If he would just start
treating people less horribly. - [Lex] Yeah.
- You know what I'm saying? - [Lex] Yeah.
- It might actually have a future, not that I want it to. - It seems like this dark
lesson of human nature that they, that like
there's something about, you know, to use the word "cults," that you just stop seeing
reality for what it is because there's a lot of things that could make this a better organization that's actually helping people flourish and be a little bit more
like loose about membership. - [Aaron] Right.
- Not dividing families, not causing suffering, not
causing financial harm, but actually inspiring
people and helping people, but then it maybe, it
fundamentally changes what the organization is, and maybe that means
somebody like David Miscavige loses power, too, which
might be very difficult, or people that are close to him lose power and people hold onto power, so. - [Aaron] Yeah. - Whatever the human force is here, it seems to become worse
and worse over time. What about, oh, lemme ask
a conspiracy question. Is there a chance that Tom
Cruise is being blackmailed? That there's information from auditing? - No?
- [Aaron] No. So that kind of stuff is
not, that's very conspirator. - I've actually come out
and said definitively I do not know of a single
person who stays in Scientology because they're afraid
of being blackmailed. It's just not a thing. It's just not a thing. Does Scientology have enough information to blackmail someone if they want it to? Well, sure. I mean, and it doesn't
even have to be true. It could just be lies. Who cares, who knows? Scientology can say
whatever the hell they want. So that's the thing, it
doesn't even have to be true. - [Lex] Yeah.
- And actually, that would be the argument
against blackmailing. Like in order for Scientology to blackmail you with that information, they'd actually have to represent that, "Yes, he really did tell us this." And it's like, "Well then why are you
spilling secrets of members?" right, like it sets a bad precedent. - What are some of the sins
according to Scientology? - Most of the sins, from
a Scientology perspective, are just doing or saying anything that brings disrepute to
Scientology itself, right? Remember they don't, it's not like Christianity
where there's rules, "If you break this rule, you're
not getting into heaven." - [Lex] Yeah. - Because Scientology doesn't
think about things that way. - Oh, there's the drugs. You can't do drugs, right? - You can't do drugs and you can't take any
psychotropic medications. - And no medications almost at all? - You're allowed to take medications. It's just, there's no rules
expressly prohibiting it, it's just most Scientologists tend not to. You can take Advil, but
many Scientologists won't. - [Lex] Okay. Yeah. - You just can't take anything
prescribed by a psychiatrist, a psychologist, or any drugs
that are psychotropic drugs. I mean, SSRIs are considered probably the closest thing to pure evil
in the world of Scientology. - What about, weird
question, what about sex? Is there boundaries on what's? - There used to not be, it's become very puritanical
in the last many decades for a reason I can't actually explain. Like Miscavige does seem to be infatuated with controlling sex. - [Lex] Hmm. - Like that that is one
thing about Miscavige's version of Scientology
that's gotten very strange. I mean, L. Ron Hubbard even
specifically wrote a policy that says "We are no longer
going to regulate in any way the bedroom activities of people." He literally said "From this point on, no one is allowed to be
subject to any justice actions of any kind whatsoever
for anything they do in their sexual lives," but that was still, it did not give permission
for gay relationships. That was still referring
to straight stuff. - And monogamous only? Can you do promis-, like can you do open marriages
and open relationships? - According to that L.Ron
Hubbard policy, you can. - Yeah, but you know. - I think he wrote that policy before he created the Sea Organization, and then what happened is, this is actually how
this came into effect. He created the Sea Organization. You had a lot of people on a ship and everybody was just banging each other and it created just a nightmare
of personal relationship, that, it was, it was making
production impossible, not 'cause everybody was
spending so much time banging, but because everybody was so upset about who was banging who. - Yeah, yeah.
(Aaron laughing) - I mean there, sex and sex
and that kind of dynamic is really, I mean humans
do what humans do, and then there's drama and all that, and it understandable, 'cause
everybody's so intimate, it's a closed tribe. It makes sense to limit
sex, otherwise everyone's, but otherwise it becomes a sex cult. - [Aaron] Yeah. - Which a lot of them end up becoming. Well on that topic, would you classify Scientology as a cult? - 100%. But not because I'm like fully conversed with the academic differentiations between "What's a religion and what's a cult?" I mean, Scientology would say, "Well all small new religions are cults," and I don't know, that's probably true, and some people would say
"All religions are cults," and I'd be like, "Depends
on how you define religion, and it depends on how you define cults," but I just fall back on my thing of like, "If you are destroying families," - [Lex] Yeah. - "And bankrupting your
members, you are a cult." That's how I look at it. - It's us versus them, and the "them" could be your family, it could be your loved ones. That's deeply destructive, and one of the things you would probably throw into a definition of a cult is something that's actually destructive. 'Cause like I do a lot of
stuff that's occult-like, like jiu-jitsu, like there's a lot of
really close-knit tribes, but there's no negative toxicity to it. There's no divide. There's no divisions. Or if there is, it's more, boy, try being a fan of
a certain soccer team and then becoming a fan
of another soccer team. - [Aaron] That's hardcore
- And like. (both laughing) - But I'll tell you, I train jiu-jitsu as well, and I have found that community of people to be one of the most loving and helpful group of people ever. Shout out to John Keller
at Gracie Baja Clearwater. - [Lex] Nice. - No, but seriously, like it's one of, it's one of the reasons
I continue to do it, despite my back, my hip, my shoulder, it's like, it's just such
a cool group of guys. - The list goes on.
(Aaron laughing) - You used to not, I think it was much more
divisive in the beginning from his Brazilian roots. One of the things that's really hard is that the team-oriented, like if you're this team, you're ride or die with this team, and there's no (indistinct) they go to another team. - [Aaron] Yeah.
- And I think that aspect, that was actually a turnoff
for me in the beginning, the toxicity of that, because I understand that a
little bit for the elites, for the highest of the highest. - [Aaron] Right.
- But there is, I like the brotherhood and
the loyalty of the people, like the Olympic gold medalists, the, like the best in the world. - Yes. - [Lex] But for like recreational fun. - I know. - Like, it's like, this is all ultimately about the camaraderie of
all human beings together, not some whatever label
you put on yourself. I don't think we actually talked about the organization itself. We talked about tax exempt status, which is really important. We talked about some of the control, like through the propaganda, control of what's out there. It's actually interesting that you said that like Scientology has pretty much lost the battle with the
internet at this point. - [Aaron] Oh yeah, yeah. - Which is kind of inspiring, that it's hard to defeat the internet, but then there's like bots there. I think, if you're sophisticated,
I'm not sure that's true, but if you're not sophisticated. - It's kind of remarkable they haven't been able to
capitalize on these bot armies, 'cause there's one thing that they have, it's a lot of tax-free money that they got nothing
else better to do with it. - [Lex] Yeah, like they can invest. - You know, they just, they
should give you a call, like they just don't have
the right people apparently. - But, that said, how
do they wield influence with government agencies, with, you've talked about the local police - [Aaron] Yeah.
- enforcement, also federal agencies, anything? - That is the one way they effectively put their money to use is
lobbyists and attorneys. You know, judges, very rarely
have they ever been able just to get a politician on their side. It's the behind the scenes people. You know, Greta Van
Sustron's a very high-level, long-term Scientologist, and her husband, I always get it wrong, it's either Jim Cole or John
Cole, I always get it wrong, he's a very powerful
attorney who has a lot, wields a lot of influence
behind the scenes, and that's just one example, like the reason why that's
an interesting example is 'cause he's actually a Scientologist and he travels in those circles. Scientology though, its
money goes to good use by hiring non-Scientologists, retired judges, attorneys, lobbyists. It really is how they
get almost anything done. Like Miscavige himself is not
hobnobbing and glad handin' and shaking hands and meeting these folks, it's the non-Scientologist professionals who work behind the scenes
on Scientology's behalf. - Can you describe the dynamics of that? How that actually happens? Like why would the, why would the police department work on behalf of Scientology? - I meant more the courts
and court regulators, not the police department, but, well, for example, it can
come down to something as simple as this. In Clearwater, Scientology
hires Clearwater Police to do off-duty work for them. They pay like three times
their normal off-duty rate. So they will, even though
I'm not aware of anyone on the Clearwater PD who's
actually a Scientologist, they basically end up with, they would call them
allies or safe points. - [Lex] Got it. - Right, people who like will literally operate as Scientology spies. You know, if someone comes
in and files a report about some child sex case, someone in the Clearwater
PD is calling Sarah Heller at the Office of Special
Affairs at the Flan Gladden base to let her know, "Hey, heads
up, we got a thing coming in," and then Scientology can run around and go talk to all the Scientologists who have knowledge about this and either get ''em outta
Clearwater, you know? - So it's not like direct,
explicit corruption, but more just friends and coworkers? - [Aaron] Yeah. - Integrated deeply in the community? - Yeah, I call it soft corruption. So an another example, you have the mayor of
Clearwater, Frank Hibbard, well he used to, when he
won his recent election, he stepped down from
some of his nonprofits that he served on, but the nonprofits that he served on also gets millions of dollars of donations from some of Scientology's richest Clearwater members, right? You have one of the mayor's
best friends, Joe Burdette, literally a paid lobbyist for Scientology. So, that creates a chilling effect on anyone who's gonna be
talking smack about Scientology, because his friends are
on their damn payroll. So I call it soft corruption. It's not illegal, it's not illegal, but it's how Scientology wields influence, and what's ironic is that
a lot of these people who work on Scientology's behalf actually secretly hate Scientology. - They kinda see through it,
but it's part of the community. - [Aaron] Yeah. - It's deeply integrated in the community, and there's financial leverage. Are you ever afraid, I mean,
afraid for your well-being, afraid for your ability
to function in society because of the pressures from Scientology? - [Aaron] No. - Is that because you're
genetically malfunctioning or mentally, or is there, speaking out is a kind of protection? - I think it's one of those things that once you've seen behind the curtain and you see the Wizard of
Oz is just a silly man, you just don't have any fear. Now, it's one of these
things like people say, "Oh, you're so brave," and I go, "Eh," what's that quote? "Bravery is, you know, being
a soldier and being afraid and going in any way." It's not brave to run in if you don't think nothing's
gonna happen to you. Like, so I'm just trying to, like, I do not hold myself up as an example of bravery, because - [Lex] Yeah.
- It's not like, "Oh they could destroy
me, but I don't care." No, there's not a damn
thing they can do to me, and it's one of, that's one of the reasons I continue to put out content every day, to just basically go, "Hey,
still here, I dare you to try to do something
about it, but you can't," and hope that that also
serves as kind of an example for other people to go,
"If this schmo can do it" - [Lex] Yeah. - "and they can't do anything else to him, then maybe I can do it, too." Because I would love it. I would love there for be a 20 channels where former Scientologists
talk about their experience. - I mean, that is bravery
because what happens is fear seeps in even if
it's not grounded in reality, but at the same time, like, you know, my grandfather who fought in World War II, I mean the story is, I mean he was very convinced and sure, most of the people he
fought alongside with died, he was a machine gunner, but he believed that bullets
can't hit him, right? - [Aaron] That's what he said? - Well, you know, he was
right. (Lex laughing) Right, because he survived, so there's some sense like you're. - [Aaron] Survivor bias. - That he's like, just like you are, was like, "I'm not brave, I
just, the bullets can't hit me." (Lex laughing) I mean there's a dark
kind of truth to that. There's some, you know, it's like, it's a feedback loop where
if you have the confidence and you push on forward and
you're brave in that way to not let fear seep in and affect you, it actually gives you less
things to be scared about, and. - [Aaron] Yeah.
- I mean, but that initial few steps
might be, for people, it might be a very difficult stuff to take to talk about publicly. - The fear was knowing how the
family was gonna be destroyed and trying to prevent that. I was terrified of that happening, but it happened. There's nothing left to be afraid of. And that's kind of the thing,
like they created this beast, and the same is true for Mark Headley, the same is true for Mike Rinder, I said they've essentially created a Scientology-proof virus,
Scientology resistant strain, by throwing everything they have at us. - [Lex] Yeah.
- For so many years. They have just, through natural selection, created people who just do not give a damn about anything they could or would do, and maybe there is something
a little wrong with me, 'cause when I get a
phone call from someone, like, "I just got this
phone call about you" and it's clear that at Scientology PIs doing work behind the
scenes, I get really excited. I get really excited. I don't get nervous. I'm not gonna be like,
"Oh no, what's happening?" I'm like, "Oh yeah, this
is gonna be exciting!" I'm like, "Okay!"
- [Lex] That's great. - Because everything they try to do to me, I'm gonna figure out how
to reflect it back on them and make them look ridiculous. - And that pales in comparison to the separating from family. - [Aaron] Exactly. - What, is there parts of
your family that you've lost because of Scientology? - Just, yeah. If you, most of my episode on the Leah Remini" and the Aftermath Show" was talking about me and my twin brother. It's just a pretty horrible story. It's just a pretty horrible story. So I do have a younger brother
who's still in Scientology and disconnected from me, but I never had much of a relationship with that brother really,
to begin with, right? But my twin brother died
when I was like 23 or 24, and that was, without any question, a direct result of our
Scientology experience. You know, he died in a car accident that wasn't technically
his fault or anything, like, he wasn't even the one driving, but the fact, the specific
fact of his death was not, meaning like the fact and the
manner of his death and time wasn't like specifically
because of Scientology, but our story and how, where
our relationship got to and how he was even in a position of having something
like that happen to him, is directly attributable to Scientology. - Do you think about him? Miss him? Is part of what you're
doing in memory of him? - Yeah, for sure. - [Lex] Man, this is such a. - I mean, you know, we
were identical twins. Can you imagine two of me? (Lex laughing) - I can barely handle the one! (Aaron laughing) - [Lex] I love it. - Ugh. - Losing him, would that
be the darkest moment in this whole journey
of Scientology for you? - Two moments would
equal the darkest moment. It would be that, and
also just the period of, you know, six, nine, 12
months of impending doom, knowing that my wife's whole family was gonna be obliterated, and that there's nothing
we could do about it, and kind of telling ourselves
every step of the way, it wasn't really gonna happen. You know? And I really felt like you ever watched "The Ozarks?" I felt like Marty Bird. Now, this was happening
before "The Ozarks," but when I watch "The Ozarks"
and I see that character, the entire world is
crumbling down around him and all he can, all I did like, "All right, what's the next step?" I watch Marty Bird and I go, "That's my fucking spirit animal," because you can only control
what you can control, and you can't keep Scientology
from destroying your family, and literally, like I, it's funny, I mentioned this show a
lot, because I watched that and I go like, "That's
exactly how I felt," you know? I talk about this six
months or nine, 12 months, whatever it was, of impending doom, it's not like I was an emotional
wreck during that time. You know, in private I was, but it's not like I was just freaking out. It was like, "The sun's
gonna come up tomorrow. The world's gonna keep spinning. I can't control it. This is hard. I can't believe this is happening, but tomorrow's a new day." I've never personally,
even at the darkest times, I've never experienced anything that I would characterize as depression, certainly not ever any
suicidal thoughts or anything. Even in the darkest of times, and, again this one thing I go, "Is it because of Scientology
or is it just me?" There really is an emotional detachment. There almost has to be. - And it's a cold calculation. "What are my options? What do I do here?"
- Yeah. And then once I figure out
the answer to that question, I'm actually quite chipper and happy. You know, like that's sort of my default like you could give me
six horrible options, once I figure out the best of those six, I'm gonna feel like "I just
had a pretty good day." - That's brilliant, 'cause I just, watching
"Ozarks," it was so stressful. - [Lex] It is, right?
- So stressful watching it, and he usually finds a way, and usually it is a set
of really bad options and it is one of the bad options, what's the best of the bad options? - And he almost gets pissed
off at everyone around him for being so pouty about it. - [Lex] Yeah. (Aaron laughing) - Oh no, I'll never watch that show again, the same way again. Oh that's beautiful.
- But you know, it's like, you know, it's still simmering there
right under the surface, like pretty damn close to the surface. Do you know what I mean? - Yeah. Yeah. - And people sometimes ask
about recovery and whatnot and like, what does that look
like and what does that mean, and this sort of goes back to kind of the emotional detachment, is I go, "What the fuck
does recovery even mean?" I mean, if you're an alcoholic
and you're recovering, you know what that means. "I used to drink. I don't drink now." Well I used to be an a cult
and I'm not an a cult now. How else am I supposed to feel about this for someone to be like, "It
seems like you've recovered." What the fuck does that even mean? Like I'm sure some academic
has an answer to that question. I'm not someone who partic-, I don't spend any time
thinking about that. My recovery is success and a little bit of trolling and revenge. - [Lex] Yeah. - But mostly success. You know, what does it mean to be a recovered former cult member? What, you don't cry when people
ask you about your brother? I don't know what it means. - [Lex] Yeah. - I've never had therapy, but not because I'm still like
against it from Scientology, I just like, I'm not gonna
pay to talk to someone. Do you know where else I could do that? Scientology.
- [Lex] Yeah. - Now I know there's a
lot of people going like, "Oh boy, he." I know there's a lot. I'm not shitting on therapy. I would rather have a beer with my friend and talk about this shit.
- [Lex] Yeah. - Than talk to a professional
for $200 an hour. - That is a kind of therapy, yeah. - [Aaron] Yeah.
- Yeah, listen, That's part of the
reason I do this podcast. It's talking to people
that you care about, that you're close with, it's a really powerful, powerful thing. But yeah, I don't know
what a recovery looks like. And success to you is defined,
just be "Find happiness." Find happiness outside the closed bubble that defines what happiness
looks like, of Scientology. - If I can make my kids
happy, that's success to me. - What advice would you give
to your kids on how to live? - [Aaron] Travel the world. - A life they can be proud of? Travel the world? - Travel the world. Get rid of friends who don't push you up and don't celebrate your success. It's hard to give that
advice to young children, 'cause kids are always so catty, but honestly it's like, when I see, that really is, I just think,
not just advice to my kids, but some of the best advice to anybody. - [Lex] Yeah. - If you've got anyone around you who doesn't celebrate your success, just spend less time with those people. - [Lex] Yeah. - Surround yourself with people who actually wanna celebrate your success and push you to succeed. I think that's true, I think it's even more
important at a young age, 'cause if, at a young age, you get used to being
around people who kind of take joy in tearing you down, then that's what you become accustomed to. - [Lex] Yeah.
- You know? And I just think, you know, having friends who love
you and support you is just about the closest thing
to the true meaning of life. - And who believe in you, who believe in your potential, and some of those ideas underlie the good parts of Scientology. - [Aaron] Yeah. - And except there's a lot
of dark parts of Scientology that separate you from the
people that believe in you and that love you. Well, this was a beautiful conversation. You're a beautiful human being who came full of gifts, and I mean, I, genuinely, first of all, you're an inspiring human being, but most importantly, I can't wait until I can purchase
a bobblehead on the store. (Aaron laughing) - So I can keep that
inspiration on my desk top. Aaron, thank you so
much for talking today. Thank you for being you, for being brave. I know you said you're not, but thank you for being
brave for talking about this. You're an inspiration and
you help a lot of people. Thank you, brother. - Thanks for having me. - Thanks for listening
to this conversation with Aaron Smith-Levin. To support this podcast, please check out our
sponsors in the description. And now, I'm gonna leave
you with some words from Ralph Waldo Emerson. "Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas. Dive deep and swim far, so you will come back
with new self-respect, with new power, and with
an advanced experience that will explain and overlook the old." Thank you for listening and
hope to see you next time.