Speaker 1: Welcome to this week's classic episode, Fellow conspiracy Realist. We're
Speaker 1: saying this week because this is a two parter that
Speaker 1: is unfortunately timely. We had a fantastic series of conversations
Speaker 1: with the one and only Mike Render on October of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, and Mike Render has unfortunately passed away, so
Speaker 1: we wanted to We wanted to air this two part
Speaker 1: conversation again just because we think it's we think it's important,
Speaker 1: and we think it is incredibly valuable for people who
Speaker 1: are curious about the controversy surrounding scientology and have more
Speaker 1: questions that maybe they're afraid to ask.
Speaker 2: Sometimes.
Speaker 3: I've said it before and I'll say it again, that
Speaker 3: interview is probably the most starstruck I've ever been, because
Speaker 3: I've been such a fan of those documentaries Louis thru
Speaker 3: and the Panorama documentary where Mike Render appears back in
Speaker 3: his Scientology bulldog days, and to see somebody an about
Speaker 3: face to that degree and become not only an outspoken
Speaker 3: critic of something that he was once such an integral
Speaker 3: part of a cog in their machine, to also be
Speaker 3: kind of just a really nice dude and a really
Speaker 3: easy person to talk to. It was a really wonderful
Speaker 3: time and I'm sad that he's passed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Mike is and was a fascinating individual and has
Speaker 4: done a lot of things that none of us listening
Speaker 4: right now have ever done and will ever do. So
Speaker 4: let's learn what we can from.
Speaker 5: Him, from UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History
Speaker 5: is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now
Speaker 5: or learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 5: A production of Iheartrading.
Speaker 4: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 4: my name.
Speaker 1: Is no they call me Ben. We are joined as
Speaker 1: always with our super producer Paul, Mission Control decand most importantly,
Speaker 1: you are. You are here and that makes this stuff
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. In previous episodes over
Speaker 1: the years, we have covered aspects of quite a controversial
Speaker 1: organization that's familiar to all of our longtime listeners. That
Speaker 1: is the Church of Scientology, the concept of scientology in general.
Speaker 1: You'll note we did a previous episode several YouTube videos
Speaker 1: on something called Operations snow White. We've also delved into
Speaker 1: simpler waters in the past, but today we are immensely
Speaker 1: fortunate to be speaking with someone who has extensive first
Speaker 1: hand experience. As we always say, we like to go
Speaker 1: to primary sources when possible, and that is why today
Speaker 1: we are I'll say we are over the moon to
Speaker 1: speak with Mike Render, a former senior Scientology executive as
Speaker 1: well as the co creator of the new podcast Scientology
Speaker 1: Fair Game. Mike, thanks so much for hopping on the
Speaker 1: show with us today.
Speaker 6: Oh you're very welcome, guys. I'm really happy to be here.
Speaker 6: As one of my friends said, this is four white
Speaker 6: males all and she said, yes, but they're good white males.
Speaker 7: So I think I know, I think I know who
Speaker 7: you're talking about. And and technically we're uh, if you
Speaker 7: look at the four of us naggregate, we're mostly white.
Speaker 1: But splitty splitty to Hair's the site, you know, Mike,
Speaker 1: this podcast is doing some tremendous work in terms of
Speaker 1: clarifying questions people outside of the organization have had, correcting
Speaker 1: some myths, and giving an inside look into Scientology that
Speaker 1: many people would not have otherwise had the chance to
Speaker 1: experience or learn about. So one of our first questions
Speaker 1: for today is, well, it's a little bit of a
Speaker 1: loaded question, perhaps what was your inspiration for the creation
Speaker 1: of Scientology, fair game, and could you tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about how it came about.
Speaker 6: Sure, really the inspiration was COVID nineteen. I know that
Speaker 6: that's a sort of a wise guy answer, but the
Speaker 6: truth of the matter is, after the end of the
Speaker 6: Scientology and the aftermath, which was the TV show that
Speaker 6: Leah and I had done, we wanted to continue to
Speaker 6: move into new areas and to explore things in more
Speaker 6: depth and to be able to cover some of the
Speaker 6: ground that we just were not able to cover on
Speaker 6: that program. And initially our thought was, well, we'll just
Speaker 6: do another TV show, and then the COVID hit and
Speaker 6: there was no way of doing a TV show. And
Speaker 6: someone suggested to us, you know, you guys should start
Speaker 6: doing a podcast. And you know, I already have a
Speaker 6: blog that I do every day, and Leah was like, well,
Speaker 6: this sounds interesting. Do you think that we can do
Speaker 6: I said, well, yes, it's great because we can do
Speaker 6: it from home. We don't have to go anywhere, we
Speaker 6: don't need a shoot crew, we don't need a whole
Speaker 6: bunch of people. We can just sit down and interview
Speaker 6: people or talk amongst ourselves and cover a lot of
Speaker 6: stuff that we haven't been able to cover before, So
Speaker 6: I guess it's not an in correct answer to say
Speaker 6: that it was the pandemic that was the inspiration. But
Speaker 6: it really is simply our desire to keep chipping away
Speaker 6: at this monolithic monstrosity that is scientology by providing more
Speaker 6: and more information in whatever forum we can, and this
Speaker 6: is a great one. We're thoroughly enjoying doing this podcast.
Speaker 6: I have a terrific time because we get to chat
Speaker 6: with people and there's sort of no real restrictions or limitations.
Speaker 6: You don't have, Oh we've got to get in six
Speaker 6: minutes before the next ad spot, and we've got to
Speaker 6: you know, it has to be a forty three minute
Speaker 6: program that, like broadcast television, has got a lot more
Speaker 6: things that people don't even realize who haven't ever done it.
Speaker 3: Oh, for sure, I don't think alone and Covid being
Speaker 3: an inspiration to start a podcast. It seems like there's
Speaker 3: been sort of a podcast golden age that has sprung
Speaker 3: up around around covid, for sure. Yeah, it's it's definitely
Speaker 3: been an interesting time and happy that that this led
Speaker 3: to this podcast from you and Leah. Can you talk
Speaker 3: a little bit about the practice of fair gaming and
Speaker 3: the idea that sort of led to the title of
Speaker 3: the podcast, and where you kind of fit into that
Speaker 3: in terms of the organization, and just give listeners a
Speaker 3: little bit of a background about this practice and where
Speaker 3: you kind of fit sure.
Speaker 6: Fair gaming is or is a term that was coined
Speaker 6: by l. Run Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, for the
Speaker 6: activity of dealing with the enemies of scientology. And l.
Speaker 6: Run Hubbard, like all cult leaders, had proclivity to designating
Speaker 6: a US versus them world and that there was allays
Speaker 6: some monsters out there that are out to get us scientologists,
Speaker 6: and those monsters have to be vanquished. And the practice
Speaker 6: in Scientology is called fair game, and it really means
Speaker 6: to do anything necessary to obliterate that which is perceived
Speaker 6: to be an enemy. And Scientology loves to say, well,
Speaker 6: fair gaming is being a fair game. The term fair
Speaker 6: game is being canceled, and that actually is true. L.
Speaker 6: Run Hubbard issued a policy letter, but policy letter is
Speaker 6: the official Scientology documents and writings of L. Run Hubbard
Speaker 6: that are considered to be scripture of the religion. And
Speaker 6: I use religion in quotation mauks and church in quotation
Speaker 6: mauks You can't see me doing that because you're only
Speaker 6: hearing me. But this is my quotation Marx, just like that. Yes,
Speaker 6: and this is the scripture of scientology. And Hubbard fancied
Speaker 6: himself as many things. I mean, he claimed to be
Speaker 6: everything from a master photographer, to a master mariner, to
Speaker 6: a horticulturalist, to a great researcher, to a philosopher, to
Speaker 6: a race car driver, to like anything and everything. But
Speaker 6: one of the things that he claimed to be was
Speaker 6: an intelligence officer in from naval intelligence during the war,
Speaker 6: and that he had studied all the arts of intelligence,
Speaker 6: and that he was an expert on covert operations and
Speaker 6: black propaganda and all of these things. And he wrote
Speaker 6: extensively in Scientology about how you go about employing all
Speaker 6: these techniques to destroy your enemies. And I'll just go
Speaker 6: back because I mentioned that he said that he had
Speaker 6: canceled this fair game. Yes, he laid out all of
Speaker 6: these dictates on how you go about destroying someone, and
Speaker 6: he called it fair game. But then that became public
Speaker 6: and created some media flaps back in the sixties, so
Speaker 6: he wrote a policy letter that said cancelation of fair game.
Speaker 6: And I'm going to quote this paraphrase it, but it's
Speaker 6: almost verbatim. The use of the term fair game is canceled.
Speaker 6: It brought about bad public relations, so we will no
Speaker 6: longer use the term, But nothing about how we treat
Speaker 6: enemies of scientology changes. So Scientology comes out routine lean says,
Speaker 6: we don't do fair game. It was canceled by l
Speaker 6: Ron Hubbard. Fair game is dead. Game doesn't exist. Fair game,
Speaker 6: this fair game. That so Lee and I went, you
Speaker 6: know what, we're gonna call out show fair game, just
Speaker 6: to stick it so that it you know, we know
Speaker 6: that that's a bunch of bullshit, and we're not gonna
Speaker 6: to subscribe to the lies and the obfiscation and the
Speaker 6: misdirection and whatever that Scientology likes to engage in. And
Speaker 6: you asked me, also, null, what's my involvement, Well, my
Speaker 6: involvement is you.
Speaker 3: Were one of the vanquishers. I mean, it's correct.
Speaker 6: I was for almost two decades the head of what
Speaker 6: is called the Office of Special Affairs of Scientology, and
Speaker 6: the Office of Special Affairs is the department of Scientology
Speaker 6: designated with the responsibility of destroying the enemies of scientology.
Speaker 6: So that was my sp Yeah, correct, suppressive persons SPS,
Speaker 6: and I went from destroying SPS to being the SP
Speaker 6: to be destroyed.
Speaker 4: I want to I want to talk more about that,
Speaker 4: But the first thing that comes to mind is the vocabulary.
Speaker 6: Mike.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you've seen that show, The Vow
Speaker 4: that's on HBO Max right now.
Speaker 6: Oh, it's wonderful, and in fact, we interviewed Mak Vicente
Speaker 6: last week on our podcast.
Speaker 4: Oh that's amazing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, should listen to it. It's it's an amazing episode
Speaker 6: because the parallels between Keith Rinieri and Nexium and Scientology
Speaker 6: are astonishing.
Speaker 4: Well, what I wanted to get to you, yeah, are
Speaker 4: the similarities. Because as I'm watching that show and thinking
Speaker 4: about Scientology and what we've learned on this show in
Speaker 4: the past, something that really struck me where those similarities
Speaker 4: you're talking about. And one of the big things that
Speaker 4: I noticed is this, on the surface, a self improvement
Speaker 4: program for the individual, right and it's aided introspection appears
Speaker 4: to be the way that you get to that better
Speaker 4: place and you see improvement. But both have this extremely
Speaker 4: insular vocabulary, and I just wanted to know in your experience,
Speaker 4: how does having a like a large modified vocabulary. How
Speaker 4: does it affect the way you think on a regular basis?
Speaker 6: Oh, that is such an amazingly, incredibly smart question that
Speaker 6: no one has ever asked me before. Okay, okay, seriously,
Speaker 6: this is this is not unique to scientology. If you
Speaker 6: now study all high control organizations or cults, you will
Speaker 6: find that terminology that limits understand to a confined group
Speaker 6: of people is an important aspect of keeping them under
Speaker 6: your thumb and control. It makes outsiders all outsiders who
Speaker 6: are uninformed and incapable of understanding, and insiders all smarter
Speaker 6: than everybody else because they're the only ones that really understand.
Speaker 6: And what's so fascinating about nexium is the terminology that
Speaker 6: Keith Ranieri stole from scientology is identical. They talk about
Speaker 6: technology and levels and ethics. They have disconnection. I mean,
Speaker 6: it's it's a crazy amount of parallels between scientology and Nexium.
Speaker 6: The big screw up that Keith Rainieri made was he
Speaker 6: did not turn it into a religion. He should have.
Speaker 6: He could have taken all the money, just like scientology does.
Speaker 6: He could have had all the power he wanted, and
Speaker 6: he would have had the protection of the First Amendment
Speaker 6: in the United States and that protection is almost like
Speaker 6: being a superman. You can walk through walls and do
Speaker 6: all sorts of things that mere mortals are unable, incapable
Speaker 6: or illegal to do, and get away with it. And
Speaker 6: that I think was ultimately the downfall of Keith Rinieri.
Speaker 6: If he had had the Bruntfreman millions to wage a
Speaker 6: legal war on the basis that he was practicing a
Speaker 6: religion and that his adherents were following religious beliefs and practices,
Speaker 6: he probably would not be in prison right now.
Speaker 8: Well, we're paying taxes, yeah, exactly, exactly. But you know, Ben,
Speaker 8: you say that, and that is true.
Speaker 6: But from my perspective, I have always argued that the
Speaker 6: more important thing about tax exemption for scientology was not
Speaker 6: that they could They didn't pay taxes. Yeah, that sucks.
Speaker 6: Every every citizen of the United States is subsidizing scientology.
Speaker 6: I mean that is a fact. But Scientology could pay that.
Speaker 6: They got plenty of money. They got three billion dollars.
Speaker 6: They could pay taxes. More importantly, two things. One with
Speaker 6: religious status from the I R S comes no government oversight.
Speaker 6: Scientology and religions do not have to file any record
Speaker 6: of what they spend their money on. How much they make,
Speaker 6: whether they're spending all to hire private investigators to go
Speaker 6: around and destroy people's lives, or lawyers to just fuck
Speaker 6: with people for the sake of fucking with them. And secondly,
Speaker 6: when you walk into court and you tell a judge, uh,
Speaker 6: your honor, I am sorry, you are forbidden by the
Speaker 6: First Amendment, by constitutional law from engaging even in an
Speaker 6: inquiry into whether our practices are appropriate or not. Because
Speaker 6: there is a complete separation between courts and religion. You
Speaker 6: can't go there. It works, It works all the time.
Speaker 6: Scientology has made it well. I help make it work.
Speaker 6: It works, and it prevents courts and law enforcement from
Speaker 6: taking action where they otherwise would. And so Keith Andnery
Speaker 6: made a big screw up because he should have turned
Speaker 6: himself into another l run Hubber Messiah.
Speaker 1: That leads me to a question was on my mind, Mike,
Speaker 1: as some of our listeners are who are familiar with
Speaker 1: your work may know and when I think Maderno alluded
Speaker 1: to earlier you were a former senior Scientology executive. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people don't understand like senior it
Speaker 1: can mean a lot of things, but I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't understand the specifics of it until
Speaker 1: you've laid out the Office of Special Affairs and such.
Speaker 1: This one thing that hit me when I was learning
Speaker 1: more about your experiences is that you actually joined Sea Org.
Speaker 1: See org itself being one of the I think we're
Speaker 1: for outsiders to scientology. That's one of the organizations or
Speaker 1: one of the arms of scientology that really baffles a
Speaker 1: lot of people. You know, you hear stories of folks
Speaker 1: signing billion year contracts. You hear about l. Rod Hubber
Speaker 1: I guess also known as the commodore at times living
Speaker 1: in international waters to avoid certain legal implications. Was Hubbard
Speaker 1: on Sea order on Apollo specifically to avoid legal problems
Speaker 1: with the I R s or where there other world
Speaker 1: governments evolved or what led him and then ultimately you
Speaker 1: to Sea Org.
Speaker 6: Okay, that's a compound question, counselor that's a compound question,
Speaker 6: but I will endeavor to answer it. Okay, First of all,
Speaker 6: the Sea Organization is probably best analogized to an order
Speaker 6: of the Catholic Church, like or the Vatican. This is
Speaker 6: the most dedicated people in scientology who live, work, eat, sleep,
Speaker 6: and do every other activity within the confines of the
Speaker 6: scientology are organization. They are twenty four to seven, three
Speaker 6: hundred and sixty five days a year full time scientologists
Speaker 6: working for Scientology. And it's not just stories. Every SEOG
Speaker 6: member has to sign in order to join up with
Speaker 6: the SEOGUE a contract for a billion years. Yes, that's right,
Speaker 6: b with a B billion and.
Speaker 4: L.
Speaker 6: Ron Hubbard started the Sea Organization in nineteen sixty seven
Speaker 6: after he had been effectively he was living in England
Speaker 6: at the time. He had gone to Rhodesia because he
Speaker 6: believed that he had been cecil rhodes in a previous lifetime.
Speaker 6: He had gone to Rhodesia to reclaim his country, but
Speaker 6: had gotten kicked out of the of Rhodesia and then
Speaker 6: return tried to return to England, where he was living,
Speaker 6: and the government there had effectively banned him from re
Speaker 6: entry into the United Kingdom and told him his visa
Speaker 6: was being denied for extension. He was already in trouble
Speaker 6: with the FDA in the US and the IRS in
Speaker 6: the US, so he went, Okay, I'm going to go
Speaker 6: buy a boat and sail around in international waters where
Speaker 6: I am out of the jurisdiction of any specific government.
Speaker 6: The only problem with that is though when you're sailing
Speaker 6: in international waters, that's true. As soon as you get
Speaker 6: to a port, you were definitely in the jurisdiction of
Speaker 6: the government. And he went to Greece and got thrown
Speaker 6: out of Greece, he got thrown out of Spain, he
Speaker 6: got thrown out of Morocco, he got thrown out of Portugal.
Speaker 6: I mean, it was sort of one thing after another,
Speaker 6: but he believed that this was the way to stay
Speaker 6: out of trouble with government agencies and authorities, and to
Speaker 6: some extent that worked for a number of years because
Speaker 6: he was able to move from one place to the next,
Speaker 6: to the next and sort of out of this hot water,
Speaker 6: jump into the next pot, and then that would eventually
Speaker 6: boil over and then jump into the next one, until
Speaker 6: in nineteen seventy five he sort of went well. Actually,
Speaker 6: what happened was he had a heart attack in nineteen
Speaker 6: seventy five and I was on board the ship with
Speaker 6: him in Curasou, and the medical care there wasn't what
Speaker 6: he thought was necessary, so he decided have to go
Speaker 6: back to the US. So we all ended up coming
Speaker 6: back to the United States and taking up residents in Clearwater, Florida,
Speaker 6: which is still the quote spiritual headquarters of scientology in
Speaker 6: the world, Clearwater, Florida.
Speaker 1: We're going to pause for a word from our sponsor,
Speaker 1: and then we'll be back with more for Mike Render.
Speaker 3: And we're back with our conversation with Mike Render, formerly
Speaker 3: of the Church of Scientology. You knew Hubbard. I mean
Speaker 3: you you were in the church from a very early
Speaker 3: age and you got connected at a relatively high level
Speaker 3: pretty early. I think in your teens you were on
Speaker 3: that chip and you knew l Ron Hubbard himself. Can
Speaker 3: you talk a little bit about how that came to
Speaker 3: be from being in Australia and raised scientologist and then
Speaker 3: being on this ship in international waters with this you know,
Speaker 3: science fiction writer, come religious.
Speaker 6: Guru, yeah, psych ken Okay, no, no, Noel. The truth
Speaker 6: of the matter is being raised as scientologist as a
Speaker 6: So it's sort of like the the old idea of
Speaker 6: families in the Catholic Church sending the oldest son to
Speaker 6: the Vatican to serve and ultimately hopefully rise to the
Speaker 6: level of being a bishop or whatever. That really was
Speaker 6: my idea when I was growing up. Was eventually the
Speaker 6: most important thing for me to do, and what I
Speaker 6: aspired to do was to work with l Ron Hubbard. Like,
Speaker 6: this is in the mind of a scientologist, this is
Speaker 6: like sitting at the feet of Buddha. This is like
Speaker 6: going and and being personally with the with the ultimate
Speaker 6: authority and transcendental, brilliant mind of the universe. And for
Speaker 6: a young scientologist and a scientology family, that was kind of, oh,
Speaker 6: that's pretty cool. If you can pull that off. There's
Speaker 6: not many who do. There were only you know, two
Speaker 6: hundred fe fifty people on that ship with l Ron Hubbard.
Speaker 6: That was it. That was two hundred and fifty people
Speaker 6: in the entire world who got to learn at the
Speaker 6: feet of the master. And so it was it was
Speaker 6: a privilege and an honor and made the family proud
Speaker 6: that I went off to do, you know, serve my
Speaker 6: time with l Ron Hubbard. And he was a he
Speaker 6: was an enigma in many respects. You know, you read
Speaker 6: a lot, you know, since I left scientology, I have
Speaker 6: read a lot, and I read a lot about you know,
Speaker 6: personality disorders and sociopaths and psychopaths and this and that.
Speaker 6: There are a lot of people and they have very
Speaker 6: definite characteristics that are that are charterable and documentary and
Speaker 6: they all had them. And Hubbard was on one side
Speaker 6: astonishingly charming. I mean, he had the ability to charm
Speaker 6: people and tell stories and be very gregarious and funny
Speaker 6: and endearing almost and on the other side it was
Speaker 6: like the Jacqueline Hyde. He was like a raging lunatic.
Speaker 6: And it's it's interesting that when at least in my experience,
Speaker 6: you are associated with those people. And it's funny because
Speaker 6: you know, some of the books talk about this. You
Speaker 6: tend to look at others as you see yourself, and
Speaker 6: so you look at someone and they're they're like a
Speaker 6: they tell jokes and they're kind of nice, and they
Speaker 6: they ask how you're doing and are you well, which
Speaker 6: was like a Hubbard sort of trait, and you know,
Speaker 6: being very solicitous and you know, almost self effacing and
Speaker 6: then turning into a rage monster and you go, well,
Speaker 6: I guess he just gives a little upset that like
Speaker 6: you excuse it because you don't believe that that's the
Speaker 6: real person. You believe that that's the anomaly and that
Speaker 6: the real person is the good part, because that's how
Speaker 6: good people are, and that's how you look at others
Speaker 6: sort of through your own lens. And it takes quite
Speaker 6: a lot when, particularly when you've been raised to believe
Speaker 6: that someone is like the Guru and has the answers
Speaker 6: to everything in life and has discovered things that nobody
Speaker 6: in the history of the universe has discovered before, to
Speaker 6: shake off the idea that they could that the bad
Speaker 6: that you were seeing is really bad and that it's
Speaker 6: not just an anomaly. And and so you know, like
Speaker 6: I said, Hubbard was an enigma. Anybody that you talked
Speaker 6: to that actually met the guy will tell you, my God,
Speaker 6: he was charming, he was lodger than life. He walked
Speaker 6: into a room and the room lit up, and he
Speaker 6: was amazing, and there were all this sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: And then did you ever feel like maybe it was
Speaker 3: your like, Oh, I don't want to displease him. I
Speaker 3: don't want to bring out that angry sye. It could
Speaker 3: be my fault. Maybe I did something wrong.
Speaker 6: Oh, of course. And that's a fundamental principle of scientology.
Speaker 6: I was even going to get to that noll a
Speaker 6: fundamental principle. And Hubbard was a genius in developing a
Speaker 6: lot of the things that he did in scientology, because
Speaker 6: the idea in scientology is that you were responsible for
Speaker 6: everything about your state of being, and if good things
Speaker 6: happened to you, it's because you're good. But if bad
Speaker 6: shit happens to you, it's good things happen to you,
Speaker 6: it's because scientology taught you how to how to experience
Speaker 6: the good. If bad stuff happens to you, it's because
Speaker 6: of your own evil transgressions, violations of the more rays
Speaker 6: of the group. And if you look inside your own
Speaker 6: head and figure out what it is that you have
Speaker 6: done that has caused this bad shit to happen to you,
Speaker 6: it will all resolve. So you look and you go,
Speaker 6: oh my god, the old man is really he's really pissed.
Speaker 6: He's upseting me. What did I do? How did I
Speaker 6: cause that to happen? And that is probably the biggest
Speaker 6: trap of scientology. You look around, because David Buskavitch has
Speaker 6: a lot less redeeming qualities than el Ron Hubbard. He's
Speaker 6: got a lot lot more bad traits and a lot
Speaker 6: less sort of charismatic nice things that you could say
Speaker 6: about him. And you look around, you go, but there's
Speaker 6: people there that have been there for twenty years and
Speaker 6: that he's beating them, and he's abusing them. He spits
Speaker 6: on them, he calls them names, he curses them out,
Speaker 6: he has them dig shit out of the toilets, you know,
Speaker 6: et cetera, et cetera. Why do they put up with it?
Speaker 6: The reason they put up with it is because they
Speaker 6: have been indoctrinated to believe because they're somehow bad and
Speaker 6: they haven't discovered what their evil is yet. But if
Speaker 6: they keep working at it, they'll get there.
Speaker 1: Right, They're being punished for a reason. You know, you
Speaker 1: said something you said two really interesting things previously, Mike,
Speaker 1: where you said you alluded to something called the prison
Speaker 1: of the mind for or people who are practicing scientology,
Speaker 1: and then you had also said I won't do a
Speaker 1: compound question this time, promise. You had also said that
Speaker 1: David Miskovich in particular, seemed kind of like an anomalous
Speaker 1: nutcase until you read a book called The Sociopath next Door?
Speaker 1: Is was that the correct one?
Speaker 6: Yes, brilliant book by Matha Stell, doctor Matha Stell.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And from what we understand about the good and
Speaker 1: the bad of scientology, the idea is that one should
Speaker 1: one should be able to control one's emotions. So isn't
Speaker 1: that kind of a contradiction that he would be so
Speaker 1: filled with rage.
Speaker 6: It's a complete contradiction. And it's a contradiction for another reason.
Speaker 6: And there is tons and tons and tons of contradictions
Speaker 6: in scientology. You don't see them until you get out.
Speaker 6: But think about what I just told you about the
Speaker 6: the idea that when something bad has happened to you,
Speaker 6: it's because of your evil doing for everybody except the
Speaker 6: guy at the top. For the guy at the top,
Speaker 6: his upset or bad stuff happening to him is because
Speaker 6: everybody else is doing bad stuff to him. For everybody underneath,
Speaker 6: what's that bad stuff happening to them is because of
Speaker 6: what they did. When it comes to David Muskavetcher, Elround Hubbard,
Speaker 6: now that that rule suddenly goes out the window, that
Speaker 6: rule becomes David Muskvitch is being abused by his subordinates.
Speaker 6: They are seeking to upset him, they are destroying him,
Speaker 6: and they must look inside them, their hearts and their
Speaker 6: minds to figure out why they are seeking to destroy
Speaker 6: this great man. And that was the same with El
Speaker 6: Run Hubbard. And you're exactly right, Ben, The idea that
Speaker 6: you fly off into rage and start beating the crap
Speaker 6: out of people is the example of the pinnacle of
Speaker 6: the scientology world, that this is what this would be like.
Speaker 6: You know, the Dalai Lama. The stories start coming out
Speaker 6: about the Dalai Lama that you know, he's got a
Speaker 6: sword set in in his place over there, and when
Speaker 6: someone displeases him, he chops their fingers off, you know,
Speaker 6: like it's just it doesn't it doesn't match up with
Speaker 6: what is presented to the world that scientology teaches you
Speaker 6: and processes you if you pay enough money to eradicate irrational,
Speaker 6: mis emotional responses to the stimuli of the world. And
Speaker 6: it's a huge contradiction.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, we're gonna make a quick break here and we'll
Speaker 4: be back very.
Speaker 2: Shortly, and we're back, Okay, So.
Speaker 4: I think that right there. I haven't honestly, I have
Speaker 4: not listened to much of your your show Scientology Fair
Speaker 4: Game yet I cannot wait to. But I imagine that
Speaker 4: you guys get into quite a bit of discussion about
Speaker 4: David and a lot of that on your show. Would
Speaker 4: that be correct?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 4: Absolutely, that okay, that's awesome. Again, just from a group
Speaker 4: of guys who've been making a show for a long time,
Speaker 4: that sounds like a terrifying thought just when you think about.
Speaker 2: Possible.
Speaker 4: You know the things that scientology has done in the
Speaker 4: past with its First Amendment rights and large bags of
Speaker 4: money that they have. But I want to I want
Speaker 4: to talk specifically about you and experienced that your co
Speaker 4: host of Scientology for game, Lea Remedy, had at one
Speaker 4: point in her life. She was well, I guess I
Speaker 4: don't know. I force would be the correct word. She
Speaker 4: was told to go to a facility in Clearwater, Florida
Speaker 4: that you mentioned for a thing that was termed reprogramming.
Speaker 4: Can can you talk to us about what that term
Speaker 4: means within the context of scientology.
Speaker 6: Yes, I'm going to try and do this without using
Speaker 6: too much scientologies in the description. But Leah made the
Speaker 6: mistake of questioning the judgment and activities of Tom Cruise
Speaker 6: and David Muskavitch, and for that that is a modal
Speaker 6: sin when the world of scientology. She was told that
Speaker 6: she must go to the facility in clear Water at
Speaker 6: her own expense, and it ultimately cost her three hundred
Speaker 6: thousand dollars, Yes, three hundred thousand dollars to receive this
Speaker 6: scientology auditing and auditing in Scientology is you know what
Speaker 6: the term that is used to describe scientology counseling, and
Speaker 6: it is done with this like little e meader that's
Speaker 6: sort of like a little light detector. You hold these
Speaker 6: two cans and it registers, and the person that's doing
Speaker 6: on the other side sort of goes, oh, you've got this,
Speaker 6: or you know, tell me about that or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I want to know. And it was to get her
Speaker 6: to effectively admit that everything, every critical thought, every criticism
Speaker 6: that she had were stemmed from something that she had done.
Speaker 6: And it's exactly what I was telling you before. This
Speaker 6: is a very very very fundamental concept in scientology. It's
Speaker 6: not just if bad stuff happens to you. If you
Speaker 6: talk shit about someone, it's because you've done bad things
Speaker 6: to them. So it's the idea that you're critical of
Speaker 6: someone because you have done something to hurt them or
Speaker 6: harm them in some way. So now are seeking to
Speaker 6: make less of them so that you can make it
Speaker 6: seem that what you are doing and saying is correct.
Speaker 6: It's that the problem with it is, and this is
Speaker 6: the problem with a lot of scientology, there is some
Speaker 6: fundamental truth to these things. There is some kernel of
Speaker 6: truth there is not a lot in scientology that is
Speaker 6: just sheer bullshit. There is a lot that is take
Speaker 6: a thing and turn it into something with a twisted
Speaker 6: lot that changes actually it what it started out being,
Speaker 6: into something that is almost diametrically opposed. And you see
Speaker 6: that in the vowel too. You see how Rnieri managed
Speaker 6: to twist things that had some fundamental concept or idea
Speaker 6: in it, like being living up to your word, and
Speaker 6: turned that into being a slave. Now, how you get
Speaker 6: from one to the other is kind of astonishing, but
Speaker 6: he managed to convince plenty of people to do it,
Speaker 6: to the point where they were calling up and asking,
Speaker 6: am I allowed to eat another thirteen caligories? Master? That
Speaker 6: is crazy. But just like scientology, something there was some
Speaker 6: fundamental principle that you could agree with, or a truth
Speaker 6: that you could agree with that then gets built upon
Speaker 6: and built up and sort of interpreted and twisted. And
Speaker 6: that's what happens with these concepts in scientology. And that's
Speaker 6: what Leo was doing there for all that time. Was
Speaker 6: until she had found something that explained every single critical
Speaker 6: thought or comment she had made, she was not free
Speaker 6: to go.
Speaker 1: This hits on another thing that's been often talked about
Speaker 1: again from outside reports and often from former members of
Speaker 1: the organization, which is the idea of essentially being held
Speaker 1: against one's will being allowed to go. It makes me
Speaker 1: think specifically of the news that we hear every so
Speaker 1: often about David Muskevich's spouse, who has been out of
Speaker 1: the public eye for quite a long time. Mike, is
Speaker 1: it true that this organization has or does hold people
Speaker 1: against their will or is it more of like an
Speaker 1: emotional peer pressure?
Speaker 6: Okay, yes, this organization does hold people against their will.
Speaker 6: They can be forcibly held and restrained and prevented from leaving.
Speaker 6: And I have seen that happen, and it is or
Speaker 6: people locked in a room and not let out, that
Speaker 6: sort of stuff. But that's not really what the problem is.
Speaker 6: The problem is people being held based on their will
Speaker 6: because their will has been bent and they believe that
Speaker 6: what they are doing is ultimately going to be their salvation.
Speaker 6: That and you know Larry Wright in his brilliant book
Speaker 6: Going Clear that he's subtitled Scientology and the Prison of Belief,
Speaker 6: because that's what it is. This is the Stockholm syndrome.
Speaker 6: This is the idea that you can and change someone's
Speaker 6: thinking to the point where they believe that staying is
Speaker 6: best for them, even if staying means being locked in
Speaker 6: a room and sleeping on the floor and being tortured
Speaker 6: every day, and you know, like crazy stuff. But you
Speaker 6: this is not limited to scientology either. You know, look
Speaker 6: at the people that were at Jonestown, Look at the
Speaker 6: people that are in fundamentalist Mormon. You know, Warren Jeff's
Speaker 6: turning the kids over to some weirdo pervert to be
Speaker 6: to become their sex slaves. I mean, this is and
Speaker 6: this is a concept that is very, very difficult to
Speaker 6: persuade anybody to act upon. And what I mean by
Speaker 6: that is so often you see people seeking justice for
Speaker 6: what has been done to them, and courts and law
Speaker 6: enforcement don't recognize that twisting someone's mind is like is
Speaker 6: just is just as damaging and intrusive and inappropriate than
Speaker 6: twisting their arm. But because it's not a physical you know,
Speaker 6: there's no physical assault, and the law is about assault
Speaker 6: and battery. There's no law about assault and battery of
Speaker 6: the mind. And so a lot of this stuff goes
Speaker 6: and you know, people don't courts don't know what to
Speaker 6: do with it. Do they believe that someone was brainwashed.
Speaker 6: Do they buy into the idea that such a thing
Speaker 6: as brainwashing exists, even if you call it by another name,
Speaker 6: call it brainwashing, mental coercion, whatever. Is that something that
Speaker 6: is actionable? Is that something that you can do something about?
Speaker 6: Can you prove it? It's But believe me, it is way
Speaker 6: way more down. You can recover from a twisted arm,
Speaker 6: it's much harder to recover from a twisted mind.
Speaker 3: Well, and you can also take a photograph of a
Speaker 3: bruise and enter it into an exhibit in court. You
Speaker 3: can't take a photograph of a damaged mind or even prove.
Speaker 3: The burden for proving like pain and suffering or psychological
Speaker 3: damage so much higher than being able to say, this
Speaker 3: person punched me, and here's the proof, here's a polaroid,
Speaker 3: and it's done. You know, you can't do it. And
Speaker 3: and then this leads to, I mean, quickly, just to
Speaker 3: follow up. Clearly, you and Leo were able to disconnect,
Speaker 3: you know, and and go on with your lives, you know,
Speaker 3: But still that has resulted as you being top listed
Speaker 3: people folks who can threaten the church.
Speaker 6: I mean, god, you know that to me is is easy. Again,
Speaker 6: it's the mind it's the twisting of the mind to
Speaker 6: believe that you are foregoing your eternity, that if you
Speaker 6: if you walk away from this, you're losing your family,
Speaker 6: You're losing your friends, You're losing everything that you've ever known.
Speaker 6: That if there's something, I mean, these guys managed to compartmental.
Speaker 6: I've heard John Travalda say this often, Well, you know,
Speaker 6: I don't know everything that's going on. Bullshit. I don't
Speaker 6: know everything that's going on. Uh not really, I don't
Speaker 6: know everything that's going on. But what I do know
Speaker 6: is that scientology has helped me. So why wouldn't I
Speaker 6: continue to participate in something that has helped me? And
Speaker 6: that is a pretty unassailable position to take because who
Speaker 6: you to say, well, hasn't helped you? Look at your dummy,
Speaker 6: it hasn't helped you. But it is also you can
Speaker 6: ask John Travolta, well, have you watched The Aftermath? Did
Speaker 6: you read the did you read the article in the
Speaker 6: Tampa Bay Times? Have you read Lawrence Wright's book? Why
Speaker 6: would I do that? Why would I want to read
Speaker 6: bad stuff about something that has helped me? And this
Speaker 6: is another thing that scientology and naxiom and everyone else
Speaker 6: has made a very a sort of a study of
Speaker 6: how do you persuade people not to look at anything
Speaker 6: bad about you? How do you persuade them that it
Speaker 6: is harmful to them spiritually? If they look at something bad,
Speaker 6: it's going to detract from their progress in scientology, and
Speaker 6: ultimately code code cost them more money to have to
Speaker 6: undo the bad effects of that on them. And when
Speaker 6: I'm saying to you this, realize for a scientologist, if
Speaker 6: they go read US magazine and there is a negative
Speaker 6: story about Tom Cruise in there, or Leah remedi is
Speaker 6: interviewed in US magazine, they are going to have to
Speaker 6: go in and pay for the auditing that unburdens them
Speaker 6: of the horrible sin of having looked at something negative
Speaker 6: about scientology, because that's regressed them in their progress.
Speaker 1: So many questions we may not get to all of them,
Speaker 1: but this reminds me, Mike of the massive dump of
Speaker 1: internal documents from WikiLeaks a few years back, which I
Speaker 1: know was a huge deal inside the organization I can
Speaker 1: only imagine, but definitely outside the organization, and we were
Speaker 1: stunned when we realize that people who were in the
Speaker 1: organization were being told, look, this is out there, but
Speaker 1: don't read it, you know what I mean, treat it
Speaker 1: as though it doesn't exist.
Speaker 2: And I.
Speaker 1: See now the financial incentive inherent there. You had earlier
Speaker 1: said Scientology is worth three billion dollars with a lack
Speaker 1: of oversight. Do people ever reach a point in the organization?
Speaker 1: Do they progress to a point where they're no longer
Speaker 1: being asked to pay money for audits or anything like that.
Speaker 4: It's a gift.
Speaker 6: Seriously, you can reach the very top of the Scientology
Speaker 6: bridge to total freedom and then be told op, sorry,
Speaker 6: we found something new. You need to go back and
Speaker 6: start over. And this is something that Nixim has too.
Speaker 6: I was speaking to Sarah Emanson the other day and
Speaker 6: she told me, she said, do you know we had
Speaker 6: to redo our training. We'd get all, we get our
Speaker 6: scarf or whatever those things sash and then they'd come
Speaker 6: out and say, oh no, you have to go back
Speaker 6: and redo it all and you have to pay again.
Speaker 6: And it's the same thing in Scientology. You have to
Speaker 6: redo it. And we got we found some new I'm
Speaker 6: just formally unknown piece of information from l Ron Hubbard
Speaker 6: that was buried in someone's suitcase under their bed somewhere
Speaker 6: and suddenly, now everything that you did before has to
Speaker 6: be redone. And not only that, we now have a
Speaker 6: new fundraising program. We have to buy new facilities for
Speaker 6: every church in the world, and we call these ideal
Speaker 6: Orgs and signed Ptology has been opening these buildings around
Speaker 6: the world for the last twenty years on a theory
Speaker 6: that David Biskavitch presented as scientologists that in order for
Speaker 6: scientology to truly expand, it had to have buildings and
Speaker 6: facilities that would allow all aspects of scientology to be
Speaker 6: presented in an appropriate fashion for everyone. So we need
Speaker 6: new buildings and they have to be x number of
Speaker 6: square feet and it's going to cost twenty million dollars
Speaker 6: and blah blah blah blah. So pay up and this
Speaker 6: pay up for that, and for the Another thing called
Speaker 6: the International Association of Scientologists, which is a is a scam.
Speaker 6: It's just a scam. It's like scientologists believe that giving
Speaker 6: money to the International Association of Scientologists is helping educate
Speaker 6: children in Africa, or save people from hurricanes, or you know,
Speaker 6: do good work for the victims of earthquake in Haiti
Speaker 6: or whatever. And it's bullshit. It does not happen. The
Speaker 6: most that happens is they go and shoot a video
Speaker 6: and then they show everybody, look at this video. We
Speaker 6: got five people in this video, but there were thousands
Speaker 6: more that you just can't see. And keep giving us money,
Speaker 6: and we will give you these gaudy bowling pin bowling
Speaker 6: trophies and start calling you Platinum Excalibur something or other,
Speaker 6: or Platinum Meritorious Patron of the Gluteus Maximus or like
Speaker 6: it's like these bizarre, absurd names, and people hand over
Speaker 6: ten fifty million dollars and like I said, with no oversight,
Speaker 6: Scientology never has to show its books. They never have
Speaker 6: to show it.
Speaker 3: Tithing, right, isn't that basically the same thing as tithing
Speaker 3: to a.
Speaker 6: Church, like well, if tithing money, if tithing, well, you
Speaker 6: typically you think of tithing as like ten percent. If
Speaker 6: tithing was fifty, that's more of the Scientology model fifty
Speaker 6: or more. Like Scientology is ruthless about getting money. Go
Speaker 6: take a loan, go you know, get cash in your
Speaker 6: your college fund, get your stocks, sell your stocks, sell
Speaker 6: your house, do whatever. Get us the money now, because
Speaker 6: this money right now is going to save the world.
Speaker 6: They've been saying that for fifty years and things aren't
Speaker 6: going so good.
Speaker 1: Our conversation with Mike Render continues and it goes in
Speaker 1: some fascinating to a degree disturbing places, so much so
Speaker 1: that we did not want to cut any of it,
Speaker 1: and we have decided to make this a two part episode.
Speaker 1: We promised that this is going to be worth it.
Speaker 1: We hope that you join us for part two of
Speaker 1: this interview, which is coming out later this week. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, we highly recommend checking out Mike and Leah's
Speaker 1: new podcast Scientology Fair Game, and that's our classic episode
Speaker 1: for this evening. We can't wait to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 3: It's right let us know what you think.
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