WEBVTT - Lawrence Wright on Religion, ISIS, and Scientology 0:00:06.960 --> 0:00:09.959 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing, 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:15.320 My chance to talk with artists, policymakers, and performers, to 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:19.680 hear their stories. What inspires their creations, what decisions change 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:25.239 their careers, what relationships influenced their work. My guest today, 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:29.840 author Lawrence Wright thinks a lot about religion. He wants 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:34.040 to know why people choose one faith over another, especially 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:38.080 when what they choose seems quote absurd or dangerous to 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:42.519 an outsider. This question has led Right to investigate some 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:46.760 of the world's most complicated and secretive organizations, from the 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:51.040 People's Temple in Jonestown to the Church of Scientology. His 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:54.360 book on al Qaeda won the Polite Surprise in two 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:59.920 thousand seven. Lawrence Right has a unique firsthand experience at 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:02.720 us to the power of belief. I grew up in 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.800 Dallas and the Methodist Church, and there was despite the 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:09.200 fact that Methodism doesn't have a reputation as being kind 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:11.919 of a you know, hell fire and Brimstone, the first 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:14.240 of the churches that we went to in Dallas really 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:19.000 was that. And then we graduated to the Methodist Church downtown. 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:24.440 My dad taught Sunday school for many many years. You know, 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:27.480 Dallas back at that time was the most pious city 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:33.000 in America. We had the largest Methodist, Baptist I think, 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:36.320 the largest Episcopal church, and one of the largest Catholic 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:40.640 churches in the entire country. And at the same time 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:43.400 we had the highest murder rate and the highest divorce rate, 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:46.720 you know, all the things that go along with excess 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:51.000 pet you know. So it was and I was very 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:54.720 pious as a teenager. I was in a group called 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:59.000 Young Life, and um, genuinely or you were responding to pressure, No, 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:01.280 I was. I was, well, there was part of those things. 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:03.440 It was. You know, I had moved around a lot 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:06.320 as my dad was a banker and we moved, uh, 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:08.600 quite a lot, and it was hard for me to 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:11.799 establish roots. So when I got to Dallas and this, 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:14.640 you know, Young Life came out. It was a social 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:18.040 club for me. But also it was the first time 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:23.120 I understood the you can bend yourself into the shape 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:25.799 of the organization the way it wants you to be. 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:30.400 And also the more pious you are, sort of the 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:32.920 higher you climb, the more important. So I got to 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:36.440 be part of it. Yeah, well you just say those 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:39.639 things and it's and you want to believe them. I 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:43.200 was not consciously trying to deceive anyone. At the same time, 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:46.360 you know what to set your your heart felt and genuine, 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:47.840 but at the same time you realize that there's a 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:50.600 there's an approval system here. Yeah, and I think that 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:55.640 that experience um was formative in some ways for me 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:59.720 to be so interested in religious matters and why you know, 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:04.239 I people are always, you know, reporters, especially fascinated by politics. 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:06.640 But you can have strong political views and it doesn't 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:09.280 affect your life at all, But if you have strong 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:13.840 religious views, they probably dictate much of your behavior. Is 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:18.239 puzzling to me why with most journalists it's just embarrassing 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:21.320 to ask about what people believe because it's not supposed 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:24.720 to matter. Due to leave the area to go to college, 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:26.840 I went to Tulane in New Orleans, which was a 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:29.760 city least like Dallas that I could find and you 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:33.240 could buy beer and woolworth and you could drink at 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:35.640 eighteen and uh there you know a lot of things 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:40.080 of at that time, I kind of shed that, but 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:43.720 I was actively looking for a way to live a 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:47.160 more bohemian life. I felt very constricted in Dallas. Was 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.720 writing something that was on your mind, even at an 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:55.400 early age. Yeah. Yeah, I took a creative writing class. 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.000 You know, I was not a disst school paper now. 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:01.440 I used to like doing that stuff though. And then um, 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:04.400 after I graduated, Um, you know, the Venom War was 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:08.160 going on, and uh, I became a conscientious objector and 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:13.360 spent two years of alternative service teaching in Cairo. And 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:16.360 that's where I became involved for the first time with 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:22.240 the Arab world. And when the boy from Dallas becomes 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:24.920 a conscientious objector, how did that go off? Back home? 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:29.640 You know, I my dad was a war hero, and 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:32.320 I wanted to be like him. I was in our otc. 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:36.200 I expected, you know, to to follow in his footsteps. 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:40.159 But you know, there was this parallel problem going on, 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:43.280 which was the Vietnam War, which was despicable different and 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:45.760 it was it was a bad war. And you know, 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.679 for a person, a young man like me who wanted 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:52.039 to serve his country but did not want to kill 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:55.680 people for the wrong reason or risk my life for 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:58.679 something I didn't believe in, it just was a terrible 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:03.640 My father and I had horrible, horrible fights about Vietnam. 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:07.240 Do you have any brothers no. I had two younger sisters, 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:10.960 so you were you were the scion. Did you ever 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:12.840 make peace with him about that? Yeah? You know, I 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:16.760 wrote a memoir about growing up in Dallas during the 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:21.840 Kennedy assassination and in America during the Vietnam Era, And 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:24.400 in the process of doing that, I talked to my 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:27.200 parents a lot, and I let them read the manuscript, 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:30.160 and it was a very healing experience for all of us. 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:34.240 I think, when does writing become a career decision for you? 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:39.240 When I came back from Egypt in ninety one, I 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:41.240 decided that I was going to write an article for it. 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:43.080 This way, I decided I was going to write an 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:47.040 article for the New Yorker. I hadn't contacted them, and no, no, no, 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:49.720 they had no idea. My folks had a little late 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:53.839 cabin up in Equipment Texas, in East Texas, and so 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:56.799 my wife and I moved out there for six months 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:00.800 while I wrote letter from Cairo, and um there was 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:04.880 a report from so there we was r f D 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:07.080 you know mail, and there was we had a little 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:09.040 you know box out on the road where you raised 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.440 the red flag and the mailman stops. And I sent 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:16.280 my manuscript into the New Yorker, and sure, this isn't true, 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:18.680 but it seemed that it came back the next day 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:23.120 from equipment Texas to Mr Shawn's desk to back equipment 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:26.320 with a you know, a little rejection card in there. 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:30.960 And that was, you know, my first attempt at becoming 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.560 a writer. It would it would be many many years 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:35.880 later that I actually got a chance to write for 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:41.839 The New Yorker. You're in Kyro, You're married, you know. Um, 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:45.320 this is an odd story because you know, I went 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:49.080 in too. I had to get a job that was 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:52.480 fifty miles from my home, and that wasn't a problem 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:55.320 I wanted. I was so sick of America at that time, 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:59.160 and the argument over the war was so devastating, and 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:01.279 I just wanted to had as far away as I could. 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:03.880 And it had to pay very little, and it had 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:06.400 to be nominally in the service in the United States, 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:10.560 so I uh, in the bedpen jobs were all taken, 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:13.880 which normally is what a conscientious objector does, but this 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:17.160 was during the Nixon recession, and those were all taken. 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:19.560 So I thought I would go to the U n 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:21.600 and you know, get a job, and they sent me far, 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:24.000 far away and I went to the u N and 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:25.640 they said, no, we don't do that. But here's a 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:29.320 list of American institutions abroad. Look at them. And one 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:32.720 of them, American University in Cairo, had an office across 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.360 the street at eight sixty six un Plaza, And do 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:39.160 you remember Huntington Hartford and show magazine here. I thought 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:41.160 he might, well, you know, he had a famous office, 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:43.640 and I realized it was in the same building. And 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.720 I thought, I'll go over and peek into Huntington Hartford's 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:49.640 office and then I'll go upstairs and asked for a job. 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:51.920 So I did that, and you know, I walked in 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:54.000 and I didn't I knew that there had been a 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:56.280 war in the Middle East, but I wasn't, you know, 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:58.840 it wasn't the war that I was focused on, you know. 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:02.120 And uh, and I didn't know that we didn't have 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:05.080 any diplomatic relations with the with Egypt at the time. 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.040 I'm not even sure what language they spoke. But I 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:10.520 walked in and thirty minutes later they said can you 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:15.960 leave tonight? And I said, well, no, Um, my girlfriend's 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:18.480 back in Boston and I haven't told my parents what 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:20.960 I'm doing, and can you leave tomorrow. Well, yeah, I 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:25.480 go tomorrow. So calls and I went back and I 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.880 told my girlfriend, now my wife, I'm going to Egypt 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:32.520 tomorrow and I don't know where that leaves us, and 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:35.520 I'll be gone for two years. And and then, um, 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:39.880 and I called my parents from JFK the next morning 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:42.120 and told him I was going to Cairo. And I 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:46.360 flew to Cairo and landed, you know, late at night, 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:48.920 and the next morning, at nine o'clock, I taught my 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:53.760 first class. After a couple of weeks. Um, I was 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:57.480 really missing Roberta. Back then, you didn't make telephone calls, 0:08:57.720 --> 0:08:59.920 you know, international calls and stuff like that. So we're 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:04.520 letters were passing, and at some point I said, um, 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:07.480 you know the terms under which we left were. You know, 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:10.800 you can't go. You just couldn't live together in Egypt. 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:16.280 You know, it was very conservative society. And if I 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:22.800 invite you to come, that means we'll get married. So uh, 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.439 and you know our letters crossed in the mail. I 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:27.640 asked her to come, and she said she was coming anyway. 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.360 And then did you name your first child Huntington? No, 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:36.040 but that would have been Then the question became where 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:38.440 to get married, because there was this idea that was 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:40.960 sowhere in the back of my mind that if I 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.120 got married in Egypt under Islamic law, I could have 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:47.160 additional three wives, which was an option. I wasn't sure 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:49.640 that I wanted to exercise. But if you know, it 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:51.679 could be, you know, you could have pulled it off. 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.120 It's a contingency. I don't think I have the management skills. 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:56.120 Over there. They insist you be married. You can be 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:58.240 married as many times as you want. Where they just 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:00.280 insisted that you'd be married. So you're there for two years, 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:04.080 you come back, yeah, and then what happens? Then? I 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:07.280 talked the start the long road of trying to start 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:10.040 a career in as a writer, and you moved to 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:13.680 where The first job I got was in Nashville for 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:17.559 the race relations reporter. I was the only writer for 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:22.760 a long time. But uh, we would go into situations where, 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:25.680 you know, there was racial conflict and oftentimes the local 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:30.000 press was biased or not paying attention to it, and 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:32.600 so it might be about you know, the civil rights 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:36.120 movement in the South, or Indians. You know, the Indian 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:39.600 movement was under weigh at the time of school desegregation 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:41.760 was very active. All those things I got a chance 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:46.040 to write about. It taught me quite a lot about 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:49.840 how you know, to actually write an article is a 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:52.760 matter of being plunged into it. Is there a mentor 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:57.520 you have the a very crazy editor named Jim Leeson 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:01.480 Um in Nashville. Yeah. Him. It was a strange man 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:07.839 um and uh he he the whole culture was a 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:12.000 little strange, to be honest. I um, Jim. When I 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:14.679 went to apply for the job, I was a pretty 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:17.520 good tennis player, and he asked about that, and so 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:20.120 um he asked if we could play tennis the next day. 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:22.000 So I show up in my tennis does and he 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:25.400 goes out and plays me in his street shoes, And 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.040 of course I beat him pretty soundly. But but still 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:31.679 the notion that he would play tennis and street shoes 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:36.280 was um. And he wound up firing me when I 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:41.640 wrote a memo suggesting that we reorganized the I would 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:45.080 probably I deserve to be fired, I imagine, so, but 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:49.160 it was a it was another test to be plunged 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:54.280 into the freelance market. I first became familiar with you 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:59.520 and you're writing in the Olympia Washington story. Um. The 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:03.440 piece it was entitled Remembering Satan, which you wrote as 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:05.280 a book as well. These were excerpts in the book. 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:08.760 There was a two part lengthy excerpt in the edition 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:10.920 of The New Yorker. And I first became familiar with you, 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:12.640 and I mean I was just supposed to, you know, 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:15.520 like knocked out by this piece. I thought, I know, 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:19.480 how on earth is this possible? Had you written pieces 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:23.240 like that, I mean the scientology piece the book and 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:25.480 going clear, which we're gonna get to that obviously, and 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:32.439 this piece, uh, there's uh, there's some fascinating people either 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:35.360 putting themselves or putting other people through some living hell. 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:38.280 Here was this the first such piece you wrote, the 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:43.800 Olympia piece. No, I think I had written about you know, 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:47.480 a lot of different even wrote about Satanists, and you know, 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.520 of people of all sorts of I mean, if you're 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:54.080 a reporter and you have a passport to write about anybody, um, 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:58.400 and I took full advantage of that. But that remembering 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:03.200 Satan is kind of a uh, stereotypical type of article 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:06.800 that I like to write about, which is um, for 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:10.600 one thing, it's a discreet world, you know, in this case, 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:14.319 it was you know, this world inside Olympia, Washington, that 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:18.840 had been infected by these hysterical memories of satanic ritual 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:23.720 abuse which never occurred. But a man was convicted of 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:27.120 these crimes. He confessed to them because he remembered them, 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:30.520 and there was other than his memory, there was no 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:33.280 evidence of if I remember correctly, no one else was 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:37.360 sentenced to prison. Only Paul went to prison. What's this 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:39.360 relationship with his family now? Or do you even know? 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:42.120 It's very broken as far as I haven't talked to 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.600 Paul in a couple of years, but you know he's 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:48.840 married again. You know, he's he started another life, and 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:55.160 but you know, it's an example of how the mind 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:59.880 can be so persuaded of, you know, a false real 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.520 quality that and I think everybody is capable of that. 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:06.840 I don't don't you want to know if I would 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:10.000 say that whatever capable of that. But creating a false 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:13.640 reality one of the things that has been an education 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:17.360 to me as a reporter when I'm out interviewing people 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:19.840 that have been, for instance, in al Quaeda or you know, 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:22.440 people that have come out of you know, I've interviewed 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:25.160 the children of Jim Jones, and you know, as talk 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:29.640 to people who went into scientology, they're not crazy people, 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:33.640 then they're not stupid, and you know they're they're often 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:37.640 you know, if there's a commonality, there's idealism. Uh. You know, 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:41.680 they're longing to make, you know, change history, makes something 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:47.480 of yourself and UH, that's you know, maybe that's one 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:50.200 of the most dangerous elements of our human nature, is 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.080 that we it's the better parts of our nature that 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:56.560 sometimes lead us into real dangerous areas. With the better 0:14:56.640 --> 0:15:01.520 parts of the natures of Jones as children from well, 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:04.960 you know, they were they were essentially captive to him. 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:08.520 So but and they survived, thank god. They were all 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:14.240 playing basketball in a tournament and Georgetown, Guiana, so they 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:17.880 weren't killing when the killings went down. But the it's 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:25.680 always to me, it is always uh underscored the danger 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:30.480 of these kinds of fanatical belief systems. Uh. There were 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:34.720 these three boys U two adopted. UH Stephen was a 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:38.040 natural son and he looked very much like his father, 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:41.880 Jim Jones, with the kind of Cherokee cheek bones and 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:46.240 he's very tall and striking, handsome man. And then there 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:52.400 was Jim Jones Jr. Who was black, UM and UH adopted. 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.720 And then the third adopted son, was Tim. Who is 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:59.720 this big red headed guy. Tim, these boys when I 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:02.800 talked to him, Waco was going on at that time, 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:07.080 the Branch Davidian episode, and Tina Brown was the editor 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:09.560 of the New Yorker, and she wanted me to go 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:12.640 to Waco. And I said, they're more reporters and Waco 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:15.200 than there are Branch Davidians. I just but I was. 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:17.520 I was convinced that this must you know, I had 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:20.080 seen the children, some of the children that were sent out. 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:23.400 I thought that must have happened before. And I found 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.960 these three boys who had never then grown men, never 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:29.640 told their story before. And I don't know why they 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:32.880 were willing to talk to me. But Tim, when I 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:36.200 got to him, uh, he's He demanded that we do 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:39.200 it in a restaurant, in a public place, because he 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.480 didn't want to cry, and he had never told his wife, 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:45.800 his current wife, what had happened. Man, he wanted to 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:49.440 say this story one time. Now, bear in mind, Tim 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:52.880 Jones is a massive fellow. He can he can press 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:56.040 a hundred pounds with either arm. You know, he is 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:59.760 a immense physical presence. And we went to the restaurant 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.640 and in a few minutes he was pounding the table 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:06.399 and sobbing, because Tim is the one who had to 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:11.719 go into the jungle and identified nine people his real parents, 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:15.320 his adoptive parents, his wife at the time, and his children, 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:23.119 everybody lying on the ground and U it makes an impression. 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:25.800 Did he ever confide to you or or even just 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.800 discussed to you what he thought was going on there? 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:32.560 What he thought? Joy They all knew that their dad 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:35.960 was crazy and that he happened. What was he doing there? 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:39.840 You know, he was giving these suicide drills regularly. You know, 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:44.480 they break out the what was the purpose of Jonestown? 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:49.400 Oh well, they stated purpose was two They were Jones 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:53.480 was intensely paranoid. He had the feeling that the government 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.720 was persecuting him, which was not really true at all. 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:00.919 But one night the entire church to appeared. You know, 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:04.960 they all went secretly to this little South American country 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:06.520 with it, you know, in the in the middle of 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:11.199 the jungle. They've been preparing it, the boys. Yeah, and 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:13.280 it was just a you know, it's like a you know, 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:17.160 a little summer camp type of thing. They built quanset 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:20.600 huts and so on, and they were living near a river, 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:23.080 and they built an airstrip. I remember reading on this 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:26.240 thing online where they said that Jonestown was this training 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:29.200 ground where they were breading mk ultra operatives who were 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:32.080 capable of committing murder on behalf of the government, and 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:34.359 then they have a memory of it. Well, you know, 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:36.080 I'm not saying that that's true, but I remember reading 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:37.959 that once. I was fast when I was writing about 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:40.680 remembering Satan, when I was doing the you know, the 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:44.280 multiple personalities were supposed to be the product of Satanic 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:48.080 ritual abuse, and there was a big rise in multiple 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:52.840 personality disorder, and one of the theories was that the 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:57.360 multiples had been created by the CIA in order that 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:01.200 one personality could become a I and you know, deliver 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:04.399 messages that other personalities inside the same human being wouldn't 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:12.160 know about. Lawrence, writes. New Yorker article The Orphans of Jonestown, 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:15.600 came out for the fifteenth anniversary of the nineteen seventy 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:20.240 eight massacre that killed over nine people. Listen to more 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:25.080 conversations with writers who take on complicated issues, like David Simon, 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:28.160 who wrote the TV show The Wire but started out 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:31.320 as a beat reporter for the Baltimore Sun. I think 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:33.320 I was very fair as a reporter. You know, some 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:36.320 of poverty is about personal responsibility, and some of it 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:39.280 is not. Some of it is systemic and a result 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:42.879 of societal forces that are profound. Take a listen in 0:19:42.960 --> 0:20:06.760 our archives that here's the thing dot Org. This is 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:10.480 Alec Baldwin. You're listening to. Here's the thing. My guest, 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:14.800 Lawrence Wright prefers taking notes on index cards over using 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:18.120 a computer. You can only imagine the number of cards 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:22.520 Right used for his book Going Clear, Scientology, Hollywood and 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:25.840 the Prison of Belief. After it was published in two 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:30.480 thousand thirteen, documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney asked right if he 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:34.119 considered an adaptation. We'd worked together before. You know, I 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:38.879 had done this book about al Qaeda called The Looming Tower, 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:44.200 and I had just my little acting venture. I Um, 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:46.359 I didn't more travel with it. You know, I just 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:50.480 hate touring, you know, doing the book tour thing. Yeah. 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:54.679 I had seen Anna Davere Smith do fires in the 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:57.720 mirror at the Public Theater in and Is the first 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:01.000 time I could see the journalism and theater could be married. 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:04.560 And I fascinated by that. So I did a one 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:07.840 man show called My Trip to Al Qaeda and I 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:11.159 did it off Broadway for about six weeks and in 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:14.159 a few other cities, and Alex saw me do it 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:17.720 in Washington. We decided to make it into a documentary, 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:21.760 which we did for HBO. We hit it off. Alex 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:27.159 Is is a is a his nickname from childhood as 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:30.960 Tiger and his well chosen name, and he's a very 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:34.800 skillful storyteller. And it takes those qualities to take something 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:40.200 as complicated about an organization as vindictive and litigious as 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:43.280 the Church of Scientology. It takes somebody like Alex to 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:47.800 put together a movie like he's just done. One of 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:50.679 the things I thought when I saw the film, and 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:54.720 I mean all my friends and people who know me personally, 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:59.320 it wasn't lost on them that within about a week 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:01.679 ever return from Park City for the festival, I went 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:03.480 there to have a vacation with my family and we 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:06.840 just tacked on an extra weekend to see some movies 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:10.159 because I'm a big fan of the festival um and 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:12.240 it wasn't lost to my friends. Within about a week 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:14.040 after that, I was back on a plane to London 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:17.120 to go shoot a film with Tom Cruise. And Tom 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:19.919 is a friend of mine and um. I mean, I 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:21.720 consider him a friend in the business sense where we 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:23.119 don't get to see each other that often, but he's 0:22:23.119 --> 0:22:25.359 always very kind and as people who know Tom know, 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:28.200 he's a great person to be in the trenches of 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:30.680 movie making with. He's very hard working and very very 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:35.520 um passionate about the work. But when I saw the film, 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:38.280 one thing I didn't get And maybe it's there, maybe 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:41.240 it was in the book and maybe it's in the film, 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:43.240 but it was I mean, I watched this film with 0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:48.880 intense scrutiny. There wasn't any sense to me of what 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:52.080 are the people who are in scientology and remain in 0:22:52.160 --> 0:22:54.800 scientology and who are dedicated to this, What do they 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:57.320 perceive they're getting out of it? Because I have some 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:00.280 opinions about that when people have told me, well, what 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:02.720 does it do for them? Why are they there? Especially 0:23:02.760 --> 0:23:05.320 when people go into scientology, they don't you know, they 0:23:05.320 --> 0:23:07.760 don't go into it because it's a cult. They go 0:23:07.840 --> 0:23:12.000 into it oftentimes because they're looking for something well, you know, 0:23:12.040 --> 0:23:15.160 sometimes they're spiritual seekers or there. You know, you might 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:17.359 be um one of those people that goes down on 0:23:17.400 --> 0:23:19.800 the subway and someone says, would you like to take 0:23:19.800 --> 0:23:24.399 our personality tests, you know, and um, sure Oxford capacity analysis. 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:26.840 It sounds like, you know, might be and you know, 0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:29.119 well if we see that you have a little trouble 0:23:29.240 --> 0:23:32.439 of communicating with people, that's true, Well we you know, 0:23:32.520 --> 0:23:35.199 we can we can help you with that. Or in 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:38.080 the case of Paul Haggis, um, you know, he had 0:23:38.119 --> 0:23:41.520 a girlfriend that he was having trouble with and say 0:23:41.560 --> 0:23:43.560 we we have a course that can help you in 0:23:43.600 --> 0:23:49.200 your relationships. And the truth is, oftentimes they can help. 0:23:49.680 --> 0:23:52.919 It's like going into therapy. People do benefit from it. 0:23:53.520 --> 0:23:58.399 So this initial exposure to scientology is often very positive 0:23:58.440 --> 0:24:01.600 to people. What about the people like Travolta, people who 0:24:01.600 --> 0:24:03.800 seemed to have the world on a silver platter and 0:24:03.840 --> 0:24:06.440 everything is going their way, Well that wasn't true. When 0:24:06.480 --> 0:24:09.520 he got in. He was a you know, troubled young 0:24:09.560 --> 0:24:13.440 man who was in his first movie in Mexico. He 0:24:13.680 --> 0:24:17.040 confided to an actress who was on the set. You know, 0:24:17.080 --> 0:24:21.960 he's having these difficulties, and she was a scientologist, and 0:24:22.040 --> 0:24:25.040 she gave him some auditing, which is what scientology calls 0:24:25.119 --> 0:24:27.840 his therapy, and gave him a copy of Dinetics and 0:24:27.880 --> 0:24:32.879 so on. He had an experience which happens to a 0:24:32.960 --> 0:24:37.560 lot of scientologists when they're being audited. He went exterior. 0:24:37.760 --> 0:24:40.280 In other words, he had an out of body experience. 0:24:40.560 --> 0:24:44.200 He had a sense that he had left his corporal 0:24:44.240 --> 0:24:46.879 being and could look around the room and you know, 0:24:46.920 --> 0:24:49.840 see things behind him and so on. At the time 0:24:49.920 --> 0:24:52.800 he was taking a course, when he tried out for 0:24:52.880 --> 0:24:57.119 this welcome Back Carter, the teacher had everybody in the 0:24:57.359 --> 0:25:01.879 class turned their direction. I think he cps studios, you know, 0:25:01.920 --> 0:25:07.159 but telepathically send the message to the executives that the 0:25:07.280 --> 0:25:09.560 John Travolta is right for the role. And he got 0:25:09.600 --> 0:25:13.679 the part. And so he always credited scientology was putting 0:25:13.720 --> 0:25:16.199 him in the big time, as he said, so you know, 0:25:16.240 --> 0:25:19.440 in that sense, he really did feel that it had 0:25:19.520 --> 0:25:22.800 changed his life. But it's one thing to get into it, 0:25:22.840 --> 0:25:25.080 and it's another thing to get out of it. If 0:25:25.160 --> 0:25:29.480 you are a star like Travolta was at one time 0:25:29.520 --> 0:25:33.000 the biggest star in the world, and uh, you have 0:25:33.160 --> 0:25:35.960 put your name down again and again and again. As 0:25:36.000 --> 0:25:39.959 a scientologist, you're identified with it, and they have tapes 0:25:40.000 --> 0:25:43.360 of you, yes, discussing your darkest moments. Right like if 0:25:43.400 --> 0:25:46.159 you and I were sitting in a scientology auditing session, 0:25:46.280 --> 0:25:48.959 right now, and you're my auditor, and you know, and 0:25:49.000 --> 0:25:52.280 I'm holding the cans which are attached to the E meter, 0:25:52.440 --> 0:25:56.560 and you're probing uh and asking me very impersonal questions 0:25:57.000 --> 0:26:00.639 about my life and and things that I would not 0:26:00.720 --> 0:26:03.280 want to disclose to anyone else except in its very 0:26:03.320 --> 0:26:11.440 confidential confessional atmosphereiating material that is actually secretly recorded, sometimes videoed, 0:26:12.000 --> 0:26:14.119 and then it becomes apparent to you that if you 0:26:14.200 --> 0:26:17.760 decide to leave UM, the church may use some of 0:26:17.800 --> 0:26:20.480 that against you. And I talked to that. I talked 0:26:20.520 --> 0:26:23.040 to a guy whose assignment was to go through all 0:26:23.040 --> 0:26:27.000 those old auditing sessions on John Travolta and find stuff 0:26:27.000 --> 0:26:29.359 they could use against him because they were worried that 0:26:29.400 --> 0:26:32.480 he was going to go over the wall right in 0:26:32.560 --> 0:26:34.840 the piece in the film. The one thing I found 0:26:34.840 --> 0:26:38.800 that was disturbing was that I mean, and you correct 0:26:38.800 --> 0:26:42.680 me with this, this assessment, and that is that there 0:26:42.720 --> 0:26:48.160 are celebrities and wealthy public figures who tie the certain 0:26:48.200 --> 0:26:50.800 amount of their money millions of dollars to this organization, 0:26:51.920 --> 0:26:54.040 a second tier, if you will, and this is my description, 0:26:54.080 --> 0:26:56.359 the second tier, if you will, or you know, the 0:26:56.440 --> 0:27:00.480 middle Americans, middle income who often go into debt often 0:27:00.800 --> 0:27:04.199 go into dangerous amounts of debt, an unwise amounts of 0:27:04.240 --> 0:27:06.639 debt in order to pay for these ordering courses. So 0:27:06.720 --> 0:27:09.119 for them to give money to the church. And then 0:27:09.119 --> 0:27:11.280 there's people who are poor, who have nothing, who wind 0:27:11.359 --> 0:27:15.119 up trading in kind services. They become you know, they 0:27:15.200 --> 0:27:17.040 become like a labor force from them, and then they 0:27:17.080 --> 0:27:19.040 get forty cents an hour according to the film, and 0:27:19.760 --> 0:27:24.560 and and they're doing a lot of work that benefits 0:27:24.680 --> 0:27:28.119 other people. In the film, they're saying that these people 0:27:28.160 --> 0:27:32.200 are maintaining the hangar of cruises airplanes. Well, not only 0:27:32.280 --> 0:27:36.960 maintained it. What they did was refurbish it. They built 0:27:36.960 --> 0:27:39.560 all the furnitur, they painted it, they you know, they 0:27:39.640 --> 0:27:42.440 essentially took an empty hangar and made it into an 0:27:42.480 --> 0:27:45.160 office in a place for his planes, and all these 0:27:45.200 --> 0:27:48.680 elaborate Have you ever been in his hangar burbank. Well, 0:27:49.080 --> 0:27:51.480 he's got you know these you know, big the cows 0:27:51.560 --> 0:27:53.800 and stuff like that, you know, banners hanging down. It is. 0:27:54.119 --> 0:27:59.000 It is a pretty swank environment. And they handcrafted a 0:27:59.040 --> 0:28:05.320 limousine for him, and oversaw the reconstruction of his tour bus, 0:28:05.359 --> 0:28:08.959 and they you know, refurbished his house and these are 0:28:09.000 --> 0:28:13.000 people who are paid fifty dollars a week. Many of 0:28:13.040 --> 0:28:17.560 them joined as children, so you know, they're impoverished, and 0:28:17.800 --> 0:28:20.199 they have no place to go they have, you know, 0:28:20.320 --> 0:28:23.600 and if if they do, they don't know what they 0:28:23.640 --> 0:28:25.919 know then But of course maybe it may be the 0:28:26.000 --> 0:28:29.200 case that their families and all are in the church 0:28:29.280 --> 0:28:33.040 and if they left, none of those people would ever 0:28:33.080 --> 0:28:35.040 speak to them. You think the people who were the 0:28:35.080 --> 0:28:38.280 beneficiaries of this kind of stuff, do they know what's happening. 0:28:39.040 --> 0:28:42.280 There's no question that Tom Cruise knows what's going on 0:28:42.360 --> 0:28:45.720 inside the Sea Org. And I hold Tom to account. 0:28:46.440 --> 0:28:51.080 I single him out in particular. And because they're only 0:28:52.400 --> 0:28:56.000 two ways that the abuses that we chronicle in the 0:28:56.040 --> 0:28:58.440 movie and in my book, there are only two ways 0:28:58.480 --> 0:29:01.520 that they can be addressed, and one is that the I. R. 0:29:01.640 --> 0:29:05.080 S Decides well, maybe we should re examine that tax 0:29:05.120 --> 0:29:08.960 exemption that we were bludgeoned into given them. In I'm 0:29:08.960 --> 0:29:10.560 explained for people who don't know, but this is a 0:29:10.600 --> 0:29:13.720 fascinating part of the film. It was during the time 0:29:13.960 --> 0:29:18.080 that m. Hubbard was alive, or was the settlement reached 0:29:18.120 --> 0:29:20.920 after Hubbard dies after he died, and and Apparently he 0:29:21.000 --> 0:29:24.280 had a brigade and I had been raising a lot 0:29:24.320 --> 0:29:25.600 of money, and he had and he had a lot 0:29:25.600 --> 0:29:29.320 of cash at his disposal and was just shelling the 0:29:29.360 --> 0:29:32.480 I R S and litigation to maintain their status. And 0:29:32.600 --> 0:29:36.200 finally the IRS just caved and said, well, here's the 0:29:36.280 --> 0:29:40.040 situation that described would have David Muscavage found himself in. 0:29:40.480 --> 0:29:45.840 After Hubbard died, he wrestled control of this organization. And 0:29:45.920 --> 0:29:48.920 Hubbard had decided not to pay the taxes, and so 0:29:49.080 --> 0:29:53.040 by the Church of Scientology was a billion dollars in 0:29:53.200 --> 0:29:56.360 arrears and it didn't have a billion dollars, and so 0:29:56.440 --> 0:29:59.360 this was an existential moment for the church. They had 0:29:59.440 --> 0:30:03.480 to get a tax exemption. And moreover, the I R 0:30:03.680 --> 0:30:07.040 S hated them because, you know, in the eighties Hubbard 0:30:07.040 --> 0:30:11.280 had infiltrated um all these you know, the Justice Department, 0:30:11.360 --> 0:30:14.640 the I R S, Food and Drug Administration hit all 0:30:14.640 --> 0:30:19.120 these Scientology spies inside the government until the FBI broke 0:30:19.160 --> 0:30:21.959 it open and what was called Operations Snow White, and 0:30:22.360 --> 0:30:25.160 twelve people went to prison, including Hubbard's wife. So the 0:30:25.200 --> 0:30:28.160 I R S among other government agencies did not look 0:30:28.240 --> 0:30:32.320 kindly on the Church of Scientology. So how do you 0:30:33.080 --> 0:30:36.120 just imagine how you would go about getting a tax 0:30:36.160 --> 0:30:40.080 exemption from the I R S. Well, the scientology way 0:30:40.400 --> 0:30:44.640 was to launch twenty four hundred lawsuits against the I 0:30:44.880 --> 0:30:48.800 r S and individual agents, to hire private investigators to 0:30:48.840 --> 0:30:51.840 follow agents around to go to conventions where they might 0:30:51.880 --> 0:30:53.960 be drinking too much or fooling around. I don't have 0:30:54.000 --> 0:30:56.320 a billion dollars to pay the taxes, but I've got 0:30:56.400 --> 0:30:59.840 fifty million to lobs some grenades. Yes, yeah, and so 0:31:00.000 --> 0:31:05.920 of you. And they they they they won, and they 0:31:05.960 --> 0:31:10.680 wanted my personal feeling. It is twofold. One is I 0:31:10.720 --> 0:31:13.400 think that the I R S just did cave because 0:31:13.400 --> 0:31:16.400 I guess the deal that the deal on the table was, 0:31:16.760 --> 0:31:19.800 will give you the exemption and and all those lawsuits 0:31:19.840 --> 0:31:23.000 will go away? And they did. And so did they say, well, 0:31:23.000 --> 0:31:25.200 will we'll give you the exemption and take away this lassus? 0:31:25.240 --> 0:31:26.720 Would you have to pay us some amount of this 0:31:26.800 --> 0:31:29.600 money and a million dollars? And that's all that's the 0:31:29.920 --> 0:31:33.120 I R S that's fired. And moreover, it was such 0:31:33.120 --> 0:31:37.800 an overwhelming exemption. The church has manifold different entities, you know, 0:31:38.520 --> 0:31:43.280 but even Hubbard's novels are considered to be scripture and 0:31:43.440 --> 0:31:47.680 tax and uh, in the church now has the authority 0:31:47.800 --> 0:31:51.640 to determine which parts of itself should be tax exempt. 0:31:51.720 --> 0:31:54.120 Who was it in the film? If I remember correctly, 0:31:54.120 --> 0:31:57.200 there's someone I think there's an individual use site who 0:31:57.280 --> 0:31:59.800 says to Hubbard early in his career, the only way 0:31:59.840 --> 0:32:01.680 you're gonna get riches if you started religious. They were 0:32:01.720 --> 0:32:04.320 about ten people he said that too, And uh, you know, 0:32:04.400 --> 0:32:07.400 I think that Hubbard really, I think he really did 0:32:07.480 --> 0:32:10.240 believe that. But let me get back to that question 0:32:10.280 --> 0:32:12.680 of you know, just to touch back on Tom Cruise 0:32:12.720 --> 0:32:15.880 before we finish that if the if the I r 0:32:16.040 --> 0:32:22.560 S re examined after the licking it took from from Scientology, 0:32:22.560 --> 0:32:24.880 if it decided to go back and re examine that 0:32:24.880 --> 0:32:28.760 that might force change inside the church. But I haven't 0:32:28.760 --> 0:32:30.920 seen any evidence that the I R S has the 0:32:30.960 --> 0:32:33.680 appetite to do this. Almost the Senator on the West Coast, 0:32:33.720 --> 0:32:37.400 the Senator Ron Widen, is looking into this, and so 0:32:37.520 --> 0:32:40.240 you know, that's a possible. But the other way that 0:32:40.640 --> 0:32:44.760 change and reform could come in scientology is that some 0:32:44.800 --> 0:32:48.080 of the celebrity megaphones turn around in the other direction 0:32:48.120 --> 0:32:53.040 and demand change. And nobody has benefitted more from Scientology 0:32:53.080 --> 0:32:56.040 than Tom Cruise. Nobody is more identified in the public 0:32:56.560 --> 0:32:59.400 with the Church of Scientology than Tom Cruise. Nobody has 0:33:00.000 --> 0:33:02.920 wrought lured more people into the church than Tom Cruise. 0:33:03.280 --> 0:33:06.920 If you ask people name one member of the Church 0:33:06.920 --> 0:33:11.160 of Scientology, that's the one. And uh and moreover, it's 0:33:11.200 --> 0:33:14.680 a powerful I mean if you look at you know, 0:33:14.800 --> 0:33:17.680 he was the number one box office star, so he 0:33:17.720 --> 0:33:21.360 had Travolta then uh than Tom Cruise, and you know, 0:33:21.400 --> 0:33:24.880 and also Will Smith who started a scientology school. Although 0:33:24.880 --> 0:33:27.600 he says he's not a scientologist, he was one of 0:33:27.640 --> 0:33:29.840 the time he was number one. So you have one 0:33:29.920 --> 0:33:33.720 to three the most powerful actors in among the most 0:33:34.720 --> 0:33:38.080 And if you're a young actor standing out in central 0:33:38.080 --> 0:33:40.920 casting waiting to get maybe he's not a bad idea. 0:33:40.960 --> 0:33:43.440 If I stopped by this center, well, when you're standing 0:33:43.440 --> 0:33:46.360 in line, they'll be passing out brochure saying how to 0:33:46.400 --> 0:33:48.560 get an agent, how to get ahead and the business. 0:33:48.560 --> 0:33:52.400 Come to the celebrity center where that direct link. Yes, 0:33:52.600 --> 0:33:56.320 and he also back in the old days the acting 0:33:57.240 --> 0:34:01.480 schools like the Beverly Hills Playhouse was run. But could 0:34:01.480 --> 0:34:04.320 sell us who was my teacher? He was apparently a 0:34:04.320 --> 0:34:07.120 wonderful teacher, and he was a scientologist. And did he 0:34:07.160 --> 0:34:11.160 ever try to recruit you? I think I wasn't there 0:34:11.200 --> 0:34:14.239 long enough. I was there for under a year. I 0:34:14.280 --> 0:34:17.560 went briefly, and could sell Us was quite a character. 0:34:17.640 --> 0:34:21.080 He was I'm fascinated by well could sell Us. He 0:34:21.200 --> 0:34:24.719 said something that although it was very arch and very 0:34:25.000 --> 0:34:29.400 um kind of you might think this was egomaniacal. He 0:34:29.440 --> 0:34:32.360 was nonetheless right. There was a guy up on stage 0:34:32.400 --> 0:34:34.480 doing a scene. I was in this class mine then 0:34:34.600 --> 0:34:38.279 girlfriend got me into the class. This guy's up there 0:34:38.400 --> 0:34:42.560 doing a scene I'll never forget, and could sell Us 0:34:42.600 --> 0:34:45.640 is giving his notes on the scene, and the guy 0:34:45.800 --> 0:34:47.759 starts to debate him. He says, well, yeah, I don't 0:34:47.800 --> 0:34:50.319 think it's really and could sell Us says, I beg 0:34:50.320 --> 0:34:51.799 your pardner, and he says, well I don't. He goes, well, 0:34:51.840 --> 0:34:53.880 I think it's this, and he goes what it is is, 0:34:53.920 --> 0:34:56.279 and could sell Us is now insisting and being a 0:34:56.280 --> 0:34:59.560 little more because he was very powerful guy rhetorically, and 0:34:59.600 --> 0:35:02.040 he goes and says it again, and the guy debates 0:35:02.120 --> 0:35:04.560 him again, and could sell Us is He said, We're 0:35:04.560 --> 0:35:07.719 not here for you to debate what I tell you. 0:35:08.640 --> 0:35:10.880 He said, you come here and you pay me for 0:35:10.960 --> 0:35:13.480 me to give you my opinion. He said, I'm not 0:35:13.560 --> 0:35:17.880 interested in your opinion. I give you my opinion, and 0:35:17.920 --> 0:35:19.880 you listen. He turns to the classics. And that's it. 0:35:20.520 --> 0:35:23.080 We don't discuss what I'm saying. This isn't a debate. 0:35:23.600 --> 0:35:26.000 I say what I say, You listen, you write it 0:35:26.040 --> 0:35:32.600 down perhaps, and we're done. And um, scientology I have 0:35:32.680 --> 0:35:36.960 found and this is I mean, I I find it odd, 0:35:37.360 --> 0:35:39.759 but at the same time I find it kind of fascinating. Nonetheless, 0:35:40.000 --> 0:35:43.359 where scientology says to you, this is what you were 0:35:43.400 --> 0:35:46.640 put on this earth to do, and and it gives 0:35:46.640 --> 0:35:49.680 you that license and that freedom. You tell your parents, 0:35:50.280 --> 0:35:53.800 your wives, your children, everyone in your life that nothing 0:35:53.920 --> 0:35:56.200 must get in the way of this thing. This is 0:35:56.239 --> 0:35:59.319 the goose that lays the golden egg movie stardom. You're 0:35:59.360 --> 0:36:03.080 so you are, you are different. There's an exceptionalistic nature 0:36:03.120 --> 0:36:05.239 to who you are as a person. And the only 0:36:05.280 --> 0:36:08.040 way you're gonna start first survived. I mean to stay 0:36:08.080 --> 0:36:10.839 in that orbit out there, in that spaceship, living that way. 0:36:10.880 --> 0:36:13.640 That's a very difficult thing to do. And I think 0:36:13.640 --> 0:36:16.960 when so many of these young people where they when 0:36:17.000 --> 0:36:19.879 they come. You know, it is a young person's game 0:36:20.280 --> 0:36:22.840 when they get into it. So many of the people 0:36:22.880 --> 0:36:24.960 that went into scientology, and this is true of anybody 0:36:24.960 --> 0:36:27.080 that tries to become an actor. Many people who try 0:36:27.120 --> 0:36:29.680 to become an actor, they leave high school. They don't 0:36:29.680 --> 0:36:32.000 go to college. You have to go right away. Nearly 0:36:32.040 --> 0:36:34.960 everyone we're talking about is un educated. And so you're 0:36:34.960 --> 0:36:40.960 in your vulnerable intellectually vulnerable. And and also you're risking everything. 0:36:41.360 --> 0:36:43.520 Your friends are going off, they're going to get law 0:36:43.560 --> 0:36:46.360 degrees and stuff like that, and you are out in 0:36:46.640 --> 0:36:49.040 you know, Hollywood, eating dog food, hoping to be a 0:36:49.040 --> 0:36:52.240 movie star. There's a sense of inadequacy that you haven't 0:36:52.239 --> 0:36:55.279 filled in the great blanks that all your friends are doing. 0:36:55.719 --> 0:37:00.960 And and so you alongcome scientologists, which says, why bother 0:37:01.120 --> 0:37:03.919 none of that? Yeah, we can, you can supersede all 0:37:03.920 --> 0:37:07.040 that because when we will get you, you will you 0:37:07.040 --> 0:37:09.200 will learn the secrets of the universe, and you'll acquire 0:37:09.239 --> 0:37:14.120 superhuman powers. And that's and also just being noticed at 0:37:14.120 --> 0:37:18.360 all at that level is you know, very powerful. Because 0:37:18.640 --> 0:37:22.080 you know, I'm sure you've done this a million times. 0:37:22.080 --> 0:37:24.400 But I remember once when I was out in l 0:37:24.440 --> 0:37:27.520 a and I was a Norman Lear's company, and I 0:37:27.680 --> 0:37:30.760 walked into a room in the lobby and there were 0:37:30.760 --> 0:37:34.680 about forty guys who were blond and six ft two 0:37:34.920 --> 0:37:39.480 and extremely handsome and and I felt small and brown 0:37:39.960 --> 0:37:42.120 and uh, and you know, but there was a sign 0:37:42.239 --> 0:37:45.799 saying no actors past this point. And I was able 0:37:45.840 --> 0:37:48.560 to walk past this point, and all those blue eyes 0:37:49.280 --> 0:37:52.480 direction and uh, and I thought, one of those guys, 0:37:53.239 --> 0:37:56.000 one of those guys is going to have his life change, 0:37:56.520 --> 0:37:58.880 and everybody else is gonna go home and some of 0:37:58.880 --> 0:38:01.200 them become law and wars or something like that. But 0:38:01.280 --> 0:38:05.120 that's the risk to have the Church of Scientology come along, 0:38:05.760 --> 0:38:08.800 maybe in that same room and passing out brochure is 0:38:08.840 --> 0:38:11.360 saying that we can help you. And and by the way, 0:38:11.400 --> 0:38:14.160 on the brochure that might have a picture of Tom 0:38:14.200 --> 0:38:17.479 Cruise or somebody like that is a very powerful lure. 0:38:17.880 --> 0:38:20.400 And here's people who say to you, you are different, 0:38:20.760 --> 0:38:24.120 Just be different, just accept it, don't fight it. Where 0:38:24.120 --> 0:38:26.799 you're going to go right now is extremely unusual for 0:38:26.840 --> 0:38:29.360 the average person is going to be a very rarefied atmosphere. 0:38:29.760 --> 0:38:31.840 Stay calm in the pocket, and you're gonna throw the 0:38:31.840 --> 0:38:34.080 football a hundred yards down the field. You're gonna score 0:38:34.080 --> 0:38:36.200 the winning touchdown. Don't get in the way of your 0:38:36.239 --> 0:38:38.879 own success. And I have seen many of the people 0:38:38.920 --> 0:38:41.279 I know who are really prominent in scientology, they just 0:38:42.239 --> 0:38:44.520 that's what it did for them. What clarity was for 0:38:44.560 --> 0:38:46.640 them was this is who I am in a macho 0:38:46.719 --> 0:38:49.040 and anybody that tried to make you think what you 0:38:49.080 --> 0:38:51.839 were doing was less valid or less substantial, or less 0:38:51.960 --> 0:38:55.759 meaningful or silly or whatever. These guys and what you're saying, 0:38:55.800 --> 0:38:57.759 what did they get out of it? There is you know, 0:38:57.840 --> 0:39:01.400 this is you know, a sense of solidity of your identity. 0:39:02.000 --> 0:39:06.520 And uh, what's so confounding about scientology in many ways 0:39:07.080 --> 0:39:10.760 is that you know, it promises you you will become 0:39:11.040 --> 0:39:15.600 more yourself, and that you will achieve all this freedom 0:39:15.600 --> 0:39:18.160 of thought, and that you you know you you will 0:39:18.239 --> 0:39:23.320 become a saner and healthier and so on. But your past, 0:39:24.080 --> 0:39:27.160 what happened so often is the very opposite. You know, 0:39:27.200 --> 0:39:30.000 you'd be kind of you, you become kind of enslaved 0:39:30.000 --> 0:39:33.120 to the mentality of and you're not allowed to think freely. 0:39:33.680 --> 0:39:35.360 You know. One of the things that was so striking 0:39:35.360 --> 0:39:39.400 to me about Paul Haggis, who is a very skeptical, imaginative, 0:39:39.560 --> 0:39:43.240 curious person. But he was in the church for thirty 0:39:43.280 --> 0:39:45.759 five years, and for thirty four of those years he 0:39:45.840 --> 0:39:49.239 never heard a disparaging word about scientology, never looked on 0:39:49.239 --> 0:39:51.640 the internet, he never read any of those stories because 0:39:51.680 --> 0:39:54.319 he was told not to, and he didn't. He was 0:39:54.440 --> 0:39:57.680 just as obedient as all those other people because he 0:39:57.760 --> 0:40:03.719 was told it was trual curiosity go regarding that. What 0:40:03.920 --> 0:40:07.319 is the thing you're working on now? Well, I'm I'm 0:40:07.320 --> 0:40:09.400 doing you know I did. I did another book about 0:40:09.920 --> 0:40:12.799 camp David Carter b Against the Dot thing, which you know, 0:40:12.760 --> 0:40:15.080 I had a play and I'm now gonna do it 0:40:15.160 --> 0:40:17.480 as a movie for HBO. And I'm doing a pilot 0:40:17.520 --> 0:40:21.520 for HBO on Texas politics, and um, I'm working with 0:40:21.600 --> 0:40:24.759 Bob Balaban on a play about the making of the 0:40:24.800 --> 0:40:27.839 movie Cleopatra, which is the thing that I've been having 0:40:27.840 --> 0:40:30.280 the most fun with and I'm gonna write about. Isis 0:40:31.160 --> 0:40:33.520 okay that that's what I wanted to talk to When 0:40:33.520 --> 0:40:36.640 you say I'm going to write about isis? Yeah? I 0:40:36.680 --> 0:40:38.879 can't talk about it too much because there but but 0:40:38.920 --> 0:40:41.799 I is this more about religious fanaticism for you? Well? 0:40:42.040 --> 0:40:46.000 It in part it is I'm fascinated by the fact 0:40:46.080 --> 0:40:50.319 that the entire fabric of civilization can simply be ripped away. 0:40:50.520 --> 0:40:53.600 And you know that barbarism is just under the sheets 0:40:54.120 --> 0:40:57.719 and in most grotesque fashion. You know, we we look 0:40:57.760 --> 0:41:00.120 back in the twentieth century and you see Nazi is 0:41:00.200 --> 0:41:03.480 um and people. How did that happen? Well, you know 0:41:03.680 --> 0:41:08.040 now it's happening again. It's a mystery when these things occur, 0:41:08.280 --> 0:41:12.759 that human nature can encompass such savagery. But it's right 0:41:12.840 --> 0:41:16.880 there in front of you, and it's and it's also um, 0:41:17.440 --> 0:41:20.680 it's a fact of human nature that people are drawn 0:41:20.760 --> 0:41:25.120 to it. And that's what arouses my curiosity. Do you 0:41:25.200 --> 0:41:28.520 think that when you look at isis? Do you think 0:41:28.520 --> 0:41:30.280 that people I just want to get your general comment 0:41:30.320 --> 0:41:32.840 about this. Do you think that people over there isis 0:41:32.840 --> 0:41:36.480 I should say? And and whoever the next isis? Is? 0:41:36.520 --> 0:41:38.560 It seems to have another They seem to be opening 0:41:38.640 --> 0:41:42.360 up a new show over there every eighteen months or year. Um, 0:41:42.440 --> 0:41:45.279 Do you think that they just hate our guts that 0:41:45.360 --> 0:41:48.600 the United States viewed as a hero of the United 0:41:48.600 --> 0:41:52.000 States viewed as an answer the United States viewed as 0:41:52.040 --> 0:41:55.440 a good guy? Is this just more of people wanted 0:41:55.480 --> 0:41:57.239 to send us some kind of message about us. Far 0:41:57.280 --> 0:41:59.440 and Post think it has as much to do with us, 0:41:59.480 --> 0:42:03.640 although Iraq, our exventors in Iraq where it was, you know, 0:42:04.280 --> 0:42:06.880 that's what broke the egg. And I don't think we 0:42:06.920 --> 0:42:09.000 would be looking at what we're seeing now. But what 0:42:09.760 --> 0:42:13.640 the whole region, what worries me about isis is that 0:42:14.800 --> 0:42:19.000 everything that holds the Middle East together is breaking apart. 0:42:19.640 --> 0:42:23.320 The states are failing. You know, I've been in Syria 0:42:23.440 --> 0:42:28.360 before and it was to me, the least religious Arab 0:42:28.480 --> 0:42:31.880 country that I've ever been in. So it's quite surprising 0:42:32.360 --> 0:42:36.440 to see, you know, this Islamist savagery going on right 0:42:36.520 --> 0:42:40.040 there and there. Yeah, I just I was I was 0:42:40.160 --> 0:42:42.520 taken aback by it. But you know, if I spent 0:42:42.560 --> 0:42:45.200 a lot of time in Egypt and Saudi Arabia and 0:42:45.360 --> 0:42:49.080 places like that, and I know that they're not strong, 0:42:49.280 --> 0:42:54.719 resilient governments and they are very fractured societies, and uh, 0:42:54.880 --> 0:42:57.840 in that environment, we saw how it happened in Iraq, 0:42:58.600 --> 0:43:03.919 you know, just almost overnight, Uh, this band of marauders 0:43:04.600 --> 0:43:09.400 takes over an area of the size of the United Kingdom. Well, Jesus, 0:43:09.640 --> 0:43:12.120 you know, how did that happen, and will it spread? 0:43:12.520 --> 0:43:15.800 Will these societies be able because we can't stop it. 0:43:16.360 --> 0:43:20.400 It's gonna be up to uh Sunni societies in the 0:43:20.600 --> 0:43:23.520 Arab world to stop it themselves, and I don't have 0:43:23.680 --> 0:43:28.040 confidence that they can. That's what concerns me. The problem 0:43:28.600 --> 0:43:33.160 becomes when you identify yourself so much with your religion 0:43:33.760 --> 0:43:36.560 rather than your country or your family or so on, 0:43:36.719 --> 0:43:40.600 that that becomes the sole basis of your identity. And 0:43:40.640 --> 0:43:45.520 it's a real problem in Europe right now for marginalized 0:43:45.560 --> 0:43:48.400 young men who don't feel like they are part of 0:43:48.840 --> 0:43:52.919 French society. For instance, you know, there may be eight 0:43:53.960 --> 0:43:57.680 of the population of France is Muslim, six of the 0:43:57.760 --> 0:44:01.760 prisoners are, so you can you imagine a better example 0:44:01.840 --> 0:44:05.680 of how marginalized a group of people is in a 0:44:05.840 --> 0:44:09.879 country is And clearly France has done a horrible job 0:44:09.960 --> 0:44:13.320 of trying to integrate these people into their societies. And 0:44:13.400 --> 0:44:16.399 it's not just the fault of the French government. I'm 0:44:16.480 --> 0:44:19.080 holding you know, those Muslims responsible as well for not 0:44:19.719 --> 0:44:23.399 participating more fully in the countries that have adopted them. 0:44:23.960 --> 0:44:27.040 But this is a this is a profound problem, and 0:44:27.080 --> 0:44:30.920 it's gonna last a long time and I feel you 0:44:31.040 --> 0:44:34.640 know that we can't solve it ourselves, and if we 0:44:34.840 --> 0:44:38.800 try to solve it, it'll it'll rebound on us in 0:44:38.880 --> 0:44:42.640 a profound way. Not saying we should disengage entirely, but 0:44:42.800 --> 0:44:46.080 we should be honest about the limits of our ability 0:44:46.239 --> 0:44:49.239 to resolve a problem that is essentially a function of 0:44:49.320 --> 0:44:52.200 the societies that is in I know you're not a 0:44:52.280 --> 0:44:55.759 writer in the Halvardston tradition where you're gonna inhabit some institution. 0:44:56.160 --> 0:44:58.680 But if I can be so bold to recommend the 0:44:58.840 --> 0:45:03.239 next fanatic cool reality that Lawrence Wright shouldn't heaven write 0:45:03.280 --> 0:45:05.239 a book about. I'd love to see your book about 0:45:05.239 --> 0:45:08.040 the Pentagon. That's an interesting Let's see you write a 0:45:08.080 --> 0:45:11.160 book about the Pentagon from top to bottom. You'll give 0:45:11.200 --> 0:45:13.080 me the rights to do it with HBO. I can 0:45:13.120 --> 0:45:16.239 play portray as or someone. We'll have a great time. Well, 0:45:17.160 --> 0:45:19.280 we'll have We'll have a lot of fun. So you're attached. 0:45:19.760 --> 0:45:23.200 I'm attached. I think I'm I'm such a fan of 0:45:23.239 --> 0:45:25.120 you're writing. That's an easy yes. The answer is yes, 0:45:25.160 --> 0:45:31.640 I'm attached. Okay, that's good to know. If you also 0:45:31.880 --> 0:45:35.480 appreciate Lawrence Rights work, there's a lot more to consume 0:45:36.120 --> 0:45:41.080 nine books, five plays, countless articles. The documentary film based 0:45:41.160 --> 0:45:45.040 on his book Going Clear, Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison 0:45:45.120 --> 0:45:48.759 of Belief is currently available on HBO on Demand and 0:45:49.120 --> 0:45:53.080 HBO Go. And if you're ever in Austin you might 0:45:53.120 --> 0:45:55.600 be able to catch him playing keyboard in the Blues 0:45:55.719 --> 0:46:04.880 collective Who Do m H. Right said of playing in 0:46:04.960 --> 0:46:07.840 a band quote, I decided a while ago that I 0:46:07.920 --> 0:46:11.239 would only do things that are really important or really fun. 0:46:11.719 --> 0:46:15.759 This is really fun. This is Alec Baldwin you're listening to. 0:46:15.960 --> 0:46:16.600 Here's the thing.