As I have been doing after each program, I am putting this here as a place for people to make comments about the show that has just aired.
The outpouring of support has not only continued, if anything it has grown. It is quite amazing how far and wide this show is reaching and to how many people who have not had personal experiences with scientology but now feel they must do something about the abuses that are being exposed. Thank you all. I try to respond to messages and emails and PMs and tweets, but it is physically impossible to do so. If I have not gotten back to you, I apologize.
As always, I am interested in your views – including criticisms and things you think might be better explained or covered.
For new readers here I thought you might find it instructive to be directed to some earlier postings that may help explain some things.
Perhaps you have seen some of the over-the-top scientology statements about Leah, me or anyone who has a differing opinion of their infallibility and dares voice it. It is perhaps the hardest thing for someone new to this subject to grasp. If you operate on the “where there’s smoke there must be fire” principle you can easily wonder whether there might be some truth to the smears they spread. It is a difficult concept to accept that people will simply LIE, even give false sworn testimony under penalty of perjury, because they believe they are protecting “man’s only hope for salvation.”
To begin to understand the mindset scientologists have about those who criticize any part of it, read this article:
Dealing with Critics of Scientology — The L. Ron Hubbard Playbook
And here is a fairly short explanation of how disconnection is used in scientology (and how they try to spin the practice):
Disconnection: the PR and the Truth
An overview of the efforts by scientology to smear Leah Remini:
Scientology Dead Agents* Itself
And finally this is a post from this morning that is relevant to the program that just aired:
Scientology “expansion” debunked
What You Can Do
Call your Congressman and Senator to do something about the ongoing abuses. Write to the IRS. Support and comment on media articles and blogs that cover the abuses (like Tony Ortega at the Underground Bunker) and express your support to A&E for stepping up and taking on scientology.
Watch Leah Remini: Scientology The Aftermath every week and tell your friends to do so.
Don’t ever think you have no voice or there is nothing you can do. There is plenty.
Your support of Leah and everyone else involved is invaluable and appreciated. Please don’t stop. Knowing there are a lot of people out there on our side is comforting and gives strength.
Why doesn’t the IRS investigate Scientology again, in order to remove it’s tax free exempt status? Also, why doesn’t the federal agency involved with employment law get involved, concerning “parishners” getting fair pay, breaks, overtime pay, etc.? I also don’t understand why some of the SEO Org facilities get condemned due to unreasonable living conditions…
Hey…What about signing a petition online?You would get more people than you think.That should be enough to bring forth some kind of intervention from SOMEBODY right?
Mike and Leah. Please let John Sweeney know that he has a new found fan in the US.
None of you or any of the people you have talked to have to worry about looking foolish or need to apologize. I am in your corner one hundred percent. Count me as an ally.
Mike, I have to congratulate you on your ability to face those people whom you “attacked” in your position in CoS. I do not think I could do that myself.
Episode Five was gut-wrenching. Aaron’s identical twin brother was killed in a single car accident in 2003 after leaving the cult. It left me wanting more info, so I googled Collin Smith-Levin’s accident, and, ironically a media advisory popped up stating that the driver of the car, Theodore Apodaca, FLED the scene! And there was a warrant out for his arrest! Strange. What kind of friend does that?! I’m just curious; Was he a friend of Collin’s, or just an acquaintance? Was Theodore Apodaca ever arrested? More importantly, did Theodore Apodaca have any ties to Scientology? Where is he today? What happened to the other passenger, Desi Lopez who was critically injured? Something about this whole thing just doesn’t sit right…
I wondered about his death, too. I just don’t think it was an “accident”….Sad either way you look at it.
I want answers involving Collin’s death too. It’s extremely suspicious.
Mike would you say that the people are followers and not leaders. Do they target those types so they can be brainwashed? Seems to me if your a sane free thinking person you’d run as soon as they started speaking thief nonsense. Keep up the great work. I’d love to be involved with taking this church down .
I also hope Mike replies to this. Just my 2 cents, from the extensive reading I’ve done about Scientology and other cults: Scientologists in general are pretty intelligent people (probably a bigger percentage than in the general population). I think there are 2 reasons they get involved:
1) When you get audited (which the show hasn’t really talked about yet) or do some of the introductory exercises, sometimes you can have really powerful mental experiences, brought on as a result of the trance state that some people experience while doing these things. Some of these mental experiences can stay with you and be very helpful in your life, while I get the feeling that some of them are just “Look ma, my brain can do THIS!” without being especially helpful in any way. But they are so powerful that they impress people into believing that L. Ron Hubbard really knew what he was talking about!
2) There are specific mind control techniques that help people get involved in the organization and stay in. So far the show seems to be just emphasizing the fear of disconnection that keeps people involved, without really getting into what I believe is the main reason people stay: because they believe, due to being brainwashed, so strongly in what the cult is doing. They want to clear the planet! I wish the show would emphasize this more. Yes, the fear of disconnection is powerful, but brainwashing can trap a person forever in some really bad places.
Disclaimer: I have never been a member of Scientology or any other cult, so take what I say with a grain of salt. But I have done a lot of reading about Scientology, and have also read Steven Hassan’s “Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves,” which is about mind control, cults and how to help loved ones get out of them.
Hope you don’t mind my chiming in, Lydia, but I can only say from my experience with auditing, is that it did not involve a “trance-like” state or proving my “brain” could do something. For most people I think, it has to do with the release of heavy emotional charge (such as in the loss of loved ones, accidents, etc.), perceived improvement of physical pain or disability, accompanied by realizations about one’s life, or life in general, that can be life-changing for some, allowing one to feel better about communicating with the opposite sex or people in general, no longer associating a certain song, a certain place, a kind of food etc. with a bad experience one has had, and other benefits as well, depending on each individual.
Of course there is good auditing and bad auditing, but the good auditing is where people have enough success with Scientology to want to continue. When I completed my first introductory course, I asked what I could do next, and my course supervisor simply said, “If you want more Scientology, you can have more Scientology”. No pressure. But that was a different time, and not all staff members are the same. As to mind control techniques, maybe some of that was involved (wittingly or unwittingly), but I think it was more toward the end of Hubbard’s life when he began to see enemies everywhere, and he feared losing control of the organizations, and certainly under Miscavige.
I know it is hard to understand, easier to grasp the idea of an evil cult that brainwashes people, but that really misses a big part of the reason why people remain involved in Scientology. Because of personal experience, you will never convince them that Scientology or parts of it are invalid, one can only bring to light the abuses which will cause them to leave the “Church” and do Scientology independently if they wish (or not). Thus the current organization will have to change or eventually dissolve.
“Because of personal experience, you will never convince them that Scientology or parts of it are invalid, one can only bring to light the abuses which will cause them to leave the “Church” and do Scientology independently if they wish (or not). Thus the current organization will have to change or eventually dissolve.”
I fully agree that this is a big part of the reason people remain involved in Scientology.
Your whole post is well articulated. Thanks for the contributions you’ve made.
Thanks very much, marildi. I’ve appreciated your comments too. Nice to know that civil and sane discourse is possible! : )
Indeed. 🙂
I would agree with your view
While I certainly agree that there are people of intelligence in Scientology, I cannot understand how someone can believe in their auditing process. It makes me laugh each time I see it.
Hi Mike, I hope you really are aware that what you and Leah are doing is truly great. You have more support than you even know. Absolutely all of what you’ve exposed infuriates and disgusts me. I cannot understand the under age Sea Org members. Besides being horrific, disgusting, criminal… A 15 year old cannot sign a billion yr contract. Their Frontal Lobes are not even fully formed. They’re not emancipated, so its arguably unethical and legally improper. Why can’t law enforcement wiggle in under these violations?
Couldn’t some volunteers just get some megaphones and yell out to cult members…”Run towards the parked buses!” And then have plenty of volunteers just help ppl over the fences and onto the buses sitting parked for them on the road.
It’s illegal to hold someone against their will whether they signed a contract or not so I’m not sure how this going on.
Most Scientologists don’t *want* to leave because they are brainwashed. Scientology uses standard, well-known mind-control techniques like sleep deprivation (of Sea Org members), information control, etc. Steven Hassan, an expert on cults like Scientology, has written several books about these techniques and how cults use them to take over their members’ minds, decision-making capabilities, money and lives. I love Leah’s show but I wish they would talk more about why people get so enmeshed into Scientology. I think a lot of people are very confused about why people would get so involved.
Right, Lydia. They are convinced that their “eternity” depends on staying, no matter how unpleasant, suppressive or degrading the present might be. As was pointed out on the show, Miscavige can dispense or withhold Scientology services from you, and thereby deny you your future freedom as a spiritual being for “eternity”. In their minds, only the official “Church” has the right path, the right technology. Doing Scientology independently means going to “squirrels” (apostates) to continue training or auditing, which will only get you snarled up in a dead end. Only “Holy Mother Church” (as someone unbelievably told me) is connected to Source (LRH), only there can you get the true technology and upper levels (OT IX, etc.) leading to TOTAL FREEDOM (despite alterations of the tech by Miscavige). If people continue to buy into this, of course they are terrified of leaving. A first step might be to let them know that David Miscavige is definitely NOT in control of their eternity – the “Emperor” has no clothes. Air-dropping flyers with this one message might at least create some doubt, or drone delivery of dvd-players loaded with the full A&E series might be even better!
My hope is that people don’t suddenly forget about this horrible entity once the docu-series ends. Something has to be done and they should not be allowed to hide behind whatever loopholes there are.
When I was 17 my friend and I answered an ad for a job for the summer. We didn’t know it then, but it turned out it was Scientology recruitment. They told us all about auditing and showed us the stupid meter or whatever and the cans; told us they can cure cancer and just about anything else. They said we would have to get our parents’ permissions. We told them we would and went home and never asked our parents; my friend and I thought they were complete loons!! I am SO glad we had the sense not to get involved in this cult. Blessings to you Mr. Rinder and Ms. Rimini for your attempts to get the word out about them and your efforts to expose what is really going on.
Write to my congressman or senator and say what? Please stop Scientology? I’m so appalled by what is going on but what am I to expect my local representatives to do??
How about an investigation? A congressional hearing?
Have you started a petition to have an investigation done on the “church”? Anything I can sign or submit to show my support of your expose? I have been watching your series, and I feel helpless in how to shut this “church” down.
TRY Caitlin. That’s all anyone can ask. And YES, Every voice counts. What Scientology is doing is atrocious, horrific, Criminal.. the adjectives are endless. Yes, write. We all must! And include a letter to the IRS.
If you guys aren’t making any money in the sea org, which I believe you’re making very little if any, how can you escape without the support if your family or friends? Financially speaking how is escape possible without the threat of homelessness, etc? How did all of you overcome this?
Tara
From what I gather they leap with the clothes on their back and a few dollars in their pocket and go to a family/friend that can house them. If you note no one that has left after decades is living in luxury. This is the “ingenious” side of the indoctrination/brainwashing/hold they have on their followers. Pay them nothing in return for room/board and then you have them for life…or so they thought. I left a dysfunctional marriage In 2009 with the clothes on my back, what we could pack in a car, 3 children in tow and a friend took us in for 10 months until we got on our feet and we now live a life I could have only dreamed of…a
life I denied us due to many years of fear keeping me captive due to mainly financial concerns. This is why this seems to have struck a chord with me…as a mother and a human being….perhaps out of this will come some sort of “safe house” and we can get word to these poor people that they can leave. To live life like this so a select few can hang out in a lush celebrity Centre is appalling at best.
ps let’s try to be kind to one another on here and not get distracted from the work Mike,
Leah and others are dedicating their lives to.
Cathy
Hi Mike, I was born into my faith also and am willing to admit, the Catholic Church is not without its faults, but our issues are handled much different. Something I am able to do as a parent that does not seem like a possibility with Scientology, I have been open and encourage my five children to read, study, examine, and talk….let’s talk about other churches. Your series has sparked quite the conversation. Please, let us know what more we can do. And please no puns very serious, you, Leah, and the team and families are in our prayers. The power of Christ is with you all!
I’m so happy this show is on TV now I’ve felt really alone the last year after my experience with Scientology and now I can actually talk to people about it, people even started just asking me about it. I felt really nervous to say anything for a while because when I left it I tried to get my boyfriend who introduced me to it to get help and his family was very nasty to me, calling me evil and a psychopath. His mom is an auditor OT 7 his dad is OT 3 and his sister is clear so they obviously were very angry I even suggested he see a real therapist.
I almost feel like they drive you insane on purpose so when you leave it’s even harder to integrate and you gravitate back to Scientology or wonder maybe they are right and they can help me and I’m the problem.
But I’ve felt so relieved just from watching other people on this show who have similar stories that are even sadder than mine. I didn’t grow up in it I was only involved because I was dating someone for a long time who grew up in it, so it was a lot easier for me to decide that I wanted no part of it after a while. It’s not so easy for my ex boyfriend who has no real education and virtually no friends outside of Scientology besides me. I feel very guilty I couldn’t help more but it’s hard to undo a lifetime of brainwashing and manipulation tactics. I’m so happy they are being exposed for what they are now – a destructive mind control cult.
Mike, I applaud your efforts. David Miscavige is a sociopath and something must be done to save those people from the cult Scientology is. My heart hurts for the innocent children who did not ask to be a part of this. Perhaps that is where the government could step in.
Yes, the children. Always the innocents.
Do the celebrities that are in Scientology see their children that aren’t? It almost seems like to me that celebrities are held to a different standard.
Doesn’t this all call for utter suspension of disbelief? I remember decades ago now happening upon a talk radio program where the host interviewed a lapsed Scientologist. I had an interest in the subject even the and listened raptly. He divulged all the hidden aspects of being in the cult, the horrors we are hearing about only now. It must have taken courage for him to do that because the only knowledge available on the “religion” back then was sketchy and the ittle there was was cloaked in secrecy. (Lots of Hubbard’s books to be had though.)
I have one overriding question: didn’t anyone every question why Hubbard a man worth millions and seemingly so enthralled with self-actualization had a mouthful of teeth that were rotting out of his head?
Just a thought…
I applaud all those with the moral courage to stand against this scourge.
You have millions of people at your disposal for a few more episodes. If you flashed a number of the IRS wouldn’t we have power in numbers? Think of the $$ they are stealing from this country because someone was ingenious enough to make a sci fi idea a tax exempt religion!
I wish there was a way to get a real movement going that would infiltrate /reach those on the inside….esp Sea Org. I know you have done real damage to those that are thinking of joining
I imagine their lockdown is probably worse than ever now and odds of them escaping dismal. If Miscavage had a bad temper before it is probably now off the chain. Sad.
Since Miscavage is enjoying tax free status he should be required to now (based on your documentary) allow a visit to his compound by the government. To think this country is allowing a CULT a tax free life in unconscionable.
This blog needs a like button!!…LOL
I believe the government (IRS maybe?) must be taking bribes not to investigate this cult. I have heard of the FBI investigating other churches for abuses so why can’t they investigate Scientology?
So very well said Cathy!
I will be contacting my congressman as this thing needs to END !
Couldn’t agree more. The show needs to include information on what people can do to work toward removing the tax exempt status. Having a template email that can be downloaded from the Aftermath site and sent to local congressmen and senators might be one thing.
Watching the show from the other side of the planet in Brissy Australia
Mike, Leah and every other person involved in the making of this outstanding body of work, I congratulate you all.
Your show is intelligent, thought provoking, eye opening, brutally honest, respectful and tugs at my heart strings.
I greatly admire and respect everyone involved in the making of this doco.
I hope your government takes note, stands up and grows some big balls to take Scientology down.
Stand strong, keep up the fight.
Know that you have many people behind you.
This world is a much better place having people such as yourselves fighting hard to save other fellow humans stuck in this deceitful cruel cult.
I look forward to more episodes but most of all I look forward to seeing if your government takes action and forces change.
I wish you all great success
Respectfully
Cathy
Mike,
I appreciate how compassionately the (former and current) parishioners are portrayed . Many people, myself included, would watch the Southpark episode about COS and think “People who believe this must be idiots”. Well, I find myself getting teary eyed every episode. You, Remini and A&E really expose how nearly anyone with good intentions could be sucked into this deceptive world. I was wondering if there will be an episode dealing with homosexuality and psychiatry. it seems there are many members who bear additional scars due to COS stand on these issues. Also, I am sure your family will see the light and I hope for your reconciliation soon. Hope you and yours have a happy new year.
I want to thank Leah Remini and yourself for going against the “Scientology Machine” and telling this story…, I really hope you can do another season to answer some of the questions viewers will have after seeing the first season.
Thanks,
Christina Carter
Husband and I watch your show every week. So interesting. We both loved Marc and Clare Headleys episode and thought that episode really brought to the light the evils that scienetologist can be faced with. So wild!!!
After watching the first few episodes and listening to people’s stories, I kept thinking, “this sounds like a movie”. When you found the camera in the birdhouse and you and your wife spoke about the planted neighbor, it hit me….The Firm, starring TOM CRUISE
I find it hard to believe that that man doesn’t have a concept of the chronic abuse and misdeeds of this cult. Or the leader and others surrounding Cruise just spoon-feed him and he’s so out of touch with reality, that he will gobble up anything that serves his ego.
I suspect the big celebrities stay in because they’ve given up all of their secrets while being audited.
I work in a university library and every time we receive their free DVDs and books, they go right in the trash. No one I know believes the churches statements against you and Leah. They are quacks. Glad to help in this small way. Thank you for doing this!
You guys; Leah and Mike, and everyone you interview, are direct, and fearless, and powerful. Also funny and touching (“Yes Sir”). It’s breathtaking, to realize that the things you are exposing, are being seen by millions of ordinary people every week. You are doing great work, to make a better world.
I enjoy the show but really don’t understand the logistics around keeping people in. If the grounds are fenced with wire on top and heavily guarded how can CoS really keep someone in that just say’s “I’m walking out”. Even a church is subject to the constitution and cannot falsely imprison. If they force the return of someone from South Africa they are inviolation of the US Constitution and international law. Please explain how they force people to stay that want to leave and why an excape is necessary
It is a prison of the mind.
Mike , that makes the most sense of all. We can’t keep up with the oropagabda machine which is Scientology. People being forced to stay actually believe the are responsible for the fact that they are being forced to stay. Not only that , they think this is one small part of many lifetimes. So a few years in a cult prison to them is a temporary deal and rewards come to them once they discard current body and reincarnate into next lifetime. It’s the biggest mind f*^k I’ve ever seen.
It impresses me the level of intelligence of You Mike and Leah and everyone involved with show.
The ” church ” certainly isn’t something that preys on people that can’t think for themselves. In fact their evil genius is preying on high IQ forward thinkers that of course get frustrated in this world today where an original idea must be patented and vranddd or someone else will take credit and exploit forward original thinking into something profitable
The ” church ” feeds these highly intelligent people at an early age usually and small enough portions to keep them strung along.
Once they’ve realized it’s a scam the policy such as fines for breaking a billion year contract have been imbedded in subconscious and they forget they can leave Sea org on free will just as they once joined.
Current leader is so ” Hitler like ” it’s scary. His public speaking using false data and pumping the crowd up into a frenzy thinking look at all the good we’re doing. I mustn’t stop just short of accomplishing goal.
Just $100,000 more dollars and 1 more year and a thousand more library book sets and then I’ll move on.
Then it’s another gathering and more carrot dangling with false information and one day like you and Leah. You look up and it’s been 25 years !
I feel bad for all of them. Yet the Sea org I really feel awful for because they’re isolated from mainstream media and don’t know the world is worried about their safety.
The members like Leah that are allowed to work and live in real world. They have it tough too. I have heard they threaten Travikta and keep him silent because while holding ” the cans ” he was manipulated into saying things that would damage his career. Plus , I’m sure he fears losing his family.
Makes me terrified to think something that ” the cult ” caused or did could’ve contributed to his son Jets passing. It’s odd we didn’t see him frieve publicly.
Just before his accidental drowning. ( while travikta slept during the day ) because ” the church told him he was better served to stay up all night and sleep during the day. Eventhough his wife and kids maintained regular first shift schedule. The ” Church ” was smart enough to isolate him from his family even while living under the same roof
Thus , limiting what he saw and could discuss with his wife if on same schedule. Had this not happened. Don’t you imagine he’d have been playing in pool with his kids I steD of sleeping just a few yards away at time of accident ?
This is type of stuff that keeps me awake thinking of how I can help. I’m physically disabled. At age of 42 my pain began. I can only imagine in my mindset at time of diagnosis that if I’d have participated in ” church ” therapy , etc. I shudder to think how they’d have convinced me that they could’ve helped.
It can happen to anyone. My mom even was shocked to find an LRH self help book that she bought going through her divorce
Thank goodness for her Christian Faith or my sister snd I might’ve been introduced to the ” church ” ourselves.
” but for the grace of God go I ”
I’ll keep watching n writing letters and I’m a former locations PA and locations manager for film industry so if ever asked I’d happily volunteer my skill set to help the show continue on. This show needs to not be a 1 season thing.
We need to see if after airing how many people leave and if allowed to run 3 or 4 seasons see the imprisoned Sea org members see the light and with law enforcements help , see families leave together. Plus. After care needs to be there ( funded w Scientology money to transition these families back into modern society.
You and Leah are amazing Mike. Keep on fighting.
Mark.
In the UK and loving this program, the retorts they have used are laughable and schoolboyesque, I have been intrigued by the Scientology question for a long while, Louis Therouxs documentary didn’t dig deep enough really, this is exposing them for what they really are, I hope this will expose them for what they are, and Miscavige, what a tyrant!!I was tempted to make a twitter account called @DavidMisgivings and lampoon them a bit, but it seems they don’t have a sense of humor and will likely follow me!!
Hi Alan, Mike & Leah,
I am also from the UK… fancy going to St Hill with me to cause a bit of a rumpus??? !!! I too am fascinated and hate bullies so if anyone wants to get together here and do something to show them for what they are I am totally up for it!
Keep up the good work Rinder/Remini and everyone else involved… 100% behind you and the team….
Lisa ?
Love the show, great work by everyone involved. Don’t stop until they are no longer recognized as a religion worthy of tax exemptions.
My question is why did people who lived in the “real world” like Leah and many others not see that the only advertisements of Scientology’s “successes” were shown by the cult. Did they not see that no news media, internet media, etc. were reporting on all of the supposed successes.
I say the same thing after each show and i don’t feel she has explained it well enough!
I can’t speak specifically for Scientology, but as someone who was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness (also a cult) I can say we were STTONGKY discouraged from listening to ANY secular books, articles, interviews, etc. that expressed anything negative against them. If it were discovered a member was giving attention to such things they could be subject to severe discipline which could include being kicked out and shunned. Those outside critics were painted as tools of Satan, full of lies, and that the only motivation behind it is to “lead their members astray”. So we learn to ignore, resist, minimize, and discredit any of the things that have the potential to wake a cult member up.
For those who do not subscribe to cable and have had trouble viewing the episodes, they are available through Amazon TV. One can buy single episodes or the whole series SD ($10) or HD ($15).
This is a great series, thank you Leah and Mike
Thank you, thank you, thank you Leah and Mike. I hold you both in the highest regard. You are real life heroes. I am so sorry what it has cost you both personally. You may never know how great a bomb you have dropped on the CoS but you have. They have depended on lies and secrecy to survive and you have truly flipped on the light exposing the roaches! Please keep up the good work.
I am a little disappointed Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes haven’t had the courage to speak up. I’m hoping we will hear from Lisa Marie Presley at some point.
At any rate, you have my highest admiration for what you are doing!
I look forward to these episodes every week, but I still have a few questions. How many members of DMs family have left the CoS? Didn’t his daughter leave and write a book that exposed child labour? Will we hear from Jenna on this series? And has anyone exposed DMs lifestyle and financial holdings?
She is his niece.
Does anyone know the right address, email, or fax number to use to contact the correct division of A&E? I’d like to commend them for taking this important project on. I’d rather not have to write an actual letter to the only address I found — in NYC — but I will if that’ the only option. I can see “Aftermath” playing the same role as “America’s Most Wanted” or “Cops.” More of a public service than standard television programming.
You asked what our reactions are to the episode, and here is mine. I live in Northern California, about six hours from Hemet where the RTC is. I want to just drive down there and drive around, picking up anyone who’s trying to leave and help them get to a safe place. I can’t understand how CoS can justify tracking people who leave with strobe lights and manipulation tactics.
So glad this is being put under the spotlight.
I see a lot of similarities between the way scientology works and the way Donald trump works. Thank you Mike for the brave work you guys are doing. It’s horrible the way these frauds are fleecing the flock. I think you should expose the forced abortions some more. That is very powerful. Any child abuse you can expose would really help shut these guy’s down. That’s probably the best way to get the law involved. They can get away with way to much, but child abuse is one of few things that will get the fed’s attention. Thanks again and best of luck!
I’m from Montréal Quebec Canada and it’s been many years that i’m telling people that this church is a CULT and this is worst that what they think. But here it’s not a big deal for the population they never ever talk about that so I would like to thank you and Leah and all the crew to speak out load for the mothers, fathers, daugters, sons, sisters, brothers… and many more who can’t not
Dear Mike,
Thanks again for the show and helping to expose the church for what it really is. I was one of the people Leah had described who would watch the events and believe the stats. I knew it wasn’t happening at the Org I was in, so it must be happening somewhere, so I needed to work harder, right?
I loved the show last night and almost cried over Claire talking about having to have an abortion. It’s something that had I known it was happening I would have stopped supporting the CofS much sooner.
Thanks to you and Leah! My daughter and I are watching the show every week and discussing it with each other. She is talking and promoting it to everyone as well.
A suggestion for the show to help people understand how people get into Scientology is to explain how they find your ruin, bring to understanding etc. and the drill because it can be very easy to convince someone Scientology is the answer once you find their ruin.
Thanks!!
Please feature Tommy Davis in an upcoming episode. Did he blow?
I thought I read somewhere that he declined an interview.
This question is off topic, but if Mike or someone else can help, that would be great. How does Scientology view/treat individuals with mental impairments like Down Syndrome?
Really not spoken about. I think most scientologists probably believe they are some sort of “Degraded Being” to have “pulled in” something like that. Scientology doesn’t deal with them as “we make the able more able and do not have time to waste on the rest”… So, they are left for the hated psychiatrists and psychologists to deal with. No effort whatsoever is made to “treat” such people.
My understanding is that Scientologists do not believe in Down Syndrome.
Well, I don’t know really. I guess if you surveyed them some might say it “doesnt exist” and is just a “psychosomatic illness” or something. It is NOT a topic of discussion in scientology.
Mike Rinder did an interview with Growing Up Scientology bon You Tube where they discuss the auditing of someone with disabilities and from what I understood, the assumption that they are SPs that decided to impair their ability to do bad by giving themselves a disability? Here is a link to the channel. https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCD8AAvA3_JDFeOps-HzPPHg
Yes, that is a good point. Even if I did say so myself 🙂
There is one thing I am curious about: Why did A&E make the insinuation that all of Ron Miscavige’s children are still in Scientology?
If there is a next season (which I hope there is), please talk to some of those kids who grew up the children of Sea Org parents, contemporaries of Jenna. A whole family, if you can find them. Talk about the nurseries, the child abuse that went on, signing a SO contract at age 8 or whatever ridiculous age, not seeing your family for years at a time.
Thanks. I didnt realize this insinuation was made because they know well it is not true, so do I. Understood on the children, I think this is a VERY important topic to discuss.
I have been watching the series and love every minute of it. I just read on-line that a series has been cancelled (before it even aired) on A&E. This article was stating that A&E would not air the series because people were paid….. etc. Of course someone from scientology is attacking you and Leah. Can you please post for your readers what actually happened and who exactly gets paid for your docu-series. Thank you.
The KKK Show was apparently paying people to say things on camera they would not say without being paid.
Not the case with this show. And certainly Leah as Exec Producer is entitled to be paid. I was paid as a consultant. Leah, as did I, lost potential income that far exceeded what either of us received. She could be doing a sitcom for NW TV and it would pay her more in an episode that this entire project.
If scientology’s objective (per Hubbard policy) is to cost me my job — they should be thrilled about me doing this show as it pretty much did that. I could not do both my regular job and this show and the amount of money they paid me was not enough to cover my monthly expenses — by a LONG way. I thought my role on this show was going to be very part time help, not that I was going to end up being the “co-host”. Fortunately I have an industrious wife who helped keep the household afloat during the last 6 months.
It is pretty amusing to watch scientology grasp at straws and contort themselves into mutant pretzels. I will likely do a post about this in the next few days.
Kudos to your lovely wife for toeing the line to help Lean and you get all of the COS abuses out there for public review. I am sorry it cost you your job, you are made for even greater things Mike and you may have a future with the media.
I am hoping A & E with put all of these episodes on DVD for sale, with a percentage of sales going to support the cause and those who have escaped COS and are in financial need.
God Bless ALL of you for bringing the TRUTH to us.
Couldn’t agree more, L. Yash. Rinder was a top-notch spokesperson for CoS; but he’s an even better spokesperson against it. And this time he has the truth on his side.
Thank you Frank! How very kind of you!.
There is no doubt that Mike Rinder has a strong “stage” presence and seems very comfortable in front of the camera. He has a wonderful clear speaking voice, and sounds very confident and his “easy manner” draws you in to what he is speaking about. (Plus he’s easy on the eye!)
Helllloooo media…..If you’ve watched the A & E docudrama….GIVE Mike Rinder a call, he’d be a great addition & asset to your television staff.
Thank you again Leah and Mike for this excellent series exposing COS for what they are. We are contacting our local Congressman and sending another message to A & E….I WANT them to offer this entire series for sale on DVD with a percentage going to the cause. God Bless you all!
This show is so very compelling. I’ve never been involved in Scientology but I feel quite educated on it now.
I’m going to go at an old question in a different way. What if….they:
* Threw out all aspects of disconnection
* Paid Sea Org members a living wage
* Had a zero tolerance for any type of abuse (I feel ridiculous even having to say it but it’s been proven beyond a doubt DM has abused people)
* Offered training and auditing at no more than, say, $40 per course
* Let people come and go to the church without grief
* Kept promotional materials factual
* Focus on doing good at small local levels rather than trying to prove to everyone they’re this huge global force
* Got rid of the RPF and everything related to it
* Encouraged families to stay together
and so on….is the core of it worth keeping?
I think I keep coming back to the question because everyone involved in Scientology excluding the CoS and the stalkers seem like genuinely kind people who want to make the world better. Beghe said as much in his original video — the kindest people on earth. I am drawn to the idea of people helping others on a large scale and think it’s something the world desperately needs more of. So I wouldn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, if that makes sense. On the other hand, maybe the baby in this case is really a monster and needs to be thrown out anyway….
Thank you again for all the hard work around this.
Frank Beans. I have a simple and true answer to your question. They would go out of business. It is a SCAM. Except for sucking $ out of brainwashed wealthy people it has NEVER been a viable entity even with slave labor.
Frank Beans,
Having worked in direct care with psychiatrists and psychologists for about 13 years, I’d like to say there is plenty in the early basic principles and methods that can be used in positive constructive ways to help people and for people to help themselves. A concrete example would be, for example, programs using just two elements – the basic Comm Course drills and the Self Analysis book, with people twinning to work their way through these.
In fact I believe there are quite a few people doing these kind of things outside of the official “church”. Some of these have been out for decades, others have more recently left. They are not particularly organized, but collectively they have existed as “the Freezone” and they go back to the the 1980s or before.
Of course the official Scientology “churches” are withering. The way they are run is not viable. But that is true also of psychiatry, for example, which exists to the extent it does because of insurance money, not by being directly paid by their patients. Does that make psychiatry a scam? You be the judge.
Psychiatry is “withering” (as is the CoS) because it is being financed mainly by insurance money? Do you think people would utilize scientology if insurance money paid for it? And since insurance money is what keeps hospitals and virtually all fields of medicine a thriving industry shall we also say the medical field is withering?
Let us not forget psychiatry, for better or for worse, is taking on people with real and serious problems. Scientology is not. That applied religious philosophy which claims unprecedented understanding of the mind and spirit is curiously impotent when it comes to getting down to the nitty gritty of psychosis and chronic depression for instance. Such knowledge, if it existed, would be of enormous value to the world. Scientology stands on the platform of helping the world. THAT is what makes scientology a scam since you invited me to be the judge.
Thanks roger, for another knee-jerk response to a post of mine. Don’t people actually read through a post anymore, before jumping in? I never used the word “withering”, and I didn’t say psychiatry was withering. I did say that psychiatry was almost wholly supported by insurance monies, not by people paying for their own psychiatric treatments, out of their own pockets.
“Of course the official Scientology “churches” are WITHERING. The way they are run is not viable. But that is true also of psychiatry, for example, which exists to the extent it does because of insurance money, not by being directly paid by their patients. Does that make psychiatry a scam? You be the judge.”
Your words may be interpreted to mean the CoS is withering because it isn’t run in a viable way same as psychiatry. I presumed you meant psychiatry was existing only by virtue of insurance money which could be interpreted to mean it is being kept alive artificially suggesting it is “withering” also.
But let’s not make a big deal of the ‘withering’ and instead make a big deal out of “viable”, okay? I asked if you thought people would purchase scientology with their insurance money as they do with all medical treatments which thrive by virtue of insurance money. Is the medical field also not viable because people don’t pay for it out of their own pockets?
Also, while it is always a good thing to help people when you can, there is no point in making a lifestyle out of it unless it’s your profession. Speaking only for myself, the last thing I want is some do-gooder trying to “help” me when I haven’t asked for help. For the most part, I think the best way we can help somebody is to laugh at their jokes and stay out of their way.
I don’t disagree with anything you posted in your response. I think there is no substitute to being an informed consumer, when a person is looking for something, especially in the self-help arena. Let the buyer beware, and test and reflect on every step of the way. To answer your questionI would definitely opt for scientology/dianetics for some things, if it was delivered to me in the way I experienced it in the 1970s, and insurance was paying for it. Today, I wouldn’t touch the CoS with a ten-foot pole, however. I do know a couple of very good people with a scientology background locally. I also know some good people with other backgrounds, to whom I would turn for help when I thought I needed it.
Also, I worked in psychiatry for about 13 yers. I also took a couple of basic scientology courses back in the 1970s. It was quite obvious to me that some of the basic methods and principles of scientology as I learned it, were quite applicable to human problems. I don’t talk about scientology as a generality. Generalities don’t deal with problems or offer assistance to anyone. If you want “sceintology” to help someone, learn some scientology and apply it helpfully, rather than meanly or harmfully. Or learn some other principles, Christian, or Buddhist, or muslim or psychology, and apply those helpfully and constructively. That’s the only way anyone gets helped, by individual people helping other individual people. Chewing the fat about generalities like Christianity or Scientology or Psychology doesn’t do squat. I post from my actual experiences. If I “suppose” something, I try to label it as supposition.
HOW is it possible that these young teens can join the Sea Organization and not attend school? Aren’t truancy laws being violated? California (for example) is known to have lots of requirements for the education of children – public/private and homeschooled. How is it possible that so many of these heartbreaking stories involve fellow American citizens who did not receive a basic education because they signed up as children to become Sea Org members?
Do Children Social Service Depts of California and Florida not have a responsibility to investigate? Or has the church figured out a way around state laws regarding mandatory education of children???
When I was in and underage there was a period of time when we would work all week, about 8a-10p, M-F) and then do school all day Saturday (and maybe even Sunday? My memories are a bit foggy but I doubt it). We had two teachers who would teach us mostly history. I think there were too many of us underage kids at the time so there was no way they could get away with not schooling us. But they definitely only did the minimum, if not less, hour requirements by law.
I don’t recall what the age cutoff was that you wouldn’t get to go to school anymore but I do recall hearing something about underage girls getting married and then no longer getting to go to school. (School was for sure a luxury for us.)
This was also just a brief period of time. I feel like I’m stretching it to say it lasted for about a year.
Thank you Mike and Leah and “A & E”, for this fascinating show, for me as an outsider, whose only “link” to the Co$, was reading “Dianetics” 35 years ago, at 13 years old (and knowing instinctively that it was a bunch of “feel good” psycho-babble mixed with sci-fi & occult theories), it is a real eye-opener! I wish you would stress on the show, that NO ONE under the age of 18 (unless Legally emancipated), can sign any contract & have it be binding, nor can anyone be held to any contract if they were under duress (whether physical or mental), which seems to be the case with most members! I also believe that if you get enough members together who are willing to come forward, that you have a good chance of getting a class-action lawsuit going against the “church”! I wish you all well and continued success and safety in your exposure of this disturbing cult!
Have you ever tried to get specific congressmen or congresswomen to tackle this cult with you and put a stop to it? I can’t believe there aren’t any conservative senators or reps willing to take this on esp with the forced abortion revelations. What does it take to testify before congress? You and Leah would be fabulous at that! With new gov’t members about to take over, this might be the right time. Seems like new people are willing to listen more. Also, put up a “form” letter for people to write their congress members. Many people don’t ever actually write their reps because they “don’t know what to say”. I’ve written mine. Good luck. Keep the light shining on this scam of a “church”!
I wonder if Sen. Marco Rubio, of Florida, who was just reelected & is very Pro-life and Pro-Constitution (and people’s right to FREEDOM & their OWN money) would be willing to get involved? I would also try Sen. Ted Cruz, of Texas, who is a Constitutional Scholar and has won cases, against even the Supreme Court, he is very interested in helping United States Citizens against any and all abuses against them. It’s worth a shot!
The problem with right wing politicians is they are too beholden to the religious right. It is those people who fear that any erosion of the “First Amendment Protections” for scientology is a slippery slop for them (and in some respects they are correct). It is the religious right lobby that keeps the law interpreted to protect religious organizations, not the individuals. It SHOULD be the other way around. The Bill of Rights was framed to protect the INDIVIDUAL from the power of Church and State. But most law from the Supreme Court is the other way around in order to protect the religious institutions from encroachment by litigants….
Dear Mike
Individuals can protect themselves by suing Co$ but what rigth has the US govmt. to tell us which faith, cult or religion to follow? I understand your pain but I think you underestimate the consequences of the state intruding in religion matters.
Anytime the state tries to decide which religion goes and which does not go it is a mess, and open the door for a totalitarian type of state. Saudi Arabia, Isis even in Rome (Italy) try to open a Protestant or other type of church in the Vatican City… you cannot!
No the logic wants us to defend Scientology rigth to exist as much as other religions. I hate Scientology and wants it gone but I would logically defend their rigth to exist and propagate just as I would with other religions. The alternative is much worse than having a cult such as the Co$ among our midst.
Don’t you think?
Of course, there are arguments on both sides of this equation. Any time you are balancing rights both sides can take a logical position. I don’t want to get into a lengthy debate about this here. There are brilliant positions taken on this in a number of US Supreme Court cases. I was only commenting that Conservatives like Cruz are not going to be in favor of ANY intrusion into the affairs of scientology for fear that it is a slippery slope to intrusion into the affairs of other churches.
My personal opinion is that ALL churches need more oversight. But I am not willing to get into a debate about it here as it will simply devolve into a distraction.
Thank you for your reply Mike I know you get a lot of comments here so I appreciate your time.
I agree with your opinion on why Conservatives do not want state intrusion in church matters and I am sure you agree that totalitarian states where you are told which religion is legit and which is not are not viable solutions either.
Maybe the problem is that we all want Scientology to capitulate but attacking it from the tax exemption angle it seems for many reasons quite risky for the freedom of religion in this countr y , because when you admit that churches need more oversigth than you need to define how much oversigth is enough. And oversigth of anytipe is never a guarantee to stop abuses to members who voluntary follow a religion. Again look at the million of children abuses by Catholic priests worldwide for instance.
I have no solution on how to end Scientology but I found interesting that what you guys went thru and were part of is often similar to what peoples in other sects went thru. The mind control process is the same, the only hope is for a secularized version of Scientology, but since it was a money making tool for LRH I think it is not programmed to evolve in something else from what it is.
In other words I think that given the underlying spiritual nature of every individual religion demand and religious offer will always meet somewhere and this somewhere sometimes is the cult of $ci.
Keep doing what you are doing we all cheer for you. All the best to you and your beautiful new family, you are beautiful!!!
The answer is more information… published, advertised, plastered in front of people. If the facts of Scientology are known by the public, far fewer people will be sucked into it. It would never stop 100%, but it would make a big difference. One of Scientology’s legs up is that so few people really know much about them. The show Leah and you are doing has the potential to expose them so much and make others more bold to speak out publicly.
The question is, where do we draw the line? Analogously, there are moslems in the US and other countries who feel they should be able to live under their own Sharia laws. If their law calls for a punishment like beheading or even a simple cutting off a hand for the crime of theft, for example, should they be allowed to do that? Or to publicly flog an offender with 10 or a hundred lashes? In Islam it is considered OK for a husband to beat his wife if she offends him, as long as he doesn’t beat her too severely. I personally think there ought to be limits, but these have not really been established in the USA, when it comes to conduct that’s related to religious belief.
Dear Mike
I am no supporter of $cientology and I feel very sorry for the years of abuses people involved with this cult had to go thru and enjoy your blog very much. However, I also wonder why would we consider Co$ different from cults such as the Roman Catholic one. In religious history popes have also killed, burned, abused people, women and children (priests who are pedophiles or child molesters still hold their religious position within the org). Most of Co$ religious practices have their precedence in other religions. In Co$ they call it disconnection in catholicism excommunication. Co$ wants money to get you to the Bridge, Catholicism sold people their salvation too. In Co$ they call it auditing, in Catholicism confession. Co$ abuses people human rigths, Catholicism took over an entire continent and enslaved millions of them in South America and California (here in CA they called them Missions too). You cannot have children in Co$ Sea Org and you cannot either as priests within Catholicism. DM tries to run Clearwater, Francis run his own city-state. Etc, etc…
So now Catholicism is accepted as religion but is not better than $cientology and it is far more damaging in terms of amount of people abused and cover up made by Rome over 2000 years.
Why Leah find ok to be part of Catholicism which is as much of a cult as Co$?
My opinion is that there is little difference between these two abusive cults besides that one has been around a little longer. So if this is the case why just not accepting that we are very stupid and impressionable people wether part of Co$ or Catholicism and take responsibility for our own self deceiving attitude when it comes to religion?
Again I understand your pain and your years of abuse I just found that it is perhaps not as different as you think from other types of mosre established cults out there.
Thank you again and keep going strong I appreciate you very much!!!
Umm, NO..I’m not Catholic, but just , No! The Catholic Church does not force or even condone abortions, it does not lock-up members who “offended” its “priests”, in secluded prison like housing and make them crawl around on all fours and beat each other up to “confess their crimes” and it most definitely does not, hunt down and try to force back physically, members, who decide to leave (and the members of the Catholic church don’t have to “plot their escape” or lose their family members, if they do decide to leave)! The Catholic church (nor any church, temple or mosque, for that matter) isn’t perfect and they do have some BAD history, but in this day and age, even their pope has admitted its abuses & apologized and tried to make amends and the “crusades” have been over for a couple of centuries, not so for the church of Scientology! The comparison is uncalled for and not a good example.
Well the problen is this: if any religion which has caused or currently is causing harm should be banned then Catholicism should be ban first and then let’s ban $cientology as well.
If on the contrary the harm caused long time ago or currently caused is no reason to ban Catholicism than $cientology should be let go too. I am trying to apply objective logic not personal bias.
You either ban all kinds of cults or you ban none. If Co$ has broken the Law let’s it be sued in the Courts. Removing tax exemption should be done based on criteria that apply to all cults not just Co$.
Look the popes have massacred million of people but nobody seems so eager to do something about it…… why such a disparity of treatment. The pope is a cult leader way more dangerous than DM and should.
Another thing would be questioning the religious nature of Co$ but again most religions want your money as “donation” so what… shall we ban all religions?
Even saying that Scientology is a made up joke based on LRH fantasy means nothing since the pope himself makes stuff up which is even against the Bible and nobody protests.
So again all my sympathy for Mike and Leah and sue DM as much as you want, but you cannot expect to change their “policy/theology/doctrine” if you do not like leave. Some people seems happy to be part of Scientology some are not, each one should decide in their minds if to continue to believe in Xenu or not.
Pretending that the US govmt. decide what religion is ‘acceptable’ and which one is not would be the beginning of a totalitarian state which nobody wants to see emerging (like Saudi Arabia or Isis)…
Let’s keep Scientology let’s keep Catholicism, Mormonism, the church of satan and the like and let’s keep everyone free to chose which religion they want to be deceived by, this is a Free nation and we should be free to decide which cult to follow or not to follow.
I think we can all agree that freedom is a great achievement of the US vs other nations that tells you which church is the official one like in liberal scandinavian countries where Lutheranism is in some cases the official religion and receive pubblic funding or Saudi Arabia where Salafism is the religion to follow and if you are a Shite Muslim you have no place…
Scientology will live or die on its own when the Duggards, Cruises, Travolta and the Jones will chose to do as the Reminis and the Rinders 😉
Al, in the final analysis banning doesn’t work. Letting the truth be told and a person’s OWN willingness to research a group they are going to join is the ONLY sane way to deal with something like scamology.
Sure, get them for child labor law violations and the like. But, if one is gullible enough to give $ to a religion/cult, etc. because they claim that they will save your soul, make one godlike, etc. that’s too bad.
The 1st Amend was made to protect the individual from a GOVERNMENT mandated religion AND to protect ones right to belong to and practice the religion of their choice. It was NOT made for just one side of that equation.
Religion is an area of extreme good and bad for humans. Thus, the Founding fathers wisely (unlike most other countries) decided to leave it to the human right of freedom of association sprinkled with caveat emptor.
I don’t see it as a matter of banning religious beliefs, but a matter of regulating conduct. You can read the Koran and live in the USA, but if you decide that you should help kill all infidels, at that point you need to be stopped. People do not have to mindlessly swallow the whole thing.
The most striking thing about this series for me is the way this “church” utterly condemns so many of its ex-senior executive and executives as criminals, liars, deviants, abusers etc etc.
What does it say about a “church” that allows people it condemns in the terms above to reach such positions with-in its ranks and remain there for decades without excommunicating them.
Surely it can’t just be a coincidence that this “church” only outs them and condemns them once they leave.
I’m hopeful that some of the very few countries that recognize Scientology as a religious denomination and as such a church will soon reconsider this position.
Very well said and very “spot on’ in your observations! I too hope that the USA & other countries, see this “church”, for what it really is (a “money making”, forced-labor, cult) and take away it’s nonprofit religious status!
Everything about this show is so good! The interviews, the editing, the production values, the story telling, the focus and the format are so good! Having the former insiders tell their stories is very effective. You and Leah are doing a great job of presenting the information.
For the non-Scientologists reading this, as a former Sea Org member and Scientologist of 30 years, I confirm that I witnessed incidents similar to those reported in this series. I thought they were isolated incidents that would eventually be corrected. I thought that only the organizations in my vicinity were failing. The events covered in this episode served to keep me in the bubble until I moved across the country and saw the same failure and ruin in the orgs near my new home.
It took me many years to grasp that there are people in the world (like David Miscavige) who exist only to dominate & subjugate others. Such people can be very charming when necessary for their survival but their actions eventually expose them.
If David Miscavige were a real leader, he would publicly address the stories told on this A&E series. At the very least, he would resign because his public image is now damaging to his “church”. He can’t and won’t do either because he is a twisted individual masquerading as a leader.
Thank you, thank you, thank you Mike and Leah!
Absolutely ditto. Episode by episode, just excellent editing and Leah’s conclusions those moments she sits alone in the blurred out sort of industrial large busy in the background room, her statements are just perfect emotional reaction stuff. Just excellent presentation to summarize the emotional devastation that Scientology puts people through.
Agree with you on all counts! And thank YOU, too, for coming forward and sharing your story!
Please please be careful, Mike and Leah. I don’t doubt that the zealots of Scientology will defend their tarnished reputation any means possible and will look to make any death “accidental”… Please hire security and be aware of who is after you and take it seriously as their empire and blatant lies risk more exposure and is on the brink of collapse and they will do anything to defend it, at the expense of more lives. Also, you all should set up a center where any defectors or people who finally come to their senses and run away have somewhere to go and are not left in shambles and with no prospects when they decide to leave…it will be helpful and can perhaps assist the many more that want to leave but have not found the courage or the means…
A few questions from an outsider:
1. Is the freeloader debt legally binding? I could understand why that threat would make people think twice about leaving when you have really never earned a living and have nothing to repay the debt.
2. It seems as though serving in the sea org is a form of indentured servitude. How is it possible to be paid less than minimum wage unless your time is considered “voluntary”?
3. Would stating the name of the legal firm who represents Scientology, who has sent letters to A&E and others ,cause enough pressure on their other clients to drop them as a firm? Or do they work primarily for the Church of Scientology? Seems like hitting that firm in their pockets might provide some relief, albeit temporary, from the litigation and threats.
This show is captivating and will make a difference. Exposure, exposure, exposure.
Leah and Mike-
You’ve done an outstanding job on this series. I can see that it is extremely difficult for you and I admire your bravery in exposing the truth about this criminal entity.
Is there an organization that is helping people who want to leave? They need the basics; transportation, food, shelter and therapy. So people want to help. In addition to writing to the IRS and our representatives, please let us know something concrete that we can do. Obviously the government is not doing its job since this cult has been in existence since 1949. If I lived in the area of Hemet, CA. I would be compelled to organize volunteers to assist people who want to escape. There are plenty of people who would offer rides and safe houses. I also like the idea of placing free wifi near their properties along with smartphones & devices. And what about any Human Rights organizations? Are any of them involved? The show is fascinating but leaves me upset and frustrated. How is abuse, slavery and imprisonment allowed to happen under the guise of religion in America?
Wonderful ideas and observations! I too, would like more concrete ways to help, besides writingthe IRS (not the most ttrustworthy organization itself 😉 ) , and our elected Representatives. I especially like the idea of a Human Rights Organization, even if WE have to make one for former members ourselves!
I noticed in the Scientology video that there are claims that the church helped to increased the grades of students in Detroit schools. And because I live in the metro area I was wondering what the real truth is to this?
Scientology does have an office in suburban Detroit and owns an empty building downtown. Having never met a member of the church I cannot imagine the church having many members in this area. I am curious as to what they have contributed to this area, because the promotional video acts as if they are single handledly saving Detroit schools. I am sure this isn’t the case, but just more church propaganda.
LieIntology should be the true name of the criminal syndicate masquerading as a religion now run by the demented COB David Miscavige. They claim your IQ goes up 20 points just by taking certain courses. If you read anything good that occurs that comes out in any scientology publication, you have a greater than 99% chance that it’s either an outright provable lie, a lie with no evidence whatsoever behind it, a delusional incident by a parishioner, or taking credit for someone else’s efforts.
It is/was a 100% FALSE claim! The Detroit schools are still failing and not one bit of “Scientology” has helped any student ever receive an “A+” grade! That was pure lying propaganda! And that no one, until this WONDERFUL show even knew about this false claim, is a testament on what a great show this is!!
In all of my years studying the weirdness of scientology as a curious outsider I never thought I’d see the day but…
I honestly think this wonderful docuseries might be the final nail.
After this slow implosion reverses into an explosion of good hearted people rejoining the ‘general population’ – I wish them all the best of luck.
Every week, I watch the program, and keep shaking my head. How can this happen? How can good people become so involved in these cults that they don’t see what is right before their eyes. Losing their families, losing all rights to their children, losing everything! I’ve watched the show over and over and am still shocked. How can the IRS not realize that this is NOT a religion? I think that this show and the brave people in it will cause the “church” to implode, and Miscavige will try to run with his fortune. He makes me sick. Keep on speaking for those who are brainwashed.
I am completely entranced in this. Honestly the closest thing I had to compare Scientology to was the War of the Worlds movie… I just thought it was bunch of sci-if nerds (a different level than myself… loved the show Farscape) creating an alternate reality. BUT that is clearly not the case. The information I am gaining is insane! There just is no other way to describe it.
If a recruiter had caught me when I was 18 and questioning and wanting answers to everything, I probably would have joined…. so I can see how enticing it all is for these poor dooped people.
I am not taking the shows word for it because I’m not a one source kinda gal. I have been doing massive amounts of research. Trying to get all perspectives as a neutral and uniformed party. But it’s truly pathetic and cruel how manipulative Scientology is. Painting a beautiful picture of “we have the answers…” … “buy now”… it’s similar to the spam and scams you receive in your email. Philosophy’s biggest part is the questions… there are questions that CAN’T be answered so for someone to say they do is a lie.
There has to be something that can be done instead of turning a blind eye at every turn.
Exploiting the vulnerable and naive is NOT right.
Thank you to you and everyone who is speaking out.
By the way, saw your “other” website. I don’t know whether to laugh or be furious. I laugh because it’s a lot of effort to put into something. More effort than needed if someone were telling the truth. Only someone trying to cover a lie goes to those extents. I’m furious because this is the problem with believing those who come forward with true crimes… they’re turned away because of these “boys who cry wolf”. They’ve tainted it.
The problem with a lie and being in wrong morally and ethically is that eventually it will all fall apart. Hopefully sooner rather than later!
Best wishes to you and all who have been exploited, abused, slandered, defamed, and falsely accused.
Hey Mike,
I’m curious, and maybe you do not know, just a question.
When DM was up on stage in the Monique Rathbun lawsuit, who pays for DM’s lawyers? Does he DM pay for this expense or does it come out of RTC, or some other corp in scientology?
Paid by CSI or RTC
Bless you for doing this show. I remember driving near the Hemet compound in the mid 80’s. My boyfriend at the time told me about Scientology and how people were essentially held captive there and had all of their money taken from them. Hearing this made me feel scared of Scientology. Over the years, I stopped feeling scared and began praying for the Scientologists locked in that prison of belief. Every time I see something about Scientology or hear of a person in Scientology, I pray for them. I am asking God (yeah, I am a Christian) to set the brainwashed free and open their eyes to Truth.
My heart hurts as I watch riveted by the stories. I hate cults. They are evil and destructive, and in my belief system, I see them as satanic tools to destroy people. The enemy can’t hurt God. But he sure can do a number on God’s creations. Sadly, cults are predictable. They always end up segregating and destroying families and isolation people through financial means, sexual means and relational means.
Keep up the great shows! Blessings on you and yours. Blessings on the people who have escaped. May they be healed from the emotional wounds and may they see relationships with loved ones restored.
It troubles me that so many use the word “escape” to leave scientology. There is no reason that one should have to escape any religion. Many thanks to Leah, Mike and all the guests who have been willing to share their stories.
codystl- I thought the same thing. It was disturbing to me that CoS sent people out to retrieve an “escapee” in South Africa and brought the person back to compound.
That escapee was Sue Wilhere — who subsequently went on to gain infamy as one of the members of the “Scientology 7” who came to the doctor’s office parking lot to yell at me. When the Sheriff’s were called, she didn’t run away with Jenny Linson, Dave Bloomberg and Guillaume Lesevre.
Why can’t I watch Dec 19th episode 4? I bought the season on Amazon, and I went to A&E. But episode 4 isn’t available. Why?
Report an Abusive Transaction Involving an Exempt Organization
You may use Form 13909, Tax-Exempt Organization Complaint (Referral) Form, to report an abusive transaction involving an exempt organization. To send a written complaint by mail, send to the following address:
IRS
EO Referrals
MC 4910DAL
1100 Commerce Street
Dallas, TX 75242
In addition, the IRS Office of Tax Shelter Analysis maintains a hotline that can be used to provide information about abusive tax shelters.
Page Last Reviewed or Updated: 08-Nov-2016
You know what all these empty buildings remind me of? Seeing the fake city that North Korea built to make the South Koreans think that they are rich and successful.
Did Scientology become a negative experience after David Miscavage took over? Or was it like this with Hubbard? The abuse, the rehabilitation center, spying on former members.
It still boggles my mind that people would join a “church” that is man-made. I heard that Hubbard started the church based on a bet that he could make more money starting a church than he could wiring a real job.
I heard of Scientology only after Tom Cruise made an idiot of himself. I’ve never seen them do any good for the community. All the members need to do is ask outsiders what the “church” does for their community. The answer will be.. nothing
All “churches” are man made, A “church” you can leave without repercussions, a CULT on the other hand…..
This was such a great episode, though I am sickened by the idea of the forced abortions. How can a group calling themselves a “church” do that? Still this episode also explained why so many people stay in Scientology because of the misleading propaganda, because of the abusive, almost hostage-like, mentality of the “:church” leaders.
I am not a believer in organized religion, but I do know that if you decide to leave Catholicism, or the Jewish faith, the Lutherans, the Baptists, the Methodists and all others, you are not hunted down, chased down, driven off the road.
A cult does that, not a “church.”
Keep up the great work you all are doing by speaking out. One person saved is a great thing.
I have become completely obsessed with thinking of ways to break this CULT, not church but a CULT. I have just a couple questions, if you’ve answered them already, please accept my apologies.
Does Shelly M. not have family ( in or out of scientology) that are concerned about her whereabouts? Surely she has family somewhere? How can the LAPD just drop the missing persons report filed?
Why has no one that has escaped, you included charged them for kidnapping? My God can the police not see the spikes on the fencing in Hemet? I just don’t get it how the law turns their head!
Most importantly PLEASE don’t stop with only 8 episodes! You and Leak have tactfully and professionally exposed the church. It’s the law of perpetual motion ( lol) don’t stop now, we are on a roll!!!
God speed, keep up what you’re doing you’re a good man
Lisa T
I, too, am concerned about Shelly. Info Bubble has a slide called “Weird Scientology Facts” & one slide says she hasn’t been seen since 2006, after she was filling job vacancies without her husband’s permission.
I’m wondering how much the brainwashing has to do with the authorities always seeming to stop the abuse investigations, if there have been any. I mean, what if they produce her and she says she wants to stay where she is because it’s her fault she’s there?
We all want to help these people, but it seems like the law does not distinguish between the statement of someone who is brainwashed and therefore mentally unable to make decisions and someone who is not brainwashed.
I wish I knew how to change that most of all. I plan to write to A&E and to the IRS. I’m not affected by Scientology but have heard through the Internet since the late 90’s that if you spoke out against them back then they would actually come into your home and remove your computer and all your computer equipment and the law would allow them to do that.
Lisa Taylor. The LAPD dropped the missing person report on Shelly M. after they interviewed her in person and found she didn’t want to leave with them.
It was not clear they interviewed her in person
It was when I was told by an officer there I know. I can only go by what I was told as I wasn’t there. So, take it with whatever amount of salt you think is appropriate.
OK, you may have more information than I do. I only know what I have seen as public statements and it was carefully worded so it did not say they “met”. Thanks for additional info. All is grist for the mill.
Can anyone answer the question regarding scientologists view on God?? Ive never heard God mentioned once. Just curious.
Dear Christy,
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/5-biggest-lies-in-scientologys-2-minute-tv-ad-6727165
Best answer to Scientologys idea of God, would be two Hubbard references. which are about each one of us, and not about God, but by elimination, you see that Hubbard was not at all concerned about God, but about each one of us, and restoring each one of us, to supposedly our Native State all powerful status, at the beginning of each our, supposedly, “Home Universes” from which we each came long ago, individually.
a) Bulletin 15 May 1963 THE TIME TRACK AND ENGRAM RUNNING BY CHAINS BULLETIN 1
b) “The Factors” (factor 1)
Hubbard was so much the con man, that this whole angle to his Scientology crank pseudo-talk-therapy that delves a person into their past-lives, and further (see Tony’s Village Voice article above, it has the photo of a date of some VERY long ago incident that Hubbard was even trying to touch upon in Hubbard’s final years of self-exploratory quack past-lives exploring).
Finally, Hubbard’s “One Was Stubborn” fiction short story of 1940, has the main character meet up with the villain “cult” leader in a part of the story, where the hero main character is essentially at the point of creating his own universe, again, since the hero has attained this preliminary status of evaporating all time and space, being left now to start from scratch, if he so wished to do so.
Well, that 1940 story, is essentially what Scientology’s lineup would someday supposedly lead a person BACK to being able to create their own universe, again, from scratch.
But that’s long into the future, Hubbard said in his 1983 “Birthday Game” LRH ED 339R writing, where Hubbard says that bringing the whole universe (of us souls who inhabit this whole universe unfortunately) back to Native State, for the whole universe, is WAY long into the future.
Hubbard’s Class 6 Course “Why TRS” training movie, puts the future in context, giving an example lesson for the Class 6 Scientology trainees to think about, which is Hubbard has the Class 6 trainees imagine being on some future decayed planetary decayed civilization, then they will have to recall from memory the Scientology teachings they have learned here on earth in this lifetime.
Hubbard was subtle but the theoretical basis for what Scientology’s soul spiritual practice really is, one inevitably would get what Hubbard meant, if one gets trained in the stuff.
Hubbard didn’t believe in God out there running the show, or nor any of the philosophical trains of thought, but Gnosticism apparantly is the closest to what Scientology’s ideas of the universal big patterns are.
We are fallen souls, and through Scientology’s past-lives quack trauma reducing therapy and through Hubbard’s secret Xenu caused surplus souls exorcusm, we build up our soul power and then are ready to move up higher spiritually to get back to “Native State”, the state we as souls were in before Factor number 1, and like Hubbard says in the Time Track Bulletin 1 I mentioned above, here’s the quote finally:
“…It is doubtul if another type of being built the physical universe and still lurks within it to trap further. But older beings, already degraded, have continuously been about to help newer beings to go downhill.
“Each Thetan [we each of us are a single Thetan, but our bodies are infested with zillions of “body-thetans” which Scientologists will exorcise off their bodies on the secret levels OT 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, so beginner Scientologists don’t know each of them are infested with other “body-thetans”, this is a BIG problem in understanding Scientology, in that Hubbard’s theory of the what of what we are, is confusing, but it’s understandable, it’s just a detour in the question and answer problem of understanding Scientology, sorry, not my fault, it’s Hubbard’s fault entirely] had his own “home Universe” and these colliding or made to collide, probably are the physical universe. ”
So back to Tony’s article in the Village Voice, I summarized the Scientology problem of what they think God is.
Hubbard gives God a whole dynamic though. There are 8 dynamics in Scientology, or eight main drives.
We each have a God drive, that’s as far as it goes, we have that drive for God.
In practical terms, Scientology churches are really sort of like Chiropractic colleges, you learn to be a Soul Chrio, basically, and go into your past lives trauma, clean that up, become “Clear” once that step is done.
Then on the secret “upper levels” (OT 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7) you do exorcism of the surplus souls that infest your body, those are given a two word secret confidential label “body-thetans” (the word Thetan is not secret, but the two word phrase “body-thetans” is secret and not told to anyone publicly, and only spoken or read when one is on the OT 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 exorcism training environment which is alway super secret rooms with locked doors, etc, etc, in the Scientology “Advanced Organizations” that’s where Scientologists first learn the Xenu story, and the Xenu story just explains WHY all humans today are infested with “body-thetans”, the infestion of all earthlings with “body-thetans” is Xenu’s fault, he’s the bad guy is all). So later, when you years deep into Scientology, you learn the secret truth, Xenu did bad things 75 millions years ago, earth got this super infestation of nasty “body-thetans” and then Hubbard’s secret OT levels 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 are the procedures to peel the “body-thetans” off your body.
This is all detour stuff to the big “God” question, but realize Scientology is not about worship of God.
God is a false idea, Hubbard believed, a big detour to this bigger cosmic problem of each one of us as souls, falling for all the nasty past-lives trauma and craziness we picked up as universal souls who’ve come through zillions of years of soul living in all sorts of humanoid (mainly) lives, until we ended up here on earth,, and now Scientology’s soul therapy and exorcism is here to rejuvenate you as the long galavanting soul you didn’t know that you were.
Happy yet?
Of course it’s a crock. I big long crock, but very convincing if you wish to find something in it that rings true to what you expect out of life. Soul flying was the big thing I wanted out of Scientology, and the Class 12 Scientologists were the ones who were to produce 100 percent guaranteeed soul-flying results, except they don’t and never have.
Chuck Beatty
Native State, it’s sort of the ultimate in the God drive we each possess.
Of Native State, Hubbard’s final weaving that desired goal into the whole Scientology operation’s goal, he wrote a final writing for the staffs, in the following:
LRH ED 339R INT 13 Mar 82 REVISION OF THE BIRTHDAY GAME 1982/83
“…And some day–way, way up the track–we’ll have this
universe back in native state and impervious to the faults
and traps of yesteryear. ”
Hubbard’s theoretical crap could make sense on paper, since supernatural soul and “body-thetans” quack therapy-exorcism religious beliefs are allowed and thus the Scientology mess hides under US laws that let it carry on.
Not a former member, so don’t cite me in an academic paper or anything, but I believe the general sense of divinity achieved in CoS is that your progress up the bridge to total freedom does infact make you into (a) God in your own right. If you are interested in more, look into Tony Ortega’s excellent article about “Old OTVIII” which contain direct references from Hubbard declaring himself the antichrist and leaving insinuations against Jesus character.
MightyMorbo, you are very correct. The end phenomenon of the “Bridge” was promoted by Hubbard as being TOTAL cause over all matter, energy, space, time and life. AKA, a God.
I as never in, so someone who was may have a better answer.
AFAIK there is no “God” in Scientology. The closest thing they have is the 8th dynamic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_beliefs_and_practices
There are probably one or two statements about God. I think in the beginning when Ron wrote Science of Survival he may have had somewhat of a belief in God.
But sometimes I think he only mentions it to sound spiritual.
But the bottom line is that Scientology does not address God except to say that God will be revealed to you when you understand spiritual realities.
And for the Scientologist that spiritual reality is trying to exorcise space aliens from ur bodies.
My opinion of someone who was in for 11 years is that Scientology is anti God.
Ron never talks about the unity of life.
He never instructed forgiveness or love thy neighbor.
To me, God is all about seeing all of humanity as one family.
Ron taught an us vs. them mindset.
Ron sought to harm people who disagreed with him.
And anyone who preaches violence is not a man of God.
God is really nowhere to be found in Scientology. It’s all about power and psychic abilities. It’s also about trying to alleviate suffering. It can do that sometimes.
But the down side is so down that I’d advise people to stay away.
There is no God in Scientology.
When I was a Course Supervisor, you get asked the “God” question over and over. Per the Course Supervisor training code, a course supervisor is obligated to direct the student to the Hubbard references that answer the student’s question.
What happens, is we use our hardback dictionaries,, the green one and the red one, both the large hardback dictionaries. Those two have been replaced today with various glossaires, but not yet with a new large hardback dictionary that can be purchased. There’s the superficial topical dictionaries, really just massive glossaries, for some courses, like the Student Hat glossary is a massive dictionary, but no replacement for the two old hardback dictionaries, not really a replacement for the massive amounts of words in those two old hardback dictionaries, just massive numbers of the old defined words in the old red and green hardback dictionaries are NOT contained in the newer glossaries nowhere.
So, factually to be fully honest, and fully follow the Hubbard Course Supervisor Code, today, were I on the job, I’d have to have Hubbard’s red volumes, have the two old retired hardback red and green dictionaries, and have all of the transcripts and the full library of Hubbard printed issued published works, all version, including the retired anc now censored out of the lineup older published works that only one can find online, for instance official Scientology does NOT continue to even recognize the 1950s editions of Hubbard’s works.
We do NOT live in an official Scientology world where any of the Flag Land Base “Qual Libraries” have the full Hubbard works, all earlier editions, to even square zero authoritatively have on hond the actual earlier published works to check even, today’s emphasis of orthodoxy that today’s Scientology focuses on.
And behind theactual published works, are the Hubbard “advices” and raw manuscript material, which is material that some persons have had access to, while those persons did their Sea Org jobs of “compiling” Hubbard rawer material, on Hubbard’s orders, into finished publishable “timeless tech” final published works.
The actual “scribe” business in Scientology’s history, their editing, approval, publishing work of Hubbard’s manuscript raw material, has a history that hasn’t been told, not unless you read Dan Koon’s writings, he was probably the most recent all time most voluminous compiler in Scientology’s hisory, he’s pawed through all the thousands of pages of rawer Hubbard manuscript “original” (copies of the originals) raw material, to then follow Hubbard’s compiling rules, and produce the finished Hubbard publishable issues and writings and tape lectures final editing.
Dan’s wife, Mariette, she was an editor boss above Dan, she has seen loads of these issues on their way to getting final approval, which they all got, from David Miscavige, in those years after Hubbard’s death. The “approval line” for the 1991 compiled Red and Green volumes, those individual submissions went through the okaying process, and Miscavige gave the the final signoff.
This is important to determining WHAT really is now, and what will be in the long future, the arguments over what really is orthodox Scientology procedures, definitions, and back to the point, what does Scientology define “God” to be.
And back to what I operated on, I operated on the Code fo the Course Supervisor, for that older era in Scientology history when direct refering the student’s questions to the Hubbard published writings and the transcripts of his lectures, which gave snippets of what Hubbard meant by “God.”
So when I today give my opinion of what Scientology considers it’s own words to mean, these are the parameters I still think within.
Current Scientology will not be revising Hubbard’s Code of the Course Supervisor.
How to define “God” in Hubbard’s view, would be to lay out the references of Hubbard’s own writing, where he discusses what he meant by “God.”
There are a few others to what I listed in my posts here, and what I said in Tony’s 2012 article, but to more fully define God would be to lay out Hubbard’s writings and transcripts of tape lectures where he gives the picture of “God.”
That’d be doing their work for them, but that is really how in depth expert academics would completely agree is how to view “God” in L. Ron Hubbard’s eyes.
Brian,
Thank you for your posts. As a Christian, I am baffled about the “Church of Scientology” and the fact you have to pay to learn more about the “church” as a parishioner in order to find more answers. Pay to play.
The e-meter has always been a strange concept for me to understand. Anyone who would hand me two cans while hooked up to a “meter” while asking me questions, would be enough for me to run away as fast as I could. As I watch “Scientology and the Aftermath”, read the blogs and articles, I am more convinced L. Ron Hubbard was a pathetic, delusional grifter. He must have been a smooth talker to get anyone to believe his sci-fi fantasy world.
Keep your posts coming. My best to you, Mike and Lovely Leah. Keep up the good work.
Thank you Teresa 🙂
Google Scientology eight dynamics.
Christy, I can say what L Ron said about it. Basically there is no God. Every person is a spiritual being who “participated” in creating the physical universe.
Before Scn I was “agnostic”. Today, almost every day, I wonder about the true nature of Creation. I.e. The idea that “there is no God” seems utterly absurd to me. That said, Scn does not prescribe a God or belief, as the idea is to come to one’s own realizations about life, the way one conducts oneself, and perhaps one’s own speculations about God. It is a difficult concept to express, partly because the idea has been attacked and warped by those who do not wish mankind the best, but there are “laws”, if you will, to Creation. Scientology defines and explores these. Not in any particular order of importance, and just a few brief examples: man is a spiritual being; affinity, reality and communication interact to form understanding; understanding and treating others with respect for their own personal rightness brings better results invalidating them. Hubbard said somewhere words to the effect that the most you will know about God for some time is yourself. I take that to mean that studying the functions and interactions of beings is the most one will know about God for some time. It would be a major achievement to understand how we all work. And that is what Scientology is about. To me, there is no more pure form of religion anywhere.
… better results THAN invalidating them …” Sorry. edite one word, and another one always seem to get caught in the backspace.
What I see as so obvious is that LRH was a Scifi writer. With that as a background, he was skilled at making up any number of universes, villains and cultural worlds. Why not then, create a self help book and a cult named Scientology for people to follow.What a huge ego! He knew that there would be no shortage of people who could be conned into believing this hype. Sadly, an even bigger ego maniac, David Miscavige came forward and filled the void LRH left behind.
Question: Is there ever any discussion by Scientologist about his scif novels? Or is it basically swept under the rug.
You, Leah and the others on the show are to be commended for your bravery against such a vicious organization.
Mike, I’m curious about this. People join the church and have the basic concepts of what constitutes a crime such as kidnapping or holding people against their will — we see it everyday on the news. Yet we are hearing stories about people being detained with locked doors, by being intimidated, chased by vehicles, by groups of people, being run off the road, being screamed at, threatened, when it’s clear that a person sitting in front of them WANTS to LEAVE. Can you explain the mindset of a person who performs these acts without remorse, who throws away the concept of a crime? Does a bulb switch on at some point during the training that tells them that everything they learned up to that point can and should be thrown away if someone has made it clear they want to leave? Why are there blow drills and why don’t the people who are doing these drills ever question the reasons? How does wanting to leave turn the people who chase them into monsters? How does returning a person who has fled and is now beaten down psychologically and physically a benefit to the group?
dear Mericatherine,
Scientology theory training goal is making members into trained counselors in Hubbard’s crank pseudo-therapy.
One early training procedure that ALL Scientologists is to prevent escape from the sessions. Training Routine number 3 includes physically reaching out quickly to prevent the person who is receiving Scientology from escaping the session on their own will.
So, right at that critical initial training drill procedure, ALL Scientologists learn that during a “session” one has the duty and absolute MUST necessity to precent the other person from leaving that “session” on their own.
The Scientologist counselor MUST stop the patient/parishioner from escaping the session.
This ability to restrict volitile and recalcitrant patient/parishioners is further drilled even more strenuously on Training Routine Number 7. Again in the “Twinning” general purpose training instructions, every student is responsible to retrieve their training twin partner, if their partner escapes the training environment and doesn’t come back!
Hubbard has supportive policies, that sink the followers into this belief that if they escape Scientology, the problem is that their reactive mind (mental hangups) are the cause, and that Scientologist staff and practitioners and members have the DUTY to keep the Scientologist follower from escaping and supposedly doing themselves harm.
Scientology/Hubbard presume the escaping Scientologists are like escaping mental patients and that they need retrieving to receive proper Scientology to quell their desires to escape.
Scientology presumes all people will be like “wild buffalo” thrashing their way out of captivity due to their mental/spirtual hangups and mental turmoil.
Scientology presumes that is all a person’s “case.”
Understanding Scientologists as playing some sort of fake religious spiritual doctor operation, trying to salvage the mental soul damage each earthlling has piled up in the zillions of years lives that all of the earthlings on earth as souls in past lives have racked up, and that the Hubbard “Bridge to Total Freedom” big Scientology chart that teaches them HOW to become these Hubbard soul counselors (auditors is the mumbo jumbo Hubbard name for the Hubbard quack soul counselors). then you get Scientology’s mentality.
It is a big quack self proclaiming earth soul salvage operation.
Parading as a religion, and Hubbard believed in his operation up to the end of his life, but he did admit failure very privately, as noted in the final page of Lawrence Wright’s must read book, “Going Clear….” and that all important interview with Sarge Steven Pfauth is recorded in the “Going Clear…” HBO documentary film.
Which is why, if anything, at some point, all Scientologists need to read that final page of Wright’s book, and see the Sarge interview, and really digest what Sarge tells Wright.
Parading as a religion, parading as sort of the way institutional staff treat mental patients who need restraining, that is one major theoretical problem of Scientology, they think and they act like they have this duty to restrain their members who protest too much! TR 3, TR 7, Twinning Bulletin, are upfront Hubbard theory backing up using physical force of themselves. (there are more references, there are late training films that Hubbard scripted where strong staff men guard a recalcitrant patient/person from even trying escape getting a Scientology interrogation session; there’s references that all patient/parishioners when is session must sit in such a way that the counselor Scientologist can effectively and completely stop them escaping the session, etc, etc.)
Justified restraint is embedded theoretically into Scientology’s “religious” training and their mindset.
Chuck, thank you for your very detailed and informative answer to my question. I am literally sitting here gobsmacked. So it’s trained into them so strongly that they do it without thinking, or rather thinking the person is mentally unbalanced which makes it morally right. The enormity of Hubbard’s profoundly immoral and malevolent techniques astounds me, even after following this cult for years. Only a Lucifer could come up with something this vile.
I salute you and the other survivors.
I certainly have enjoyed the entire series. Most of the information is not new to me but getting to see the effects it is creating for millions of people who didn’t already know it is fascinating. The general public need a gradual and paced campaign to inform them as the reality of Scientology is so extreme that it’s quite difficult to take in all at once.
By showing parts bit by bit with family after family and individual after individual it uses vivid images with emotional ties to create a strong and clear impression of how Scientology operates. The real people are the most damning evidence.
Showing families like those on the show makes it quite clear – these are good people that got exploited and abused by an evil organization. It only needed a few extremely evil individuals like Ron Hubbard and then David Miscavige each in their own turn to be a cultic and abusive group.
Most Scientologists like Claire and Marc Headley didn’t have a clue how fraudulent and harmful Scientology is.
As Leah Remini’s show gets people to see critics as individuals with individual claims the similar nature of the claims and supporting evidence can be examined. Prior court cases and events like Snow White, Miss Lovely, the Anderson Report and far more provide more than enough evidence to show Scientology is a criminal organization.
Together the cumulative effect is undeniable and irrefutable to almost anyone that isn’t in the thrall of Scientology or the pocket of Miscavige.
I enjoyed the episode with the Headleys. I read his book when it came out. So far, he’s the only one I’ve seen that had the nads to stand up (hell, he could have been sitting down) to David Miscavige. I wish he’d have gotten a few thumps in on him. But, if he had, he’d have a permanent spot in the RPF. Marc also didn’t snitch on his wife. What a guy!
Mike and Leah – an enormous show, covering an aspect that has not received enough attention, as you said! The Headley’s incredible and moving story is also so demonstrative of what is wrong. Starting in the 80s, the Golden Era band (or whatever it was called) would play that loud “implant” music at events, and soon I refused to attend events because I could not stand to be “BS’d” any longer with fake statistics. A friend said, “you have to read between the lines”. I guess they meant like in Pravda… But today His Bombastic Pompousness has evidently brought it to a new brazen level of BS, probably unimagined by even Kim Jong Un.
And bravo to you guys for spotting and confronting those PI’s! I loved it when Leah said she could get info too. Definitely turning the tables on those losers.
I know one can see the shows online, but I really hope they will be picked up for prime-time airing in the UK and Australia. Scientologists there need to have a chance to see them too, or at least be made aware of them in the local media, so they cannot escape hearing about it. Can’t wait for the next episode. You are right, Mike, exposure will make change, little by little. The government cannot step in and stop people from willingly participating in a practice, unless it breaks federal or state law. As frustrating as it is, I’m not sure it would be good to give them that power.
One last thought – have you mentioned in any of the episodes the fact that Scientologists willingly accept an internet filter provided by the “Church”, to screen out bad press? How pitiful is that? So much for being able to confront anything!
That would be the Scieno Sitter, which is now out of date.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scieno_Sitter
Nice to see that back then already A&E (!) did a segment about it.
Thanks for the link, Trev. “By popular demand” – what a joke! For a religion which strongly encourages dissemination, how can one possibly disseminate to new people without knowing what they are hearing or reading about Scientology? That’s like a car salesman ignoring bad press about a car and trying to sell that car to public who have read all about it. Slamming the press is not going to be a substitute for answering the criticisms with true data (not “acceptable lies”). It shows a real lack of respect for people as sentient beings – the complete opposite of what Dianetics & Scientology were supposed to be about.
As to the software, do you mean now out of date as in not updated, no longer in use, or no longer being “offered”?
Not a native English speaker here (Dutch) but I meant out of date as no longer supported technically. Wiki says it was developed for Windows 95, so there is a VERY small chance it would still run on a modern computer (I guess less dan 0,1%).
E.g. the Google Chrome browser didn’t exist so if the Scieno Sitter uses a hook in the browser it may well be useless if Chrome is used. It may also be that it uses a hook at a lower level (the IP-stack), but someone with more technical knowledge should answer that.
AFAIK the Scieno Sitter is also no longer being offered. From what I know for current members with access to the net the mind-control is self imposed. They just don’t google Scientology.
If only they did. It’s with good reason Leah in the show said something like that viewers don’t have to believe her, and may as well just google scientology.
I see, thanks – you’re English is excellent by the way. Yeah, no reason to have a filter if they just choose not to Google, especially since if they look, this would come up in a security check or can just come up in the normal course of auditing and they will have to do reparations in order to come back into the good graces of the group (working back up the “conditions” as it is called – I saw it happen with an acquaintance who was caughting reading stuff on the internet), or pay thousands for more “sec checking”. A nice disincentive… Tot ziens!
Oops – “caught” not “caughting”.
Last night was another stellar episode of Mike and Leah’s demolition of the church of scientology and its persona, David Miscavige. Leah proudly reads the church disclaimer against the Headly’s, effectively rendering it a dead agent. Mike confronts a couple Church-issue PI’s and has them scampering for cover.
The mellifluous cadences of ‘Shermanspeak’ delivered by sleazy con-man and consummate showman, David Miscavige, gets some well-deserved national exposure. The truth of the matter is hidden in broad daylight. The orgs are empty and the church is claiming it is expanding! This particularly dirty piece of laundry is being aired on television.
How indelicate of Leah to discuss something so embarrassing to the church! This could result in real damage. People aren’t supposed to know this. But now they do and Mr. Miscavige is going to have to prepare a damage control strategy that includes lots of ice cubes and equal amounts of screaming.
Mike and Leah, another great show. What I love, yet again, is you are showing how ‘blown’ SO members are living out in the real world. Nice home, three beautiful HEALTHY children, nice SAFE environment, etc. Winning is the best revenge.
Davey – eat your heart out babe. See how great Marc, Mike, Claire and all other SO members are doing? And what about Leah? with her smash show. I’ll repeat what others have said “who’s got the rank now”?
Leah’s interview of the Headley’s is the best public interview of all time, in my opinion.
Just excellent understanding on Leah’s part.
Leah’s quotes, her conclusions, some are just the best I’ve heard.
What an excellent excellent cutting edge show.
Best coverage and interviews I think, just excellent job.
Such good interviewing and info out of Marc and Claire on their most predicament, and Marc’s dad, etc, etc.
Unbelievably good material.
Like Mike said, if this one episode could be shown to the members, it’s just cause massive turmoil, but good turmoil.
Wow. Such great material in this episode of Leah’s show on Scientology.
This is real “dead agent” material right back on Scientology’s events false claims!
Thankyou so much Mike Rinder and Marc Headley for dissecting the Scientology events PR lies packaging and presentation process.
Excellent material for history.
Staggering stuff.
Were Hubbard’s “ASI” advices traffic about how to do up LRH’s products, these false PR Scientology events sadly are in tune with what Hubbard ordered ASI to produce to back up his fiction products.
In “scriptural” Hubbard full historical final writings/orders context, the Scientology events are a cross between LRH’s managerial statistics driving hopes and dreams, and with LRH’s fiction product production style (“hype” is an ASI order, when ASI staffers were not using enough “hype” in promoting Hubbard’s fiction prodcuts).
Sadly, this TV series is backed up by L. Ron Hubbard writings still to be leaked.
I hope, truly hope, Shelly Miscavige leaks all of Hubbard’s private final years writings, the ASI traffic, to the public domain and see the evidence for my comment.
But even if a serious Scientology researcher even takes just the L Rundowns, where LRH’s quotation promise that he used to Case Supervise the L Rundowns on the Apollo and always made sure anyone he case supervised always achieve exteriorization with 360 full vision stably, is hogwash per all firsthand Class 12 auditors today who relate what really happened.
L. Ron Hubbard, truly, is behind this all. Both the “church” hype, and the fiction LRH products hype.
But this Leah show, is now my favorite.
Can’t get any better, just loved this one.
Chuck, remember, every Sea Org member studies the “Its a PRO World” tape. (PRO means “Public Relations Officer”). This is part of the “boot camp” style early training of every Sea Org member and covers how to use “public relations” to control relations with the public and expand PR Area Control. Mostly about how appearances are all and reality not important if you can fake a good appearance, as I recall.
Everyone in the Gold Event Crew also studied “Effective Public Relations” by Cutlip and Center. https://www.amazon.com/Effective-public-relations-Center-Cutlip/dp/B007T4RFD0/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1482964129&sr=1-14 We had a special edition to study that had hand-written notes in it by Hubbard, mostly explaining how the authors got it all wrong.
So it is not just Dave Miscavige who relied heavily on lying to the public. Hubbard was a big fan too. “Fake it til you make it”, and “If you can’t dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your BS.”
A long section in “Mission Earth” is about how the hero gets involved with a Public Relations genius who makes him a public hero by various dirty tricks and egregious lies. That section and the part at the beginning of “Battlefield Earth” where Terl explains “leverage” are both windows into Hubbard’s soul. The way to success is not honest labor, it is “good works well publicized”. In a pinch you can skip the “good works” part and just publicize something invented from whole cloth.
The Gold camera crew were genius at creating “good works” for the shows. They would send a note to the organization that was to be shot for the event, and the local staff would panic and get piles of staff to crowd into the courserooms to make it look successful. Or get staff to walk through shots to make the place look busy while someone is being interviewed.
Sometimes whole “new social betterment activities” were invented on the spot, like handing out “The Way to Happiness” to prisoners, only to disappear after the camera guys flew back with their footage. The camera guys knew their careers were on the line if there was not enough “good works well publicized” to fill the next event with dazzling videos.
I think one of the worst of these was Francois DeJuste at Ground Zero. Somehow he got a pass to go into the really devastated areas and brought some yellow-shirted types with him. As I recall they were bragging about how they prevented the real grief counselors from going about their business. Because they were “psychs”.
Maybe some nerve and touch assists were done on exhausted first responders, but mostly Francois just got really great footage of ground zero, with yellow shirts around, for the events. So Dave could blather on about a “Wake Up Call” to Scientologists to step up their donations before the world falls apart.
That’s Scientology for you, all hat and no cowboy. But lots of rootin’ tootin’ video footage to keep the marks paying up.
Yea, I remember that book, I helped train a dozen or so of the PR trainees, and the Cutlip PR book is actually an okay book. One thing it mentions is the importance of just reading the NY Times every day, to stay up on the world. That tiny bit of advice was followed at ASI, and the NY Times came to ASI daily, and I used to sometimes sneak looking at it, it’s a joy to read, honestly.
The ASI advices, Bruce, you would gag, really.
I mean what religion does like LRH did, and what religion founder then spends his final years setting up a group like ASI, that flogs LRH’s fiction and non-church products, and horribly on top of that, LRH has all sorts of license agreements with all of the products that the “church” produces and sells, so that LRH’s Trust/ASI gets their cut of the money.
The sickening “exchange by dynamics” money flow from all of the corporate entities that sell any “LRH properties” flows a cut back to ASI (from thence the money goes to CST accounts or wherever it goes).
The ASI traffic, ASI itself, is bathed in monetary “millions” concepts. It’s all about getting recompense for “LRH properties”.
Or LRH image payback, through the LRH PPRO network, under CMO Int.
It’s sickenly so blatantly irreligious, I don’t know how Monique Yingling takes pride in being lawyer for Scientology like she does.
LRH’s greed oozes out of almost every page of his ASI traffic.
That’s the end of L. Ron Hubbard’s “let’s make money kiddies” whee, cult boss life!
(At least he had his mood swing PTSness when he thought of his well deserved legal hiding lifestyle he was forced to grovel in with his tacky disguises.)
Bruce, I’m getting to the stage of hindsight thinking of it all, that truly, YES, Scientology as a whole operation ought to just crumble, deservedly crumble into bits. As-ising itself as its members and ex members come to grips with Hubbard’s actual words and compare what Hubbard said to do compared to other religions in the world.
No one is soul flying. People have life improvement only in the more benign “squirrel” Scientology tiny miniscule splinter operations.
The whole detailed mess of Scientology, ex members who did place their lives and wits into all of the details, would benefit by Marc Headley’s final words in this episode, Marc was unbelievably good I thought.
I must concur with your statements regarding the fraudulent nature of the materials in Dianetics and Scientology. The L rundowns which promise “stably exterior with full perception” are obviously a sham. They combine many hypnotic techniques designed to induce dissociation in particular depersonalization.
Additionally if you explore the origins of Dianetics in failed abreactive therapy and hypnosis and Scientology metered auditing in the Guided Image Therapy and Emeter along with an earlier tone scale by hypnotist Volney Mathison then it’s quite clear Hubbard used particular methods.
Once you look at the occult work of Crowley and the OAHSPE against the affirmations of Hubbard it’s apparent he mixed and matched occult ideas with hypnosis and a hodge podge of other stolen ideas that had failed in their own turn.
Here here Chuck!
To bad this is only 8 episodes. You should extend this into maybe 13 episodes, every 6 months. Do not let the dog lie for too long.
I agree, more episodes PLEASE! I was on staff at a COS org but no more and not even a public participant anymore. I understand the draw but am SO grateful to Mike, Leah and the others in the episodes for the understanding of what’s REALLY going on in the church. I do not have to feel I failed to go up “the bridge”. The basic courses are pretty helpful but the money, sacrifice and dedication needed to go after that carrot ……it’s a deception. Thank you Thank you Thank you.
Leah Tweated on Dec. 20th “I have so many stories, it would take 10 seasons to tell them all”.
Maybe she will do that.
Her show and the understanding and editing process, what comes through in her shows, is just so excellent.
I like how in one episode she calls Scientology “….this thing…..”
Great camera work, great editing, great emotion.
I’d love to see more. This needs to be exposed more and more so people know the truth
Mike,
This weeks episode with the Headley’s was the one that hit me at the core the most so far. After watching you and Leah point out and confront the people following you and after hearing the Headley’s story, I am fired up and honestly pissed off that this is going on. This is an absolute mess that needs to be exposed, so thank you and Leah and everyone who has come forward and shared their stories. I had no idea and no information on Scientology, but the show sparked me to do a ton of research these past few weeks. I just wanted to let you know that this show is fueling so many others to do the same and educate themselves on the reality of Scientology and to look into and find out what it’s really about.
I do have one question for you. Why is there such a mad scramble to find people that have escaped the Sea Org and bring them back? Is it because of the fear of exposure or bad PR? Is it because there aren’t a lot of new members any more so they have to make sure to hold existing members? Also when people are found, how are they brought back? This week’s episode mentioned someone running to another country but they were found and brought back.. how? By any means necessary?
Any clarification on this would be greatly appreciated
Thank you
Why is there such a mad scramble to find people that have escaped the Sea Org and bring them back? Is it because of the fear of exposure or bad PR? Is it because there aren’t a lot of new members any more so they have to make sure to hold existing members? Also when people are found, how are they brought back?
It’s all the above. Fear they will turn into new Headley/DeVocht/Rinders etc Concern about the attrition and ever dwindling numbers. They are brought back because they are still under the spell and believe their eternity is at stake or that everything they were upset about will now be righted (it’s not) and the ingrained belief that you only depart because you have done bad things.
Some people do not come back. Those you see speaking out on this show for example.
It takes guts to walk away form what you have know for decades. Guts to leave behind a spouse, children, parents, sisters, brothers who willingly remain behind because they’ve been so heavily indoctrinated they are blinded by DM’s “light”. Also, nothing works better than intimidation and scare tactics to keep one “loyal to the cause”.
Sometimes we can’t save others, we can only save ourselves. My heart aches for all who remain locked within by choice or because they are afraid to escape, afraid of losing their “spiritual souls” or afraid they will be hunted down like animals and brought back where they might be placed in “the hole”.
Having read several of the books several former COS members have written, it’s a wonder any of you survived with your brains not “scrambled” permanently. I can only imagine how long it took to get yourselves back on track in the real world.
PLEASE continue this series Leah and Mike, you’ve got plenty of ammunition to keep the COS battle alive and moving forward.
I would hope that A & E would offer this entire series for sale with some of the money going to a fund to help the cause. I would also hope that somewhere out their would be a group of highly skilled Professional Lawyers who would willingly take on COS Pro Bono……
God Bless ALL of you and your families.
thank you for the clarification, looking forward to next weeks episode.
You are all hero’s in my book! It makes me happy that you can have a normal family life with children. I pray for your families that have disconnected. Love and peace.
I hope people seek out the Surviving Scientology (youtube) interviews with the Headleys. I have listened to all of them, at least five times each. Marc is a kick-ass interviewee. He and Claire are both fantastic telling their stories. Hear the longer interviews!
This series exposing COS for what it really is or isn’t is really an eye opener. I, prior to this, really had no idea what Scientology was or isn’t. Of course the name LRH was not new. Apparently and fortunately, here in South Texas, there is very little exposure to the cult. The church in San Antonio is labeled as a mission in a small shabby store front building. Hopefully, the rest of Texas is also a desert for this cult. What I can’t understand is how anyone gets drawn into this pack of lies to begin with, and then has to spend money they don’t have to keep getting buried further into the lies and misrepresentations. Don’t these people have any common sense? I was raised a Methodist, but really don’t have any affiliation with any church at this time. And don’t plan to. It seems that really all of these big organized religions are all about the same thing: Money, Money, Money. Apportionments. Tithing. Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure they have all done some good and will continue to in the future. Possibly even COS! Some of the basic teachings are probably common to any faith or religion. One thing that has seemed quite evident in the airing of this series is that these people who have been interviewed and shown do not seem to be hurting financially at this point. Have they all been quite rich to begin with?? I certainly don’t have a house that comes anywhere near the opulence of what I’ve seen photographed for those interviewed. If they had to pay all of this money to begin with, evidentally they were quite well off to begin with. Enough said. I am not the wordsmith that many of the previous commentators have been. But – I will continue to watch future episodes of this series and am planning on recording all of them for future review. For all involved in this production – Keep it coming. Be careful in your investigations. I don’t think that COS would stop at anything to prevent this from going any further.
I can only respond from my own experience and observations/knowledge of other ex-Sea Org people.
My father was involved with Scientology in 1953, the year I was born. I was born into it. Same as my wife, Lois. Leah Rimini’s childhood involvement started from her mother. Mike Rinder also got involved due to his parents. Most of the people that escape the Sea Org have no money when they leave and have to start from scratch. The number of ex-Sea Org members are in the 1000s.
I joined the Sea Org at 17 in 1971 and left in 1982 along with my wife. When you are in the Sea Org you get paid what I like to call a tip. In ’82, it was about $11/week. When we left all we had was support from parents for the first month or so. We had basically ZERO money. I know Mike Rinder left with very little money if any and no family to help him get started in life. So, most of the 1000 of ex-Sea Org members are broke when they leave. When I left at 29 years old, I had no outside job experience. Luckily I had the gift of gab and got into sales.
You also have to remember when in the Sea Org, you do not have to pay for one’s auditing or “spiritual enhancement” (bridge) plus your room and board were paid for (if they could be classified as room and board).
I tried to address 2 of the questions you had. No, most people that leave the Sea Org are not previously or rich when they leave. Most are broke. One thing they do learn in that horrible place that they can take with them is not being afraid of hard work. When you are used to getting a day off every 2 weeks, if you were lucky, working in the real world is a pleasure. When you first get out, having an entire weekend off is like heaven. So, working hard to make money could be a big factor in their success.
As to how they get dragged into a pack of lies? I know with Leah, Mike, my wife and I and MANY like us – we were indoctrinated by our parents. It is a great topic to discuss how people get sucked into this cult and it is discussed in the A&E show. I would say everyone has their own reason for getting involved. I know my father was looking for something better in his life and the early levels of the bridge can be a big hook. The motivation of making a better world, free of crime, drugs, etc., also hooks people in. I think everyone has their own reasons. I don’t have to diagnose how I got involved (parents). My biggest gains I got was when I drove off their property and never looked back.
Scientology is very good at finding people when they’re most vulnerable. At the initial levels it also has some courses on communication that are effective because they’re re-packaged from other sources. (A common saying that sums up Hubbard’s Scientology is “What’s good isn’t original and what’s original isn’t good.) The value of the early stuff builds up trust in the individual that allows for the indoctrination and mind-control techniques to be slipped in. As last night’s program also showed, the church isn’t above flat-out lying about the good works it claims to do. Once the member’s critical thinking skills have been dulled and they’ve been fed enough propaganda it becomes increasingly hard to leave. Leah’s concern about the well-being of her friend Shelly Miscavige who is married to the church’s leader but hasn’t been seen in about a decade was really a major factor in breaking the illusion.
Hi Not a Believer in TX. These persons that escaped have had to work hard since leaving to have what they have I think. All the situations are different. I got kicked out with a few dollars in my purse. I had to start-up a business with credit cards and did very well for 11 years. Then when I left the religion I had to give up all my clients because they were scientologists. All the loans I stupidly gave to other scientologists will never be paid back. I live in a trailer I pull with a truck and go often with no electricity and water/sewer hook-ups. It’s no fun with little money and having to rinse and re-use paper towels etc. but it is so much better then the life I had in ‘2006 when my income was over 100K. I do not regret what I gave up to get out for an instant. I also had to leave without my husband who would have helped provide. I also should say my ideal living space would be a cabin somewhere. I’m too old now to wish for a nice house like that but some would be miserable without it.
Could there be a suit brought, re Constitutional law; Roe v Wade? There has to be Medical records somewhere. Abortion is a choice by law. Coercion, an duress to force this is not.
Another great episode last night. I have DVR’d each and have watched them more than once. I really felt for Claire Headley. A woman and her partner should be the only ones making decisions about a pregnancy and to think many of the women have had no choice but to abort multiple times. It was amusing but sad to hear Marc tell the story about not knowing Claire could cook after being married 13 years. Marc talking about the propaganda films and videos he was forced to produce and Leah saying she had had doubts until she went to a gathering and had her mind changed after seeing one of those videos with false statistics. It show just how much the “celebrities” as well as the members are continuously lied to. I am constantly amazed how each of the people interviewed, including Leah and Mike, are angry at the church for their duplicity, angry at themselves for being duped, ashamed of some of their own deeds, but steadfastly passionate about bringing the church and Miscavage down.
Last night when I watched the show I was disheartened to earn that the first Amendment protects religions from discipline for harming people. This apparently has been working for Scientology for years but just maybe this silver lining will be ripped out just as it was for religions that practice other law violations like the Mormons who practice polygamy and child’s marriages ! I hope so keep on exposing the things they do. Is their not one Senator or representstive in the US that will take this plight on. Write your congressmen people this is wrong on so many levels. Separating families is just wrong. Get your families out anyway you can. Run if you doubt or have seen the lies they are feeding you. Good grief run anyway!
Mike, I have been watching every episode and am sickened and concerned about all of this. I decided to drive out to the Hemet area to get a glimpse of the headquarters but have learned the road is closed all in the area of the compound. It brought to mind the episode where one man was told to try to get roads/ sidewalks closed in anticipation of protesters over a former member’s death. Wondering if this is connected to the show airing and drawing attention to the Hemet facility and wondered what your thoughts are? God bless you and the work you are doing.
Gina, that would be Gilman Springs road/Hwy 79? I could see no reason they would be closed or record of closure since 29 Nov for an accident. If you are close maybe you can check. There has to be a reason posted for a road closure I believe.
Yes, Gilman Springs Road. I ended up going out there anyway and there was no road closure. However, the map on the computer says it was closed for about a month and showed it in red all along the compound. But it was open! Weird.
Wow, Mike. Floored by the tweets and comments last night, most wanting to help. What a difference a decade makes.
Stan Marsh made the world laugh about Scientology’s funny science fiction stories back in 1997.
You and Leah Remini are making the world listen about Scientology’s human rights abuse stories in 2016-2017.
Finally. I shake my head with each Episode. I’ve waited for this moment in history for such a long time. So many other brave Ex’s I wish were still here to see this. Now waiting for Blown For Good, The Movie:)
Mike, question about the PR and videos they make. I definitely understand how the members who don’t have access to outside internet would be snowed, but what about the members who can access all media? Wouldn’t people like Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Juliette Lewis, Erika Christensen, etc., be able to hear/see/read what a “false gospel” this is? Or is it a matter of refusing to believe that heroin use is actually on the rise b/c their church has told them it’s actually falling? Thank you. (BTW, I drove past the Clearwater building last fall and prayed for the people in and around there. It just makes me so sad.)
They dont WANT to see anything else
Thank you for responding so quickly. I’m continuing to pray that every single person wrapped up in this cult will see and believe the truth.
You’ve got a good heart, ER. Staff & SO have beaten down for such a long time, they don’t know that they have the ability to just walk away. And that is truly sad.
Mike, the work you are doing and your story are amazing. I have wondered how Katie Holmes got involved? I know she married & has since divorced Tom Cruise and he is a huge proponent of COS, but she was raised Catholic, even attending an all girl Catholic school. I’m glad she & Suri left. It would be an interesting story to hear. You & Leah keep up the great work, you are making a difference!
Thank you to Leah, Mike and all of the people who have had the courage to be a part of this show. Each and everyone of you is truly someone who should be considered a hero in my opinion. I watched episode 4 the other night and something struck me with the “church’s disclaimers” about the abuse. It said something along the lines of no abuse had every been proven. In watching the clip of the BBC John Sweeney show you see Mr. Rinder as a man who was gaunt, gray skin, hollowed cheeks, sunken and lifeless eyes. All classic signs of abuse. I have cried right along with Claire Headley and Mary Kahn never being able to truly imagine the heartbreak that they have had to go through. Bless you all!!
I can only hope and pray that someday soon the dictator that is David Miscavige will be taken down. He has not studied his history well to see that at some point in time all dictators are over thrown. And the outcome for them is usually not very pleasant. I have not gone to see a Tom Cruise movie in almost 10 years as I do not feel I should spend my money at the theaters to support someone who is so brainwashed that he can’t see the horrible things happening right in front of him as well as taking advantage of all the free labor that is available to him. Thank you all for being so brave and courageous each and everyone of you.
Mike,and Leah are brave enough to present the truth behind this cult.Beatings,harassment,forced abortions are not part of a religious doctrine ,but are criminal acts,and should be prosecuted ,as such.David Miscavige is an insecure,power-hungry bully.Enough is enough.
Karen, I saw the same thing. The disclaimer said Mike has provided no independent evidence of abuse. The video of him when they took him from the hole to stop the BBC documentary is all the independent evidence I need.
There are so many credible witnesses who have either experienced abuse first hand or witnessed it that you have to ask why would so many of them lie about it? Scientology is very careful about covering up abuses like this, but not so clever when it comes to their external actions such as the two PI’s paid to follow Ron Miscavige, the squirrel busters who relentlessly harrassed Marty Rathbun and his partner, the bird box camera spying on Mike Rinder, etc etc. in themselves these acts are disgusting enough.
For my part I had staff members following me around at events making sure I didn’t leave without buying the latest ‘release’ costing $3000 plus! Someone I know was forced into spending $800 on a return ticket to Flag otherwise they would not have been given their passport back so they could leave. There are many many more examples but suffice to say that even my experience as a public scientologist is enough to convince me that the sea org members put up with some horrible treatment.
Just got done watching the latest episode, Mike. Loved what you and Leah did to those two PIs. And he had the gall to ask, “Who are you people?” As if….
PI’s,who do this,should be taped so there is a body of evidence to present to law enforcement.It’s much like domestic abuse.One needs to keep a meticulous record of dates,times when the harassment occurs.There aren’t enough lawyers on the planet who can explain documented evidence of crimes being committed.Scientology needs to lose their non-profit status so they won’t be able to afford PI’s,and lawyers.How they ever got that status,in the first place,is mind boggling.
+1! Excellent post!
The initial episode of ‘Aftermath’ got a lot of attention on the news sites and in print. I haven’t seen any mention of last nights episode. Claire Headley was magnificent in her testimony, as was Marc. But Claire gave the best testimony, in my not so humble opinion.
So why no mention of the coerced abortions? That story should be the headline everywhere.
I agree 100% about the forced abortions.
Write to the attorney general of your state. Scientology is being operated like an organized crime syndicate. That is something an AG may not want in their state.
I’m curious if the RICO statute could apply.Checking this out.
Hugs of support to the ‘Aftermath’ family. Courage.
The only role I think I can play is to stop watching movies and shows that have active Scientologists.
Judging by some of the comments I have been reading on the twitter feeds,some are CoS trolls, you touched on a sore spot when it comes to the money angle.
Excellent project.
I am doing this. No actor who supports a criminal organization is going to get my movie money. Also, I comment on any of their promo if it allows comments. And it isn’t a positive one.
One big change from the old days is so many huge and small donations for no service so no service need be delivered to get $$$$….in the 70’s and early 80’s we may have been insane as well, but at least there was an exchange of services (to help public) for $$$$.
My suggestion is that there should have ABSOLUTELY been a side by side comparison of Scientology’s “claims” or made-up “facts” against the TRUTH. You have the medium to show just how much they lied about in the moment, you should do it. That’s what was missing in this episode. You guys need to go harder. Out-research them and expose them when every opportunity presents itself.
Otherwise, another stellar episode. I knew it was hard to escape, but had no idea they travelled the world tracking down their defectors.
Thanks. If there are some people out there who want to do some of the work I would gladly accept it. Find these claims by scientology — just watch any of the event videos — and fact check them. I didnt have the bandwidth to be able to do it.
You and Leah are so well- suited for this task. The naratives are easy to follow despite the complexirty and pack an emotional punch.
So pleased for all involved, this is a game changer.
I could do it. My dad has done marketing and research for over four decades. I will start on it tomorrow and get his help. Let me know what kind of deadline you need
Thanks Stacey. That would be wonderful. There is no deadline. The sooner the better. Significant proof of false claims in 2 months would be wonderful. Best would be denials in writing from those cited in their videos/mags.
No problem! I love doing research and fact checking anyways. I had already started to before I even saw this initial comment and made my offer. So it shouldn’t take too long.
Thank you Stacey. Much appreciated.
Mike,
What you and Leah are doing with this show is amazing. I just can’t believe that they have gotten away with so many illegal actions. What really bothers me from this most recent episode it to learn of all the abortions they pushed onto women. This country allows women to make their own decisions and even with that this organization is suppose to be spiritual/ religious and yet they are pushing the DEATH of innocent human beings. Who knows what these babies could have grown up to be… what good things for this world they could have done.
Truth always prevails. I just wanted to send a written note of support to you all who have taken on this task. I myself have never been involved in any sort of religious extremism and choose to take my own path of spirituality. (just stating for context) I am truly sickened to learn about the depths of the measures this organization is taking and in turn spreading negativity and dysfunction to the human consciousness. i wish I could give all of you who have been so heavily affected by this cult, losing your families, all while losing everything your life had been when walking away from a cult. Be strong and I hope all you get to heal your broken bonds with family members still being manipulated by this disgusting organization. Sending all of my love and support to “the aftermath family”!!! Keep it up and I hope all people who are under this oppressive regime become empowered and give them the finger too. xoxoxo love from Colorado
Mike, this last episode, in my opinion, was the best. I simply can’t imagine having to “escape” a religion like the Headly’s had to do. A quick question though…when you ran across the two guys in the lobby of the hotel that were spying on you, why were you able to confront one and identify him, but the other guy had a blurred face. Is there a specific reason for that, that you can share? Thanks again for all you do.
It’s a legal concern I suppose. I never would have blurred his face. He was there provoking us and filming us. Almost certainly an employee of the chief goon, but he was not identified.
Mike, I loved this one. It was so good to get the real news of faked stats and fake events and commercials to keep the flock believing from the horse’s mouth, that of Marc Headley who was in charge of putting those fake events together. Good job to all of you! But one question: in Marc’s excellent book, “Blown For Good,” he says that after someone called the police when the church ran him off the road, a police car showed up and actually escorted him to the UHaul rental store in town. The police car drove behind him to protect him and escort him unscathed into town. That was such a crucial detail and should have been told on TV. Also the fact that the Hemet police know the score about the church there. It lends credibility to the story and is a good PR thing for the police. Why wasn’t that part told?
In case anyone hasn’t seen it, here’s the police report of the whole incident: https://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/12831004?access_key=key-3x15uhsjgx67z60989h
OceanBreeze,
Awesome! Thanks for the link.
Mike and Leah,
I am not here to criticize your reactions to the PIs, but in watching last night’s episode, I have to say that I would have done two things differently. First, in the case of the parking lot and stopping on the street, I would have pulled into the parking lot and driven right up behind him. I would have pulled up t his car like we were in a car wash. I know that you both have been harassed by these guys to the point that you wish harm on them, but play their game a bit. The PI was in private property. You could have used that to YOUR advantage.
Second, with the guys at your hotel, why not walk into the lobby, taking the film crew, and sit down across from the guy. Start talking about how you feel that people are using illegal activities to trace your whereabouts and that you recommend your producer have A&E’s lawyers check into people who are following you all across state lines. Do this without even acknowledging the person’s presence. LEt him overhear the entire conversation. If he talks to you, tell him this is a private conversation and that you would appreciate his respect in keeping to himself.
These PIs are working inside the confines of the law. Use those same laws to put these people’s faces on camera. They want you to confront them so they can claim that you, Leah, and A&E are ;out to get them.
The way to get at the organization of Scientology is to fight fire with fire. I doubt that Scientology will ever be shut down completely, but chipping away at them one video, one story, and one person at a time will do it.
Mike and Leah, I remember way back in the 70s or 80s watching a commercial for Dianetics. I was in school at the time and mentioned to my father that the book looked interesting. My father told me that it was a cult and I should stay away. I have no idea how my father came to this conclusion. The town I grew up in did not nor does it have a COS. For a great long time, the proof of Scientology has been out there. It takes time for things like this to change.
Many people are on your side. If Scientology knew me, I would be labeled a Supressive Person and would be disconnected from COS. Unfortunately for them I have no affiliation with Scientology nor do I know anyone in the church.
Keep doing what you are doing. I will be contacting the people in power to voice my opinion as well.
Mike, you, Leah, and A&E, are doing some serious good here. Do not forget that.
This program needs to go international so as to warn potential Sea Org recruits. I think Scientology would have imploded in the ()’s if not for the hundreds of Sea Org recruits that came out of Russia and Hungary. Even with the hundreds of recruits, the number of staff at Flag did not go above where it was in the mid 80’s. In 1986 Flag Crew celebrated attaining 200 staff and the FSO had about 800. When I left in 2005 the numbers were almost exactly the same. Recruitment in the United States is almost entirely reduced to people born in the bubble. Word of mouth from ex-Sea Org members greatly slowed recruitment out of Russia and Hungary. Recruitment has shifted more into places like Taiwan. The Sea Org will eventually muddy all recruitment pools but that process can be greatly sped up by getting this A&E series broadly distributed.
Sorry – should read “would have imploded in the 90’sif not for….”
Senior moment? I have them on an hourly basis…
This is an important point to keep in mind! As $cn gets the sound drubbing that it so richly deserves here in the U.S. and it can no longer bring in new recruits or find new marks here, it will ramp up its efforts in places like Taiwan where, horrors of horrors, it’s actually gaining a foothold.
We need to chase into N. Korea and confine it there until both Dear Leaders can dealt with simultaneously;)
I wonder how the day is beginning for the staff and crew in Hemet?
Yo Dave,
Enjoy the show good buddy? It’s about time to fire up the SuMP and set the record straight. Only You can do it now …………. Dave! Say something………………………
Well you know there are daily beatings. It’s EVERYBODY’S fault that this show is airing. The staff, OSA, Sea Org, the SP’s – every one has failed to protect the almighty DM.
Silence. The refuge of a COWARD.
Sorry….Dave’s in the closet right now. We’ll let you know when and if he comes out.
Probably in the closet with Tom.
My prayers are with all of the wonderful, good hearted people the COS tried and failed to destroy! Thank you for sharing all of this information with the world! It may not help those who are in it but hopefully we won’t lose anyone else to this cult.
I’ve written to my Senators asking them to check into Scientology’s abuses and tax-exempt status, but I am holding off on my Congress rep because that’s changing next month. In fact, when I go to their website I am referred to one my Senators (who I already wrote to).
Thank you for giving us things we can do, like writing our representatives and supporting websites, so we can help in some way. It would be frustrating to watch the show and not be able to do anything about what we see.
How can the COS have a MINOR sign a “billion year contract”? They are not adults and don’t have the mental capacity to understand what the Hell they are signing. It’s illegal for a minor to sign a contract by law, so how does COS get pass that?
For the COS to force Claire to have an abortion is reprehensible, to chase COS members who wish to cut ties with COS is also far beyond what anyone could truly comprehend or accept as “the norm”. Having to plan an escape as Katie Holmes did just to be free of COS control is mind boggling. According to Marc and Claire…their lawsuit was tossed because COS is considered “a church”…..WT?? They are holding their members captive behind a prison wall of barbed wire fencing with cameras everywhere, they can’t have private telephone conversations with anyone and all of their personal letters have to be read by the hierarchy before the letters can be mailed out…..this is the description of a PRISON, not a church, a cult that fears the more members they lose the worse COS looks.
To me, after seeing Tom D interviewed…he still appears shell shocked that he was duped into staying a COS member all those years. His interview was heart wrenching as were the others, to have to leave family in “the care” of COS, knowing what lay ahead for them, knowing what the family members are going through, knowing they are so brainwashed they refuse to leave COS for fear of losing their “spiritual souls”.
Why not a march on Washington, why don’t any and all former COS members band together as one and sue COS for any and all charges, tying them up in court and having them investigated…..uummm….is it that they fear another sad fiasco of what went on with David Koresh or Jonestown and the loss of so many lives….that sounds about right to me.
Who will pay for the suit? It will be a long and dragged out one, thus very expensive.
Somewhere out there, there has to be a lawyer or group of lawyers or even politicians who might be willing to take on the challenge……we can only hope.
What an impact this show has. The episodes continue to get better and better and always exposing new information. I too can attest to the truth in the episodes as I was staff for over 15 years and in the church over 25 years. However, while in, I never dreamed they would just blatantly lie about their stats either. I would look at the lack of expansion in my own organization and say to myself “I guess it’s expanding everywhere but here”.
Precisely what is intended. 🙁
SMC you hit it on the head. My son was on staff at LA Org and at one point decided to join the SO. I asked why he couldn’t Clear the planet from a Class V Org so as to not have to join the SO where I’d never see him? (At least Class V Org staff can see their family). His reply was very telling. He said things were pretty dead at LA Org and that he really wanted to sink his teeth into something and really clear the planet but that there wasn’t enough public at LA Org to do that with. He said that if he joined SO, he would get into the “real game” and really get to play with the big boys and really know that his actions were doing something to clear the planet. OMG. This thinking goes along with, when they see empty orgs, they think it must just be their org and if they just stepped up their game by joining the SO, that is where the real action is. What incorrect thinking. They don’t realize it yet but the SO orgs are just as empty and it is just as much a losing game. But when you’re brainwashed, you can’t even think that it could be anyone else but yourself or your org as being the problem.
Mike, this is a honor,from Going Clear to Leah, you are showing what it’s like to be in this organization,but perhaps you can help with this question, just how does the CO$ get away from buying land to put up the “ideal org”, being near L.A. I keep hearing about the Valley org which will get underway soon, how does the CO$ get away with it? Who does the buying of the land and is there not a way that the owner of the property can say,I have heard of you all and the answer is no? Thank you for your standing up to this sham of a organization.
Money talks
In other words, Mike, criminality begets criminality.
Are you anxiously awaiting new episodes of Leah Remini:Scientology The Aftermath? YouTube has numerous videos and interviews of former COS members.
Want a fascinating escape story? Tori Magoo44 escape will bring up a playlist of her harassment during her cross country trek to get away from COS.
Do you have questions about how COS works? Chris Shelton has a weekly Q&A video where he explains policy and procedures.
Want to hear what L Ron Hubbard had to say? Videos of LRH spouting nonsense are all over YouTube. The 1982 hearings in Clearwater feature testimony by Paulette Cooper, L Ron Hubbard JR and others that prove the playbook for handling ENEMIES of COS has not changed.
Surviving Scientology has a playlist of interviews of former COS that will keep you engrossed for DAYS.
Be warned, once you start looking and learning, you will be overwhelmed at the evil that is the COS.
You just answered my question. I was wondering if it was any better before David Miscavige, but apparently it was just as bad.
Not nearly as widespread and not deeply imbedded in the orgs and missions. The utter destruction of the mission system really was a major turning point. Thousands simply walked out.
There used to be a time when it was fun. That’s when the missions thrived. I remember those times. And… I remember the consequences that followed.
At least there was no IA$ pre-Miscavige, so I’d say it’s worse now than before.
Actually, no, Tracy, while there were insanities galore while LRH was alive, it got 10 times worse under DM. More than 10X worse. Beatings and forced abortions were not institutionalized as they became under DM, people were not hounded to contribute their last penny to increase DM’s property portfolio and so much more. DM is like LRH at his worst, but on steroids. Mike and many others can corroborate my claims here.
Organized scientology deteriorated as the Sea Org grew and took over managing everything. They introduced their heavy-handed dictatorial methods and approach. The Sea Org doesn’t believe in the application of ARC and “granting beingness”, two of the constructive basic concepts in original early scientology. It was the growth of the S.O. that led to the destruction of the Mission network. God only knows what Hubbard was thinking. It is as though he destroyed the positive aspects of his own creation for reasons best known only to himself.
Great post! Also, sites like Wikileaks have the COS material free of charge.
Uhm, wait, scratch that. 😛
Great show Mike and Leah, Mark and Claire. Leah’s New York glamorous street vibe is the edge that fuels this train.
As a New Yorker I appreciate you Leah. The New Yorker Spirit can be so great.
Leah, you are a warrior Shield Maiden. Thank you.
I was thinking, it’s not really courage that animates you. You already have courage in spades. What animates you is a righteous purpose to protect the innocent.
Hurricane Leah, Leah the Shield Maiden Warrior!
Thanks for being a righteous kick ass women! I love strong women!
I have bee watching from the start; I thought that I had already heard everything but was just getting confirmation. But I had never heard that the events, which I used to love, were fiction. That was a shocker. That tiny dirtbag Dave was putting on a show and lying to us, was incredible!!!
WOW! And I thought I had it bad as a catholic growing up! Thank you so much Mike and Leah for opening up and discussing this in detail. While I have heard some stories over the years about some of the truly insane instances of abuse, hearing about the abortions is… well, disconcerting at best, especially for me as a product of adoption in this country. While it seems unimaginable to those of us outside the “cult” of Scientology, the general consensus from all of you seems to be that they have been brainwashed in every way and unless they have that moment of clarity, i.e. David Miscavage physically assaulting them, as all of the guests including yourself and Leah have had, then they will continue to follow this lunatic nut job David Miscavage to the grave. Please continue your fight and know that we are all supporting you in every way.
Good show Leah and Mike, Want to give you a mindset that I had while in the S.O. I thought we were all in this crusade together shoulder to shoulder and fighting the good fight. Our ethics actions were accepted with the idea they would make one stronger and more aware. Everyone would be respected for being there and helping. And no one person would be senior to the TECH; That would be our checks and balances. That we all had the right to question one’s actions against policy.
My life like yours has touched the sublime and the ultimate truth that DLHDM and the RTC fucked it all up took over and turned Scientology into their personal $ machine and torture chamber against the gullible.
I was an Int Event producer from 87-89. Worked with DLMDM and talked to him as a fellow S.O. member when he wanted my opinion. I noticed others gravel at his feet and couldn’t understand their suck-up.
Now I do. Thank-you sooo much for doing these shows. Note: I never was posted at INT as I had taken LSD but worked as an INT Event producer as attached from AOLO to EXEC STRATA. Lucky me for taking LSD.
A funny tale for you Mike, I got a big laugh listening to DLHDM practice his Sherman-speech back stage. Actually it was hilarious.
Ummm . . . no. Think again. Prior to Sea Org Captain David Miscavige and his RTC, Scientology was L Ron Hubbard’s personal money machine and torture chamber, and it was used not just against the “gullible but also the totally innocent. Bear in mind, the lies began in 1949 when L Ron Hubbard told the world he used Dianetics to cure his war injuries. The lies never stopped. Ten years later and the Manual of Justice was written to codify the already extant suppression of individuals. Just a year later and the PTS/SP Doctrine – that part of Scientology which makes it not only a criminal enterprise but also a hate group – was being written into the “tech”. By then, of course, L Ron Hubbard was rolling in ill-gotten cash.
I understand Crepuscule we were all given rose colored glasses when we joined.
I understand. Thank you for escaping AND speaking out. Rock on.
If you want to understand where the RPF, as a forced labor, re-education camp idea came from, you can easily trace it back to Elron during his faux navy period. Want to really get how disconnection works and where it started? Well then, look no further than Elron’s own first two wives and his abandoned and estranged children. And if you can still, somehow, rationalize that behavior, then look at how he ended up throwing Mary Sue under the bus to take the fall for his totally whacked Snow White Operation and his son Quentin’s escape from $cn and subsequent suicide.
Nope, DM is a complete monster, but Elron was the master from whom he learned his “management style” and, it seems, how to deal with inconvenient spouses as well. DM took something that was already evil and criminal to its core, then just doubled down on it.
I think it important to acknowledge these points. There seems to be a faction among the blown in denial that the current evil sprang from the evil that came before. My concern is some may believe that if only DM is brought down the “church” can return to its original purpose and greatness. From the outside looking in this is a denial of the full truth that a cult with no redeeming value began with evil, greedy intent by LRH has only become moreso.
I have the utmost respect for you and Leah. I was amazed after watching “Going Clear” and I’m so interested in the A&E documentary. My question is: how did they catch the sea org who was in South Africa?
Yes, her name was Sue Gentry and she is currently married to Greg Wilhere.
She is one of the people that was in attendance at the infamous Doctor’s Office ScreamAThon. In fact, when Guillaume Lesevre, Dave Bloomberg, Jenny Linson and the PI’s RAN AWAY when the cops were called, she is the one who stayed.
Lesevre was part of that? How utterly pathetic.
Willie Phelps, are you the same Willie as in Phil and Willie who did the billboards? If so, let’s get a donate funds thing going (I’ll donate) and get another set of billboards up to piggy back on the press that the Leah Aftermath show is enjoying. It will be a One-Two Punch!
That is Willie and Phil Jones
Thanks Mike. Can you please send me Phil and Willie Jones’ email address and/or phone number so I can call them to get this new billboard campaign going. There were many comments on your blog where many people want to contribute to that to get it going again.
About this: “If you operate on the ‘where there’s smoke there must be fire’ principle you can easily wonder whether there might be some truth to the smears they spread.”
I think most people can at least see that, even if there was fire behind that smoke, you’re talking about your fireplace compared to their forest fire.
They’re putting out a lot more smoke than you, AND Leah, AND all the one time guests combined.
I’m in no way objective and I admit my bias may be coloring my opinion, but I think you guys are looking great (and like decent people trying to write an awful wrong), and they’re looking awful (and like violent, abusive scammers).
What a uniquely perceptive individual you are!
Keep in mind when you hear the cult state all the “crimes” committed by ex’s, such as Mike Rinder, many of them are part of forced confessions which are total lies members have to confess to. When it says “she lied thousands of times, it likely was a forced confession. Miscavige will force confessions knowing that he may need them later given the atrophy rate has gone vertical 47 times. There is a link in this site to an article demonrating what Rinder’s former wife did to fake injuries with false makeup allowing the cult to show what a “savage” Mike is. Luckily the police made an actual report that plus I think this was the occasion where the confrontation was taped by Sweeny and played on a previous Aftermath episode. When you hear Leah read the cult’s description of “crimes” be aware that many of those crimes were confessed to just to get the auditor off their back. LieIntology is George Orwel”s vision of “1984” implemented as close as possble in real life.
Another off the chart episode!! You and Leah are going to bring this evil to it’s knees! Thank you…
Thank you and Leah for exposing the despicable acts of this CULT. I hope through your courageous showing of the real CoS something will be done. It breaks my heart to see the pain the ex-members are living with. Families should never be separated by an organization that calls itself a “church”.
I found the FACTS revealed in this episode to be the most disturbing, yet… the coerced abortions, the lengths to which the cult goes to recapture those who escape, the lies told in those ridiculous promo videos. Thanks for the list of proactive steps that may be taken in efforts to further expose and thwart this evil.
Feeling overwhelmed – Go Mike – Go Leah – Expose Scientology for what it really is “CULT CULT CULT” How dare they hold people back from leaving – Bastards !!!
Another great episode. We have not missed a single one. Over Christmas, I found that not only my parents are watching the show but also my sister and her family. Awesome.
The only question I have is regarding freeloader debt. I knew about this for years but was under the impression that there was no way that it was legal. Is the freeloader debt truly legally binding? I realize that you sign your life away in the SO, so I would not be surprised if it were somewhere in the contract. Just for some reason I thought it would not hold up in court.
Keep fighting the good fight!
All the best and love from my ENTIRE family.
Evan
No, Freeloader debts are not in any way legally binding. They only matter if you want to get back into scientology and progress up the Bridge.
“…progress up the Bridge.” Now there’s part of a sentence with all the right grammatical trimmings, subject, verb etc, except the complete thought bit.
A Bridge to what exactly? Social and financial ruin? Yeah… OK, I guess that constitutes a complete thought, the only thought concerning Scientology that resembles honesty and the truth.
But… but….how can someone go UP a bridge? I always go OVER a bridge. I guess I’ll never understand Scientology…
Mike ,Leah and all involved with Aftermath.Keep the Pressure On!Miscavige has not yet begun to feel the flames of Truth.But he will.?
Oh, yeah, Ann. I have it on very good authority that DM is definitely feeling the impact of this show and in the words or someone who knows, he finds it “devastating.”
This was a very powerful episode. It packed into a few short minutes, Fair Gaming and the church’s use of PI’s, the false PR the church puts out of the Int Base, the true picture of the Int Base with the razor wire and imprisonment aspect of it and then the STORIES!
I appreciate so much Claire’s willingness to open up and expose the heartache and long-lasting pain of forced abortion. It speaks TO so many and FOR so many.
Marc and Claire’s story of false imprisonment, long and sleepless hours and years of work and harrowing escape had me cheering out loud when they were reunited (and I read Blown For Good).
There were so many human rights violations and laws broken by the church and david miscavige that were exposed again, I am hoping that enough people write their congressmen and IRS that it forces Something Be Done About It. IT’S ABOUT TIME!!!!!
PS I cannot believe the short little snippet of next week had me bursting into tears yet again.
Mary, the whole thing is powerful! Episode after episode is like a huge battering ram that exposes all the lies and deceit.
Mike…..when is this organization going to be investigated? The crimes I have noted from watching the series….child molestation, rape, holding individuals against their will in prisons, forced abortions, assault and battery, falsifying documents claiming to be a religion, tax evasion, reading mail and monitoring phone calls, sneaking around following and watching individuals…. the only way out is to flee and plan an escape!!! There are so many crimes being committed!!! This is a religion when these things are happening???? There are probably many other crimes being committed!!!! Are there going to be any protests organized??? I bet many would protest…..of course Miscavige would try and have the sidewalks torn up!!!! Clearwater is such s beautiful place but yet there is this garbage in such a beautiful place!!!! Makes me so angry thinking about all of this! ?????? God bless all of you for your courage!!! Wish I could do more to help!
Child welfare//labor laws……And another one that is puzzling to me is the fact that you cannot enter into a binding agreement under the age of 18, yet sooo many have……I just can’t wrap my head around this prison they call a “church”.
qwestgirl , in 2015 the Dept. of Labor sued the FLDS Church for child labor violations. The CoS probably isn’t big enough to hit their radar.
As far as “binding” contracts goes, just because a minor signs a contract doesn’t mean there is any validity to it. You are confusing what is legally binding to what is merely signed.
So it isn’t a contract, per se, but more of a pledge to the CoS…..
That’s correct. But every person in the Sea Org ALSO signs a 5 year contract with the corporation that pays them (like CSI or RTC or C of F of WUS). Those contracts are resigned before the expire every 5 years. Those contracts contain a lot more language about terms of “employment” etc
Wow, I didn’t know that Mike. Back when I was in the SO no other contract (5 year) was signed. Must have been implemented after the IRS “handling”?
No, it was before that. It was following the “corporate sort out” done in mid 80’s. Not sure it was really ENFORCED until after the IRS agreement when “Legal Rudiments” became a massive issue to be able to report compliance each year for the terms of the agreement (5 or 7 years I forget) to all churches being IRS compliant.
Oh! The C of California to C of WUS transition time period. Ok, mine was signed years before then.
I so appreciate reading your comments as I cannot even receive the A and E productions down here in Mexico.
I have even paid iTunes to get the productions but they don’t show anything but the Scientology ad for the Dianetics book over and over and over. There must be some influence being paid off in the Mexican government by Scientology.
Go to the Russian version of YouTube: Rutube.ru. Everything is there.
I’m behind, as I have to catch the episodes when possible. I’ve seen up to episode 4. I’m frankly blown away. This series is VERY important in the fight against this vile cult.
I’ve been interested in Scientology since I saw YouTube vids of John Sweeney’s Panorama about 2-3 years ago. While Going Clear was superb, it was by necessity limited in its scope. Having this series is allowing the general public information that we could only glean through following your blog, the bunker and the many testimonies on YouTube. It takes a lot of work and time to follow this information, read the testimonies, keep up with Scientology news. It’s not for everyone.
Thanks for putting it all together and getting into the many important subjects that other exposes could not include.
It’s not about Scientology beliefs; it’s about their vile practices.
Thank you for the deep dive for the public. Even if authorities cannot or will not act, individuals can be warned about what Scientology is and does. If one person walks away from the door, that’s a life saved.
Bravo!
“It’s not about Scientology beliefs; it’s about their vile practices.” Unfortunately, the vile practices are very much supported by their beliefs and policies. There is no actual separation any longer.
grandeclectus, that is incorrect. Scientology beliefs are really bad! “We’d rather have you DEAD than incapable (an incapable auditor), as just one (out of countless examples). As L Con said, it is an APPLIED religious philosophy. The philosophy is vile, hateful and dangerous.
Mike Wynski, KSW is from 1968. There are a lot of basic principles and beliefs published in the early and mid 1950s that are quite positive and constructive. The early orgs and missions operated on those – that’s why they were often quite successful. Hubbard did eventually foul it all up, the coup de grace being the the 1982 “mission massacre”. The increasing power of the Sea Org is what fouled it all. The Sea Org, by policy, operated contrary to virtually all the early teachings.
Wrong iamvalkov, there has never been any real successful orgs or missions (excepting maybe the original St. Hill & FSO and anyone with even a modicum of knowledge in scn knows what the deal was with those two)
Successful means enough business CONSISTENTLY to pay the staff comparable wages to the real world.
You see, I have had access to ALL org and mission stats for ALL time before ’87. So, I can call out bullshit like this with total certainty.
If you care to ACTUALLY bring evidence of your Extraordinary claims…
This was my favorite episode so far. Busting the stalking PI’s (and even showing their names and faces), exposing the false data spewed to the sheeple at the events, and of course the magnificent story of how Claire and Marc escaped. This show had so much punch – amazing!
Mike, yours & Leahs purpose is not over this didn’t happen overnight and it would stop overnight, keep the exposure coming, I’ve tweetex the FBI and on to the IRS and so on xoxo take care buddy.
I rode by the Fort Harrison the other day. The new marquis proudly announced ” No Internet”, “No WIFI!” , “No Cable TV”. Thank goodness they’ve removed all of those distractions from the ‘ecclesiastical’ environment.
Someone should hide a bunch of mobile hotspots broadcasting the name “Fort Harrison Free WiFi” around the hotel…
“Someone should hide a bunch of mobile hotspots broadcasting the name “Fort Harrison Free WiFi” around the hotel…” Now THAT is a great idea! They are cutting all forms of communicating with the outside world at the FH so that no one will accidentally see the Leah expose.
Wow~ Mike and Leah! We were on the edge of our seats – crying our eyes out.
So powerful with a huge impact.
Please – KEEP doing these shows.
They are IMPINGING on the rational minds of those lurking in the outer fringes of the internet.
Mike, I have terrific admiration for you and Leah. I have a question — with the tremendous success of this show, what kind of emotional response do you imagine is resonating among the church leaders, but most specifically with David Miscavige? Economically and legally, what are the potential repercussions for him should this show result in a demise of the church? Criminal, bankruptcy, etc?
Mike, I am not a Scientologist and have never had any connection to Scientology but I want to congratulate you and Leah on such an important show (and to A+E for airing it). I am familiar with the allegations against Scientology and believe absolutely in the credibility of those that have been previously made public, as well as those aired here. Abuses in any sector of society must be exposed and the stories of those who have been abused told. All involved are truly courageous. Bravo! May we all live to see the day when Scientology collapses and David Miscavige in particular is held accountable for his monstrous and criminal behaviour.
Bravo Charlotte. I was 35 years in the cult and I can say you are spot on. It will be people like you that bring this menice to justice. I helped build what I thought was good thing and when I discovered their evil intentions they turned on me like the do with all former Scientologists that report the crimes and abuse of this fake Church. Thank you for being there and caring.
First of all, congratulations on exposing those PIs. Turnabout is fair play, and it shows that they can be beaten back.
Also, Marc came off as awesome – getting in DM’s face, making an escape on a motorcycle via the open road. That sounds like a movie script.
Mike – I wonder if it would be possible to create an Underground Railroad for people who leave the Co$, offering them transportation, temporary housing, legal help. etc.
I’ve also wondered if such a thing already exists but is not publicized by Rinder and Ortega for fear of retaliation. I know I would support such if a go funding account or a secret fund existed. Those who escape often have nothing, and if they knew there was an “underground railroad” to support them while they recover, no doubt many would not fear leaving with no drivers license, no family, no savings, and no real ability to think for themselves other than the immediate fear that drives them to finally leave. I’ve always wondered if an ex’er like Lisa Marie Presley would step up and help fund a support and recovery “mission” or “halfway house” for ex’ers.
There is no need for an underground railroad. There is an above ground railroad that works very well. There is a large community of support for anyone who leaves.
Thank you for this I can confirm this is so
The show is wonderful. I hope it continues past the short time that is was supposed to air, it seems with every week there is so much more to be revealed. Not everyone would have the ability and voice to expose such an organization. You and Leah have opened the eyes of many of us who thought this was a “harmless” religion. My friends and I watch every episode, we have never been involved in the church but feel everyone should know what is going on and support those who are exposing the inner workings of the organization. Thank you!
Lots of new names posting coments, which is nice to see! Welcome! 🙂
Especially for anyone new to all this, there is a list of DOCUMENTED disconnecction cases, which you can find here:
http://whyweprotest.wikia.com/wiki/Accounts_of_Scientology%27s_Disconnection_Policy_by_Former_Members_and_Others
And there also is a list of ex-members speaking out. Sadly, Leah’s show only scratches the surface.
http://whyweprotest.wikia.com/wiki/Former_Church_of_Scientology_members_who_have_spoken_out
” Sadly, Leah’s show only scratches the surface.”
And happily, it exposes what a few people who are willing to speak out can do. Leah, Mike, A&E and all those who appear on the show are making one VERY, VERY, DEEP SCRATCH. I thank you and I hope one day my daughter who will turn 35 in March of 2017 will also be able to be thankful.
Haley Hoffman Kessel joined the Sea Org when she was 16. She works (at least her last known post that I know of was Deputy Commanding Officer of CMO-IXU) in the HGB building in Hollywood. I assume she was busted down from that post when I was officially declared in February of 2013. She always wanted to go ‘uplines’ to the Int base and maybe she has. I have not seen or heard from her in five years. She apparently married a Russian fellow over a year ago so her last name is changed.
The reason I give details about this is not for my benefit. I don’t want Haley to go to the Int Base where she would be closer to DM. I know that posting this info could cause further harm to her Sea Org career and may also bring discomfort to her life, such that it is. Doing nothing and saying nothing about this is not an option because that would be worse that the alternative.
My still-in relatives and the cherch will no doubt use this info as proof that I am a suppressive person by showing them my statements. But I have made it easy for OSA to remove the reference by putting this in a separate paragraph.
What Mark and Claire have done has made a huge difference. Because they (and others) spoke out and are speaking out about abortions, it allowed my nephew and his wife, Adam and Mira Daniells to get pregnant while at Flag and route out of the Sea Org in 2011. Adam was a Class IX who set up the Oak Cove and the quicky grades delivery back in the day. Mira had been relegated to scrubbing the floors of the Fort Harrison because her dad had been declared an SP. They were in a bad situation. They live in LA now (out of the SO), have two children and remain staunch supporters of the cherch and it’s practices.
Coop, thanks for posting your story so that your daughter might not get posted at Int. I feel you. One suggestion is to take it one step further and up the gradient by contacting Leah to go on her show. If you go on TV in a future installment of the A&E Leah Aftermath series with your story, that would get OSA’s and Dave’s attention big time and it would assure that Haley doesn’t get Int clearance to go work there. And it would be striking a huge blow to the church by getting the truth out. So everyone wins if you go on TV with Leah. Just sayin’.
What a powerful episode Mike! One reason that this show is having such an impact is because the ex-members that you and Leah have interviewed are such decent, likeable people. Kind, caring, good people, idealists with the best of intentions, who got caught up in a nightmare. Congratulations to everyone involved with this amazing show.
I agree completely. The show, through it’s interviews with very likeable and engaging people, has helped me understand how people get sucked into this cult. Hanging around people like Mike, Leah, Marc, Clair and the rest would be a great environment. Who wouldn’t want to have them as colleagues? Additionally the propaganda of good works would make the system seem worth the sacrifices.
It is difficult to admit one’s mistakes, even when it’s only through hindsight that you see them, so the bravery and Integrity of everyone speaking out should be applauded.
I also have to say that’s I LOVE Leah reading the C o $ statements about the people before each interview. Full disclosure and the repetition of the juvenile accusations only underscores each person’s account. Excellent work!
Mike and Leah , I have never been involved in this cult. thank you both so much for your bravery and strength in bringing attention to this so called religion. I wish there was something I could do to help people get out. I do not have a lot of money but would be willing to help house anyone looking to get out who have no family to lean on. keep up the great work .
I second that. I just moved from California into a large 2000 square foot home (in country outside a large metro area) that I would gladly share to be of service given I iive here entirely by myself while I write a book and just relax after being scammed by scilon business partners before finally getting on my feet.
Recent religious rulings concern me because of dangerous religions or cults like $cientology. They take advantage of these rulings and the average person suffers.
Tonight was yet another informative episode on several levels. One thing I noted once again is how capable and sharp these former staff members are who were once at the highest level of the church – Marc and Claire and Mike and the others on previous episodes – all of them sharp enough to know it was not what they wanted or what they thought it would be. The telling thing about the church trying to make them all look bad is that they have done very well in their lives since they left, both personally and financially.
Even more telling than that is the fact that these former staff spent decades supposedly having scientology tech applied to them, and yet they “failed” as staff members according to the church – an obvious contradiction of the claims that are made for positive results. I hope someone has the opportunity sometime to point this out to a church representative – such as DM’s attorney Monique Yingling. It’s hard to imagine how she would justify it (other than madly blinking her eyes 🙄 ).
The other thing in tonight’s show that I wanted to comment on was the part about all the lies being told at the events. This was actually news to me even though I was in scientology for over two decades and a staff member most of that time, and mostly at higher orgs. It was easy for me to see how they faked international and other stats: I figured they showed the ones they could make look good by selecting the time period where there was an uptrend – and by not showing actual figures. I guess they couldn’t blatantly lie about stats as staff members would know it.
But to hear about the outright lies was enlightening and a lesson learned in the sense that this is yet another way staff and public members can be utterly fooled – simply because they can’t believe anything that devious would go on or that anyone would even dare to do it! I’m curious how it was “justified” by DM or others to the staff who knew about it. Hopefully, Marc Headley will comment on this.
Miraldi, you bring up a good point. This lying about stats thing at events is exactly what made one SO couple leave staff. Mark Hamilton, who used to be a BC Sup, and his wife, Lisa Hamilton, who used to be a high up RTC Rep or high up HCO person (sorry I can’t remember which it was), were sitting at an event watching the bit production of it all and heard DM say the stats from their org and they looked incredulously at each other, knowing the stats were false and it was jacked up to make it look good, and that is when they realized he was lying big time and they made the decision to get out of there. According to their coming out story, that was also about the time the Basics were being shoved down everyone’s throat and all staff had to spend their personal hygiene time on Sat doing telemarketing call out to reg people for buying more Basics packages, and that also contributed to their decision to leave, which they’ve never regretted since. Mark and Lisa can make their own comments. I’m just paraphrasing from their coming out story. They’re great people.
I remember Mark from ASHO. I think he was also the CO there for a while. Anyway, this is good news. Thanks for posting it.
This whole docuseries is a valuable resource and it needs to spread globally. I’m BEGGING Leah, Mike, and A&E to release ALL Aftermath episodes–present and future–with foreign language subtitles in addition to English. Highly recommended languages: Spanish, Russian, Chinese (Mandarin), French, and German.
Scientology is recruiting new members from developing countries who aren’t as familiar with the cult’s scam like we are in the West–particularly from Russia, Eastern Europe (e.g. Hungary), Latin America (e.g. Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico), and Taiwan. Asia–especially China–has become a target for many Hollywood movie promotions and audiences there are supporters of stars like Tom Cruise. If Asian movie fans knew more about the film idols who support a destructive, anti-family cults like Scientology, they’d likely think twice about supporting their films.
I’m sure there’s an extra cost to getting the translations done but PLEEEEAAAAAASE do it!!!! Set up a GoFundMe account if you have to.
There is going to be an in depth investigation. They are BUSTED Jail time in the cards for Mcwhatshisname
Hey Mike, I’m here in NY, if there is anything I can do, please let me know. I’ll sign a petitition, write a letter. You know, anytime you write the whitehouse, if you get enough signatures, yhey have to answer.
http://tonyortega.org/2015/04/13/if-you-want-the-irs-to-reexamine-scientologys-tax-exempt-status-its-time-to-get-real/
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f13909.pdf
Your answer needs to be posted over and over…We ALL need to print, fill it out using one of the locations given, and send, send, send!!! Let’s inundate the IRS with these “referrals” (complaints)!!!!! Since I am in Clearwater, I shall little be using that location……There isn’t much that we, on the outside, can do, however we CAN do our part by sending this form for the sake of these people stuck inside and it must be done to cripple Miscagive and his (not so) little shop of horrors!!!…
**Misgavige
My understanding is that the IRS gave Scientology its tax exemption based on a number of conditions, including the separation of corporations.
The executive strata of the C of S Int hasn’t existed for many years – no ED Int, no Sr C/S Int, no WDC, no IMEC, no SPD’s, no Board of Director minutes, no management presence at events or org ‘openings’, etc. – shouldn’t that be enough reason for the IRS to reexamine the tax exempt status as it is obviously in violation of the agreement?
nomnom, the IRS doesn’t care about those religious posts or Policy issues. They would care about Corp. minutes which are done by the attorneys and will be found to be complete. They would also be interested in how the $ are spent.
The point was made tonight that the government will not get involved in religion because of the first amendment. True. But that does not automatically apply to the IRC 501(3)c status that allows these organizations to be free of taxes for their “nonprofit purposes.” Making promotional videos that have NO truth to them; buying staggering amounts of real estate that is UNused; following people and forcing them to return; demanding abortions; are these pursuits paid for as part of their nonprofit purpose? If fact checks prove they are keeping membership involved by lying to them, that should be enough to get the IRS at least sniffing around. How do they justify the money they spend for Tom Cruise? Even if they elevate Cruise to godlike status, tax exempt funds cannot be used to benefit an individual. I’m so angy with CofS and other organizations that I am very familiar with who are stealing from the U.S. with their charade tax exempt religious status. Grrrrr. GREAT JOB Lisa and Mike and all who participate.
Very informative. The show covered many issues. Intense.
+1! Me too, Mat. Especially when Mike was talking with one of the PIs! It’s fun watching PIs run away…
Mike and Leah, Thank You! I wish I could have seen DMs face when Marc got up and looked at him with that “its on” look. Awesome. Brave people! Please keep up the great work.
I would suggest adding the [email protected] email address and a bit of context to the weekly request for feedback. Who knows what will show up!
Ive written my congressman senators and the senate oversight committee hell I even tweeted DJT. I cannot sit still. Every week gaining the knowledge of the crimes this cult is committing while hiding behind the first amendment fraudulently sickens me. It had me literally shaking and crying tonight. Folks we cannot sit silently in front of the TV, The key is the IRS ruling this cult as a church. Start making some noise!!!! Keep making Noise! Prayers for you and Leah ,Mike I am in awe of your strength, perseverance and sacrifice.
I applaud you and Leah. Thankfully, I was never in CoS. However, it always intrigued me as to how this was/is considered a religion. I’ve followed you for awhile now, and have been a huge fan of Leah’s for years. I am so glad the truth is out. I think your series is effective as every YouTube video I watched today (none regarding CoS) had an Ad preceding it by the CoS. All of these ads are showing Leah’s previous promotional interviews while still in the church. They are using her to promote their cult! ??? I think somebody is shaking in his loafers.
I cannot believe that nobody has stopped this disgusting scam of an organization. I hope you, Leah, a&e and everyone can help dissolve this to save people.
Thank you for posting the bit about what each of us can do to help. Even if we’re not ex-members, it is difficult to stand by idly with people being intimidated and abused this way. The cult tactics are eye-opening and horrific.
Thank you for all that you are doing. I grew up near Clearwater and watched as Scientology took over our beautiful city and ruined it. Now its overrun by businesses you are afraid to visit as I will not support anything that has to do with Scientology. My husband and I, along with friends, invested in a company that stole our money and later we found out the company owners were Scientologist and we now know where our money went. I grew up hearing of people who lost money and their lives to Scientology, stories like the one told tonight and it’s horrifying. Don’t stop your quest to expose them!
Carol, I like you was conned by buying stock in a company (my friends and I, all never-ins) invested just over 7 figures) in a very profitable scilon owned buasiness whereupon the business suddenly went bankrupt as he ignored all business practices and disappeared as he was forced to retake the bridge and to this day, he cannot sell his once very profitable products because it would mean we could make claims against him. I’m headed to Clearwater through next Monday. Going to visit a few scilon buildings, lol.
Mike and Leah,
Thank you for interviewing all these people who have escaped this cult. It is gut wrenching and tonight’s episode reinforced how much courage it took for those who are now out to escape. My heart goes out to those still in who are terrified, know something isn’t quite right but have no friends, no family, no money and think they have no option but to stay in that prison. I have been reading elsewhere that Scn is now targeting other countries and bringing people here to fill slots In this cult. And think of all the children brought up in Scn who know nothing different and have been lied to about the outside for years. They have a very difficult time learning about this scam of a religion without someone finding out what they are doing and ratting them out which results in punishment. My prayer is that this scam can be shut down and those without courage or knowledge can be free.
Slightly off topic, I read Tom Cruise is moving into a multi million dollar 2 story penthouse in the Skyview Bldg complete with a flight simulator, private 9 car garage, workout area, gym, car elevator and separate entrance to the building. Not sure if it’s true or not tho. So, does he know of all these abuses? Or does Miscavige have so much dirt on him (recorded auditing sessions and the like) that he dare not oppose him? At the very least, I will never watch another film with him in it again…
MIke and Leah and A&E staff/execs…. excellent episode. Thank you for bringing all this into the light and putting yourselves at risk.
Leah Remini had no idea what was going on. Nor do any of the other celebrities, and as Leah and Mike have stated, Scientologists are traned to think of the Media as ‘Merchants of Chaos’ who lie about Scientology all the time.
So why would they pay attention to the media? They wouldn’t.
It is extremely unlikely that Tom Cruise has any idea what is going on.
It would also appear that Cruise is Scientology’s ‘crowned prince’, considering the ways in which they shower him with medals, awards and such at their galas and Scientology events. It is a well known fact that TC needs his very fragile ego stroked on a very regular basis. There are many, many public stories about movie sets he’s been on where this needed to happen many times each day. Having said that, how would he believe this religion that loves him so much could be anything but a great place to belong to!? Obviously Scientologists aren’t allowed to let any momentary thought of perverse doubt about the religion creep into their head, but if it did happen, I’m sure Cruise would get rid of that negative thought with allowing the church to bestow yet another ‘Man of the Year’ or some such nonsensical award on him and his large and in charge ego.
Tom Cruise is in a different position from most Scientologists. His friendship with David Miscavige has resulted in his being afforded services by Sea Org members. To give a specific instance, Tony Orgtega has written about John Brousseau, a Sea Org member who was assigned to work for Tom Cruise. Brousseau is a master craftsman and did customization work on Cruise’s homes and vehicles over a fifteen-year period. Although he was given gifts by Cruise, his compensation was the $50 per week stipend from the church that all Sea Org members get. I think it’s fair to ask why Tom Cruise would think it’s ok to have church members taken away from their regular jobs to do work that was for his personal benefit.
Cruise’s friendship with Miscavige has also resulted in his having spent time at Gold Base in Hemet, the place where Marc and Claire Headley worked and also the location of “The Hole”, the place where, until recently top-level staff who had displeased Miscavige were imprisoned.
All of this is to say that it’s quite likely that Tom Cruise is aware of the abuses occurring in the Church.
If he is not aware, he is a great deal more stupid than he looks. He has definitely toned down his appearances and statements over the past couple of years regarding scio and certainly isn’t make any public statements of support.
Thank you, Wayne. I hadn’t realized that Tom Cruise is also a victim if he has been programmed not to listen or investigate what critics of Scn are saying. Tom has access to the internet and my hope is that if he hears all the broo haha this show is stirring up, he would at least watch an episode. If trusted friends could plant a seed, there is hope for him. Then again, he has been programmed to have no non-Scn friends so it will be tough for anyone to puncture that bubble he is in. Praying that God opens up his eyes and those of the sheeples….
Tom Cruise a victim? mmm… Makes you wonder who’s programmed.
Really? Sea Org redid his Airplane hanger. Sea Org set up the AV in his house. Sea Org built him a car. He banished a girlfriend because she didn’t please DM. Of any of the celebrities, he would have more knowledge than others. He may not know/believe the beatings/forced abortions, but he definitely has to know that he himself has benefited from the labour of sea organization staff.
Loving Leah’s show. It really is the first film/documentary to show the real workings of Scientology with out the mockery of their teachings, but instead the shenanigans of miscaviage and the nuttiness of Scientology’s policies and how they treat their public. My 20 years in the church can confirm this documentary is accurate.
My 12 years can confirm it too.
Seconding T-Marie´s comment, my 15 years in the cult, with the last year and 2 months as a staff member at a church, confirm the veracity of the claims aired.
And that, everybody, is great news!
Thank you for this confirmation, and congratulations on getting out. It is not easy, I know.
As a 30 year member (including years as a staff member) I can attest This Is True.
As a former Scientologist starting in 1974, and a 25 year Sea Org veteran, with 20 years spent at the Gold/Int Base, I can attest that the facts and figures presented on Leah’s A&E show are correct.
There are hundreds of minor details that are left out in the interest of keeping the program watchable for someone new to the subject. But you still get the basic idea.
I love the way Mike jumps in or they cut to one of the interviewees clarifying a point that might otherwise be hard for someone to grasp. Scientology is a big subject but 99% of it is BS or exists only to lock its adherents into the scam. So there is no real need for causal viewers of a TV show to get all the technical details.
But it is vital that they understand how someone could do what Scientologists do and that it is wrong and harmful. The show does that very well.
Beyond the need to bring the abuses to light is a greater message. “There but for fortune go you or I” as the song goes (Phil Ochs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4BYOJ1tc-k )
Nobody is wise enough or strong enough or smart enough to avoid all forms of undue influence in their lives. Some may be in an abusive relationship, some may have fallen prey to smaller cults or other large ones, some may be in work situations that add up to undue influence.
Part of what makes us human makes us vulnerable to unprincipled human predators. But if you can recognize what is happening, if you can see the signs, you can avoid or even defang these situations. If the show, and the hard work of the many that are outraged by the abuses, can open the eyes of even a few it will be well worth it.
Well said.
Very.
This is the crux of much human conflict. Hubbard could not verbalize this for pathological reasons; he embedded it into his manipulative techniques. Key to solving much of ‘man’s inhumanity to man’.
I was born and raised in scientology. I can also confirm the craziness, and gross mistreatment of staff and public. The stories being told and much worse are all true.
30 something years depending how you define the thought package Scientology envelopes you in. I concur, but I will say Hubbard admitted in 1951 he had no idea how to handle a 3 rd Dynamic. He spent the next 35 years proving it!
In addition to that what I find quite the contradiction is that Hubbard promoted himself as worldly and despised the “ivory tower” philosophers of the past. Yet, he shoved himself in a cabin at sea, surrounded himself with naive teenagers, screamed at them throwing more or less regular temper tantrums and wrote the ideal lifestyle others should live. Then scurried off and hid in a trailer someplace and died alone with his empire of paper and tape strewn across the world trapping all who followed his organisational genius… go figure??
Sounds a bit like a certain presidential candidate we’ve seen recently. I’ve notived some people are stirring up the “fake news” meme quite a bit. I see stories about it on Facebook quite a lot. L. Ron HUbbard and the Church of Scientology pioneered that kind of distrust of the media. That’s not to say all media is objective, but A&E together with Leah and Mike and the others are doing a splendid job in presenting what is obviously the truth. Painting all media as “fake” is obviously a ploy, an attempt at “information control”, whether it is done by the CoS, or politicians.
I find that I have to constantly remind myself of the validity of Mike’s point in the “Rise of David Miscavige” show- it took more than one civil rights march, it took 50. It took 100. At some point, people begin to see the truth in front of them. There is no “one and done”.
The challenge to my mind is that the CoS will always be able to duck behind the appearance of being a “religion”. As long as the IRS treats them as a religion, the rest of the government will do as well and the things that can be done are going to be limited. Not impossible- just requiring more… creativity.
I continue to applaud Ms Remini’s determination and willingness to dig ever deeper. These stories absolutely must continue to see the light of day. Thanks to you, Mr Rinder. Going this public could not have been an easy choice.
I have watched every episode and I am shocked. I really had no idea what they were really all about. I think it is wonderful and brave for you and Leah to come forth and expose this cult! Hopefully current Scientologist are watching and can also get out. God bless you for what you are doing.
Yet another compelling show! I, too, was very saddened to hear about Claire’s forced abortions. I pray that one day all of these families that have been ripped apart by this cult will reunite. David Miscavige needs to be taken down and I think this exposure may just do that!
Already waiting for the next episode…..We need to make sure that everyone is watching this show. Thanks to Leah and Mike for all of their hard work and dedication and for helping us to understand what this thing is!
Tammy
Wow! This was INTENSE! Right there, on camera, we see the private investigators following you and filming you. Why? What is the point of this? The church spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on P.I.s and for what? P.I.s can find out if you’re cheating on your spouse or committing insurance fraud or such; things you’re hiding and doing wrong. Y’all are talking to people who want to talk. Exposing the truth. Nothing illegal or even secretive in that. The only possible goal has to be intimidation. But boy are they stupid, wasting all the millions (cumulatively) that they do, that all comes from church members. How is that a “legal” expense for a church, by the way?
This proves the insanity of this group, this thing, as Leah calls it. INSANE.
I’m so sorry for Claire and Marc’s loss of their unborn child. Can you imagine, let’s say, a nun getting pregnant (which would be a huge breach of her ecclesiastic agreement) and her church telling her to get an abortion?! The church gives human life zero value; worthless.
This show is so well-done. As they say, truth is stranger than fiction and your show is proving this true.
As you know, the church maintains statistics for every area they consider important or worth monitoring. There is no statistic for the health, well-being and happiness of its staff or public.
In fact, it’s quite likely that by convincing/forcing Claire to have an abortion, it moved their Number of Scientologists Recovered statistic.
How sick is that?
Staff pay stat? Oh my… I just introverted myself and laughed at the same time.
Really? Didn’t realize that beating people,and forced abortions made for a snoozy atmosphere.
I absolutely loved watching you and Leah confront and shut down the PI’s tonight. Amazing the courage you two show. More people need to see this and learn to stand up for themselves!
2 questions:
1) Have any former Scientologists made secret recordings/videos of Miscaviage or others? Obviously, difficult to do as I’m sure they disallow iPhones, etc. But capturing Miscaviage or other leaders in an abusive rage could blow this whole thing open. I know this sounds like a comic book approach, but I’m sure somewhere there’s a badass retired CIA, Navy Seal, private detective who could go undercover and get all the info needed to blow the lid off this thing.
2) Have there been reported abuses or mistreatment of U.S. veterans? That would certainly draw the attention of politicians.
You might want to read up on the “musical chairs” episode. Captain David “he is NOT insane!” Miscavige himself ordered that this was filmed. This single episode of abuse, unlike the numerous beatings, has very carefully *not* been denied by the criminal organisation known as the “church” of $cientology. Make of that what you will.
(I kind of think that coverage of this goes back to a book or two and that it certainly was mentioned – and not denied after – “the truth rundown” in Tampa Bay Times.)
Frank, excellent ideas. Screw unto others as they would screw unto you.
This reply is to Frank Ryan. Things are acting up, so not sure if this will show up in the right place.
Re: secret recordings of MIscavige
It is a great idea and I hope and dream of this happening, but the reality is it probably won’t happen.
Miscavige is *extremely* paranoid…it is very hard to get in close to his inner circle. If somebody out there currently in does have such a tape, leaving will be difficult. Think how hard it is to escape in general…the closer your are to DM the harder it will be. Especially in the past 5-10 years when so many did escape and expose him. I would guess he will scrutinize these people thoroughly. If somebody close is able to properly “route out” and not get in trouble, that person will be made to sign an iron tight NDA (non-disclosure).
I want to be wrong and I so hope somebody does smuggle stuff out…it would be epic, absolutely *epic*!
No signed NDA is valid if the information disclosed was/is about a crime.
I applaud all of you for getting out and speaking the truth!! You all may be saving current and future lives! I’m a Christian and pray each one of you read the Bible. Jesus Christ is waiting for each one of you with open arms. The Bible talks of false prophets or antichrists. Keep talking we love the show!! I will be praying for you all!!
Hi Mike. I actually was surprised by the lengths scientology will go to smear you and Leah and the lady you had on last week Ms. Kahn. It was so sad to see that video of her son online saying awful things about his mother. I guess I don’t understand the way scientology operates but I just cannot believe the way families break up ….it is beyond awful . Thanks again for your efforts and sorry for your loss of your children to scientology. I cannot imagine……
That so called church is unf*********believable….and Mike Savage ir whatever his name is needs his a***** whooped.
I am so outraged that people can be treated so badly by someone who is a leadership position. Tonight as I’m watching and listening intently because I do so want to understand, I am again hearing of men being beaten? And yes, I’m amazed someone hasn’t turned on RM and beat the ever loving daylights out of him..but then again I’m sure he’s a little coward and is never without his security team. I think he would have to have security because he is a small man (getting smaller by the minute). It seems to me being of such a small stature he has the “Napoleon Complex” which many little men have. Big men don’t have to throw their weight around because they know the damage they can do but RM is a little coward..kind of in the same class as Hitler. I wouldn’t call him COB…I’d call him SOB because he is nothing less! I understand now the beatings are more about his manipulation and control then strength.
And requiring women to get abortions? Who in the hell does he think he is?! And yes, I do question those who have stayed in scientology although I do understand brain washing but sooner or later something has to snap when the light goes on and all that seemed right now seems wrong!
I am so glad that you and Leah have brought this atrocity to light. Don’t stop! You’re educating so many people and maybe the people in scientology won’t leave but maybe they will..and if they do they’ll know they’re not alone. And you are stopping others from joining..there are so many reasons not to join an so many reasons to leave. God help those people who are wearing blinders and have scales on their eyes! And God bless you and Leah for all you’re doing!
I think you may mean DM, David Miscavge. His Dad that appeared on a show is RM, Ron.
WOW! Another heartbreaking episode. I cried with Claire H. I also have feelings of rage. Damn the COS for all this aduse. Kudos to you Mike for confronting the 2 PI’s at the hotel, you rock. Thank you and Leah for all your continued work. I have noticed the fake Twitter account “freedom media ethics” do they really think anyone believes their hateful information? So happy Marc & Claire escaped. I will be calling my Congressman and Senator.
I’ve followed the craziness that is Scientology since that one book came out about Tom Cruise years ago. I listened to Leah’s book on audio last year and have watched all episodes of the show now. Here’s what blows me away…Of course, being disconnected from family is devastating, but knowing that so many people who leave this cult, after having been involved since childhood, not only have nothing but the clothes on their backs, no education and many times, no family/friends, where do they go? Where do they start?
Those of us in the real world live or hear the stories of those leaving abusive relationships and they have resources, education, funds, family, or even cell phones! But Scientologists?? I can’t even fathom where one starts. There aren’t Scientology shelters. Do most have state IDs and/or driver’s licenses? Those that have lived within the Sea Org their entire lives with no education, how do they go about getting a job? A bank account?
2 years ago I met a couple of Sea Org staff. 2 young ladies of 31 years old. Neither one knew how to drive or had a Driver’s License. I doubt they had any other form of ID. Thinking back about them, I doubt they had a credit card or knew how to write a check. I must say though, they were extremely nice young ladies, but born into the cult and unless it collapses, no doubt they will die in the cult.
You and Leah are doing an incredible job of exposing this POS religion, cult whatever you want to call it. It is just hard to wrap my head around how no one has investigated these abuses. Are you worried about backlash like being hurt since they seem to have flown under the wire for so long now?
Bravo! Great job.
I just finished watching “The Golden Era”. I am sickened. What “church” requires its members to get an abortion. They have the murders of the unborn in their hands. I hate to think what other atrocities have been required of their members, and remain hidden. If it’s not wrong, why hide it!!!
Thank you for educating and informing us all on Scientology. I had no idea this organization has such egregious practices. My heart goes out to all the families that have been ripped apart.
Thanks again,
Mike,
I live in Milwaukee, WI. I have looked into the Church of Scientology here. The “church” is in a small, largely defunct shopping mall in a rather run down area of town. The next nearest “church” is over 100 miles away in a bordering state. The midwest does not seem to be a hotbed of Scientology activity. Do you think that my voice, due to the shear lack of scientological representation, will even be heard if I, as a voter, were to contact my congressman or the IRS?
James
It is worth a try! Maybe a smaller area could get greater help since the IRS is federal and not local… call your congressman/woman.
Contact them. Protest at the Milkwaukee Org and shut them down. If one suspecting soul wanders in – they will ruin their lives for sure.
Scientology KILLS!
I am not sure if the place is active at all. It is very small. I have been by the pace at various hours of the day and evening and have yet to see it open. I think if I were to protest at the place that I might be the only one at the place.
I have asked everyone I know here in Milwaukee if they know a Scientologist or have ever met a Scientologist. The answer has always been no.
I honestly am beginning to think there are about three people involved in the COS.
L Ron Hubbard’s books are in an abundant supply at the used bookstores in the area.
Thank you Mike & Leah and the Headley’s. This was such a powerful episode especially about the smoke and mirrors of their PR to the flock. You guys just bust it wide open and exposed the truth. I have lost my son and my side of the family but I just could not imagine losing both sides of our family. I am thankful I have my husband’s great family now. I also just cannot ever understand how a parent can click the phone down and not want to hear about their first grandchild that was just born, that got me………unimaginable!! THANK YOU.
To those Scientologists still in, SHAME ON YOU, open your eyes and LOOK.