I have done a couple of podcasts with the wonderfully informed Jon Atack. The second of them went live yesterday and Tony Ortega included it on his site. I am including it here also, as well as the earlier one, as I think the discussions are illuminating. Jon is such a wealth of information. And has such good takes on all things scientology.
Leah and I are planning on talking with Jon on our fair Game Podcast soon. That should be a treat.
This is the most recent episode of Jon’s podcast. I recommend you subscribe to his YouTube channel too:
This is the one we did about 6 weeks ago:
Mike, thanks so much for doing the truth & certainty interview. You guys answered several questions I’ve had for years, one of which I eventually gave up asking because people kept getting pissed off at me just for asking. That one was regarding Gerry Armstrong’s complaints, because I think he gave a lot to and suffered a lot for the movement against Scientology’s abuses yet seems to be to some extent shunned by a big chunk of that movement. I know that’s at least partly because he’s made accusations that may not be fair, but I wanted to give him fair consideration and therefore needed more info. So your response about your attitude going into the FBI interviews (and there not being some remaining cache of info that you didn’t share in those interviews) was really important to me. Thanks for that.
The other points that were really interesting to me were about the e-meter, especially how it works and how, if it doesn’t work, people can fake their FNs and so forth. I’m still puzzled if, as Jon says, 50% of the “reads” are generated by the machine itself, how “thinking of ice cream” sorts of strategies can ever work. (50% is really bad odds at getting through long series of questions in an interrogation.) Maybe the lie detector aspect can be manipulated before the error mechanisms kick in? As you said, the e-meter is something unique to Scientology that keeps so many of its members in the cult. It would be good to really understand what’s going on there.
Really good! Jon really is a wealth of information.
Interesting take on why several of the first Clears were gay.
yes.
These interviews are treasure