Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, policymakers, and performers, to
Speaker 1: hear their stories. What inspires their creations, what decisions change
Speaker 1: their careers, what relationships influenced their work. My guest today,
Speaker 1: author Lawrence Wright thinks a lot about religion. He wants
Speaker 1: to know why people choose one faith over another, especially
Speaker 1: when what they choose seems quote absurd or dangerous to
Speaker 1: an outsider. This question has led Right to investigate some
Speaker 1: of the world's most complicated and secretive organizations, from the
Speaker 1: People's Temple in Jonestown to the Church of Scientology. His
Speaker 1: book on al Qaeda won the Polite Surprise in two
Speaker 1: thousand seven. Lawrence Right has a unique firsthand experience at
Speaker 1: us to the power of belief. I grew up in
Speaker 1: Dallas and the Methodist Church, and there was despite the
Speaker 1: fact that Methodism doesn't have a reputation as being kind
Speaker 1: of a you know, hell fire and Brimstone, the first
Speaker 1: of the churches that we went to in Dallas really
Speaker 1: was that. And then we graduated to the Methodist Church downtown.
Speaker 1: My dad taught Sunday school for many many years. You know,
Speaker 1: Dallas back at that time was the most pious city
Speaker 1: in America. We had the largest Methodist, Baptist I think,
Speaker 1: the largest Episcopal church, and one of the largest Catholic
Speaker 1: churches in the entire country. And at the same time
Speaker 1: we had the highest murder rate and the highest divorce rate,
Speaker 1: you know, all the things that go along with excess
Speaker 1: pet you know. So it was and I was very
Speaker 1: pious as a teenager. I was in a group called
Speaker 1: Young Life, and um, genuinely or you were responding to pressure, No,
Speaker 1: I was. I was, well, there was part of those things.
Speaker 1: It was. You know, I had moved around a lot
Speaker 1: as my dad was a banker and we moved, uh,
Speaker 1: quite a lot, and it was hard for me to
Speaker 1: establish roots. So when I got to Dallas and this,
Speaker 1: you know, Young Life came out. It was a social
Speaker 1: club for me. But also it was the first time
Speaker 1: I understood the you can bend yourself into the shape
Speaker 1: of the organization the way it wants you to be.
Speaker 1: And also the more pious you are, sort of the
Speaker 1: higher you climb, the more important. So I got to
Speaker 1: be part of it. Yeah, well you just say those
Speaker 1: things and it's and you want to believe them. I
Speaker 1: was not consciously trying to deceive anyone. At the same time,
Speaker 1: you know what to set your your heart felt and genuine,
Speaker 1: but at the same time you realize that there's a
Speaker 1: there's an approval system here. Yeah, and I think that
Speaker 1: that experience um was formative in some ways for me
Speaker 1: to be so interested in religious matters and why you know,
Speaker 1: I people are always, you know, reporters, especially fascinated by politics.
Speaker 1: But you can have strong political views and it doesn't
Speaker 1: affect your life at all, But if you have strong
Speaker 1: religious views, they probably dictate much of your behavior. Is
Speaker 1: puzzling to me why with most journalists it's just embarrassing
Speaker 1: to ask about what people believe because it's not supposed
Speaker 1: to matter. Due to leave the area to go to college,
Speaker 1: I went to Tulane in New Orleans, which was a
Speaker 1: city least like Dallas that I could find and you
Speaker 1: could buy beer and woolworth and you could drink at
Speaker 1: eighteen and uh there you know a lot of things
Speaker 1: of at that time, I kind of shed that, but
Speaker 1: I was actively looking for a way to live a
Speaker 1: more bohemian life. I felt very constricted in Dallas. Was
Speaker 1: writing something that was on your mind, even at an
Speaker 1: early age. Yeah. Yeah, I took a creative writing class.
Speaker 1: You know, I was not a disst school paper now.
Speaker 1: I used to like doing that stuff though. And then um,
Speaker 1: after I graduated, Um, you know, the Venom War was
Speaker 1: going on, and uh, I became a conscientious objector and
Speaker 1: spent two years of alternative service teaching in Cairo. And
Speaker 1: that's where I became involved for the first time with
Speaker 1: the Arab world. And when the boy from Dallas becomes
Speaker 1: a conscientious objector, how did that go off? Back home?
Speaker 1: You know, I my dad was a war hero, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to be like him. I was in our otc.
Speaker 1: I expected, you know, to to follow in his footsteps.
Speaker 1: But you know, there was this parallel problem going on,
Speaker 1: which was the Vietnam War, which was despicable different and
Speaker 1: it was it was a bad war. And you know,
Speaker 1: for a person, a young man like me who wanted
Speaker 1: to serve his country but did not want to kill
Speaker 1: people for the wrong reason or risk my life for
Speaker 1: something I didn't believe in, it just was a terrible
Speaker 1: My father and I had horrible, horrible fights about Vietnam.
Speaker 1: Do you have any brothers no. I had two younger sisters,
Speaker 1: so you were you were the scion. Did you ever
Speaker 1: make peace with him about that? Yeah? You know, I
Speaker 1: wrote a memoir about growing up in Dallas during the
Speaker 1: Kennedy assassination and in America during the Vietnam Era, And
Speaker 1: in the process of doing that, I talked to my
Speaker 1: parents a lot, and I let them read the manuscript,
Speaker 1: and it was a very healing experience for all of us.
Speaker 1: I think, when does writing become a career decision for you?
Speaker 1: When I came back from Egypt in ninety one, I
Speaker 1: decided that I was going to write an article for it.
Speaker 1: This way, I decided I was going to write an
Speaker 1: article for the New Yorker. I hadn't contacted them, and no, no, no,
Speaker 1: they had no idea. My folks had a little late
Speaker 1: cabin up in Equipment Texas, in East Texas, and so
Speaker 1: my wife and I moved out there for six months
Speaker 1: while I wrote letter from Cairo, and um there was
Speaker 1: a report from so there we was r f D
Speaker 1: you know mail, and there was we had a little
Speaker 1: you know box out on the road where you raised
Speaker 1: the red flag and the mailman stops. And I sent
Speaker 1: my manuscript into the New Yorker, and sure, this isn't true,
Speaker 1: but it seemed that it came back the next day
Speaker 1: from equipment Texas to Mr Shawn's desk to back equipment
Speaker 1: with a you know, a little rejection card in there.
Speaker 1: And that was, you know, my first attempt at becoming
Speaker 1: a writer. It would it would be many many years
Speaker 1: later that I actually got a chance to write for
Speaker 1: The New Yorker. You're in Kyro, You're married, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: this is an odd story because you know, I went
Speaker 1: in too. I had to get a job that was
Speaker 1: fifty miles from my home, and that wasn't a problem
Speaker 1: I wanted. I was so sick of America at that time,
Speaker 1: and the argument over the war was so devastating, and
Speaker 1: I just wanted to had as far away as I could.
Speaker 1: And it had to pay very little, and it had
Speaker 1: to be nominally in the service in the United States,
Speaker 1: so I uh, in the bedpen jobs were all taken,
Speaker 1: which normally is what a conscientious objector does, but this
Speaker 1: was during the Nixon recession, and those were all taken.
Speaker 1: So I thought I would go to the U n
Speaker 1: and you know, get a job, and they sent me far,
Speaker 1: far away and I went to the u N and
Speaker 1: they said, no, we don't do that. But here's a
Speaker 1: list of American institutions abroad. Look at them. And one
Speaker 1: of them, American University in Cairo, had an office across
Speaker 1: the street at eight sixty six un Plaza, And do
Speaker 1: you remember Huntington Hartford and show magazine here. I thought
Speaker 1: he might, well, you know, he had a famous office,
Speaker 1: and I realized it was in the same building. And
Speaker 1: I thought, I'll go over and peek into Huntington Hartford's
Speaker 1: office and then I'll go upstairs and asked for a job.
Speaker 1: So I did that, and you know, I walked in
Speaker 1: and I didn't I knew that there had been a
Speaker 1: war in the Middle East, but I wasn't, you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the war that I was focused on, you know.
Speaker 1: And uh, and I didn't know that we didn't have
Speaker 1: any diplomatic relations with the with Egypt at the time.
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure what language they spoke. But I
Speaker 1: walked in and thirty minutes later they said can you
Speaker 1: leave tonight? And I said, well, no, Um, my girlfriend's
Speaker 1: back in Boston and I haven't told my parents what
Speaker 1: I'm doing, and can you leave tomorrow. Well, yeah, I
Speaker 1: go tomorrow. So calls and I went back and I
Speaker 1: told my girlfriend, now my wife, I'm going to Egypt
Speaker 1: tomorrow and I don't know where that leaves us, and
Speaker 1: I'll be gone for two years. And and then, um,
Speaker 1: and I called my parents from JFK the next morning
Speaker 1: and told him I was going to Cairo. And I
Speaker 1: flew to Cairo and landed, you know, late at night,
Speaker 1: and the next morning, at nine o'clock, I taught my
Speaker 1: first class. After a couple of weeks. Um, I was
Speaker 1: really missing Roberta. Back then, you didn't make telephone calls,
Speaker 1: you know, international calls and stuff like that. So we're
Speaker 1: letters were passing, and at some point I said, um,
Speaker 1: you know the terms under which we left were. You know,
Speaker 1: you can't go. You just couldn't live together in Egypt.
Speaker 1: You know, it was very conservative society. And if I
Speaker 1: invite you to come, that means we'll get married. So uh,
Speaker 1: and you know our letters crossed in the mail. I
Speaker 1: asked her to come, and she said she was coming anyway.
Speaker 1: And then did you name your first child Huntington? No,
Speaker 1: but that would have been Then the question became where
Speaker 1: to get married, because there was this idea that was
Speaker 1: sowhere in the back of my mind that if I
Speaker 1: got married in Egypt under Islamic law, I could have
Speaker 1: additional three wives, which was an option. I wasn't sure
Speaker 1: that I wanted to exercise. But if you know, it
Speaker 1: could be, you know, you could have pulled it off.
Speaker 1: It's a contingency. I don't think I have the management skills.
Speaker 1: Over there. They insist you be married. You can be
Speaker 1: married as many times as you want. Where they just
Speaker 1: insisted that you'd be married. So you're there for two years,
Speaker 1: you come back, yeah, and then what happens? Then? I
Speaker 1: talked the start the long road of trying to start
Speaker 1: a career in as a writer, and you moved to
Speaker 1: where The first job I got was in Nashville for
Speaker 1: the race relations reporter. I was the only writer for
Speaker 1: a long time. But uh, we would go into situations where,
Speaker 1: you know, there was racial conflict and oftentimes the local
Speaker 1: press was biased or not paying attention to it, and
Speaker 1: so it might be about you know, the civil rights
Speaker 1: movement in the South, or Indians. You know, the Indian
Speaker 1: movement was under weigh at the time of school desegregation
Speaker 1: was very active. All those things I got a chance
Speaker 1: to write about. It taught me quite a lot about
Speaker 1: how you know, to actually write an article is a
Speaker 1: matter of being plunged into it. Is there a mentor
Speaker 1: you have the a very crazy editor named Jim Leeson
Speaker 1: Um in Nashville. Yeah. Him. It was a strange man
Speaker 1: um and uh he he the whole culture was a
Speaker 1: little strange, to be honest. I um, Jim. When I
Speaker 1: went to apply for the job, I was a pretty
Speaker 1: good tennis player, and he asked about that, and so
Speaker 1: um he asked if we could play tennis the next day.
Speaker 1: So I show up in my tennis does and he
Speaker 1: goes out and plays me in his street shoes, And
Speaker 1: of course I beat him pretty soundly. But but still
Speaker 1: the notion that he would play tennis and street shoes
Speaker 1: was um. And he wound up firing me when I
Speaker 1: wrote a memo suggesting that we reorganized the I would
Speaker 1: probably I deserve to be fired, I imagine, so, but
Speaker 1: it was a it was another test to be plunged
Speaker 1: into the freelance market. I first became familiar with you
Speaker 1: and you're writing in the Olympia Washington story. Um. The
Speaker 1: piece it was entitled Remembering Satan, which you wrote as
Speaker 1: a book as well. These were excerpts in the book.
Speaker 1: There was a two part lengthy excerpt in the edition
Speaker 1: of The New Yorker. And I first became familiar with you,
Speaker 1: and I mean I was just supposed to, you know,
Speaker 1: like knocked out by this piece. I thought, I know,
Speaker 1: how on earth is this possible? Had you written pieces
Speaker 1: like that, I mean the scientology piece the book and
Speaker 1: going clear, which we're gonna get to that obviously, and
Speaker 1: this piece, uh, there's uh, there's some fascinating people either
Speaker 1: putting themselves or putting other people through some living hell.
Speaker 1: Here was this the first such piece you wrote, the
Speaker 1: Olympia piece. No, I think I had written about you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of different even wrote about Satanists, and you know,
Speaker 1: of people of all sorts of I mean, if you're
Speaker 1: a reporter and you have a passport to write about anybody, um,
Speaker 1: and I took full advantage of that. But that remembering
Speaker 1: Satan is kind of a uh, stereotypical type of article
Speaker 1: that I like to write about, which is um, for
Speaker 1: one thing, it's a discreet world, you know, in this case,
Speaker 1: it was you know, this world inside Olympia, Washington, that
Speaker 1: had been infected by these hysterical memories of satanic ritual
Speaker 1: abuse which never occurred. But a man was convicted of
Speaker 1: these crimes. He confessed to them because he remembered them,
Speaker 1: and there was other than his memory, there was no
Speaker 1: evidence of if I remember correctly, no one else was
Speaker 1: sentenced to prison. Only Paul went to prison. What's this
Speaker 1: relationship with his family now? Or do you even know?
Speaker 1: It's very broken as far as I haven't talked to
Speaker 1: Paul in a couple of years, but you know he's
Speaker 1: married again. You know, he's he started another life, and
Speaker 1: but you know, it's an example of how the mind
Speaker 1: can be so persuaded of, you know, a false real
Speaker 1: quality that and I think everybody is capable of that.
Speaker 1: I don't don't you want to know if I would
Speaker 1: say that whatever capable of that. But creating a false
Speaker 1: reality one of the things that has been an education
Speaker 1: to me as a reporter when I'm out interviewing people
Speaker 1: that have been, for instance, in al Quaeda or you know,
Speaker 1: people that have come out of you know, I've interviewed
Speaker 1: the children of Jim Jones, and you know, as talk
Speaker 1: to people who went into scientology, they're not crazy people,
Speaker 1: then they're not stupid, and you know they're they're often
Speaker 1: you know, if there's a commonality, there's idealism. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: they're longing to make, you know, change history, makes something
Speaker 1: of yourself and UH, that's you know, maybe that's one
Speaker 1: of the most dangerous elements of our human nature, is
Speaker 1: that we it's the better parts of our nature that
Speaker 1: sometimes lead us into real dangerous areas. With the better
Speaker 1: parts of the natures of Jones as children from well,
Speaker 1: you know, they were they were essentially captive to him.
Speaker 1: So but and they survived, thank god. They were all
Speaker 1: playing basketball in a tournament and Georgetown, Guiana, so they
Speaker 1: weren't killing when the killings went down. But the it's
Speaker 1: always to me, it is always uh underscored the danger
Speaker 1: of these kinds of fanatical belief systems. Uh. There were
Speaker 1: these three boys U two adopted. UH Stephen was a
Speaker 1: natural son and he looked very much like his father,
Speaker 1: Jim Jones, with the kind of Cherokee cheek bones and
Speaker 1: he's very tall and striking, handsome man. And then there
Speaker 1: was Jim Jones Jr. Who was black, UM and UH adopted.
Speaker 1: And then the third adopted son, was Tim. Who is
Speaker 1: this big red headed guy. Tim, these boys when I
Speaker 1: talked to him, Waco was going on at that time,
Speaker 1: the Branch Davidian episode, and Tina Brown was the editor
Speaker 1: of the New Yorker, and she wanted me to go
Speaker 1: to Waco. And I said, they're more reporters and Waco
Speaker 1: than there are Branch Davidians. I just but I was.
Speaker 1: I was convinced that this must you know, I had
Speaker 1: seen the children, some of the children that were sent out.
Speaker 1: I thought that must have happened before. And I found
Speaker 1: these three boys who had never then grown men, never
Speaker 1: told their story before. And I don't know why they
Speaker 1: were willing to talk to me. But Tim, when I
Speaker 1: got to him, uh, he's He demanded that we do
Speaker 1: it in a restaurant, in a public place, because he
Speaker 1: didn't want to cry, and he had never told his wife,
Speaker 1: his current wife, what had happened. Man, he wanted to
Speaker 1: say this story one time. Now, bear in mind, Tim
Speaker 1: Jones is a massive fellow. He can he can press
Speaker 1: a hundred pounds with either arm. You know, he is
Speaker 1: a immense physical presence. And we went to the restaurant
Speaker 1: and in a few minutes he was pounding the table
Speaker 1: and sobbing, because Tim is the one who had to
Speaker 1: go into the jungle and identified nine people his real parents,
Speaker 1: his adoptive parents, his wife at the time, and his children,
Speaker 1: everybody lying on the ground and U it makes an impression.
Speaker 1: Did he ever confide to you or or even just
Speaker 1: discussed to you what he thought was going on there?
Speaker 1: What he thought? Joy They all knew that their dad
Speaker 1: was crazy and that he happened. What was he doing there?
Speaker 1: You know, he was giving these suicide drills regularly. You know,
Speaker 1: they break out the what was the purpose of Jonestown?
Speaker 1: Oh well, they stated purpose was two They were Jones
Speaker 1: was intensely paranoid. He had the feeling that the government
Speaker 1: was persecuting him, which was not really true at all.
Speaker 1: But one night the entire church to appeared. You know,
Speaker 1: they all went secretly to this little South American country
Speaker 1: with it, you know, in the in the middle of
Speaker 1: the jungle. They've been preparing it, the boys. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it was just a you know, it's like a you know,
Speaker 1: a little summer camp type of thing. They built quanset
Speaker 1: huts and so on, and they were living near a river,
Speaker 1: and they built an airstrip. I remember reading on this
Speaker 1: thing online where they said that Jonestown was this training
Speaker 1: ground where they were breading mk ultra operatives who were
Speaker 1: capable of committing murder on behalf of the government, and
Speaker 1: then they have a memory of it. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that that's true, but I remember reading
Speaker 1: that once. I was fast when I was writing about
Speaker 1: remembering Satan, when I was doing the you know, the
Speaker 1: multiple personalities were supposed to be the product of Satanic
Speaker 1: ritual abuse, and there was a big rise in multiple
Speaker 1: personality disorder, and one of the theories was that the
Speaker 1: multiples had been created by the CIA in order that
Speaker 1: one personality could become a I and you know, deliver
Speaker 1: messages that other personalities inside the same human being wouldn't
Speaker 1: know about. Lawrence, writes. New Yorker article The Orphans of Jonestown,
Speaker 1: came out for the fifteenth anniversary of the nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: eight massacre that killed over nine people. Listen to more
Speaker 1: conversations with writers who take on complicated issues, like David Simon,
Speaker 1: who wrote the TV show The Wire but started out
Speaker 1: as a beat reporter for the Baltimore Sun. I think
Speaker 1: I was very fair as a reporter. You know, some
Speaker 1: of poverty is about personal responsibility, and some of it
Speaker 1: is not. Some of it is systemic and a result
Speaker 1: of societal forces that are profound. Take a listen in
Speaker 1: our archives that here's the thing dot Org. This is
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin. You're listening to. Here's the thing. My guest,
Speaker 1: Lawrence Wright prefers taking notes on index cards over using
Speaker 1: a computer. You can only imagine the number of cards
Speaker 1: Right used for his book Going Clear, Scientology, Hollywood and
Speaker 1: the Prison of Belief. After it was published in two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen, documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney asked right if he
Speaker 1: considered an adaptation. We'd worked together before. You know, I
Speaker 1: had done this book about al Qaeda called The Looming Tower,
Speaker 1: and I had just my little acting venture. I Um,
Speaker 1: I didn't more travel with it. You know, I just
Speaker 1: hate touring, you know, doing the book tour thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had seen Anna Davere Smith do fires in the
Speaker 1: mirror at the Public Theater in and Is the first
Speaker 1: time I could see the journalism and theater could be married.
Speaker 1: And I fascinated by that. So I did a one
Speaker 1: man show called My Trip to Al Qaeda and I
Speaker 1: did it off Broadway for about six weeks and in
Speaker 1: a few other cities, and Alex saw me do it
Speaker 1: in Washington. We decided to make it into a documentary,
Speaker 1: which we did for HBO. We hit it off. Alex
Speaker 1: Is is a is a his nickname from childhood as
Speaker 1: Tiger and his well chosen name, and he's a very
Speaker 1: skillful storyteller. And it takes those qualities to take something
Speaker 1: as complicated about an organization as vindictive and litigious as
Speaker 1: the Church of Scientology. It takes somebody like Alex to
Speaker 1: put together a movie like he's just done. One of
Speaker 1: the things I thought when I saw the film, and
Speaker 1: I mean all my friends and people who know me personally,
Speaker 1: it wasn't lost on them that within about a week
Speaker 1: ever return from Park City for the festival, I went
Speaker 1: there to have a vacation with my family and we
Speaker 1: just tacked on an extra weekend to see some movies
Speaker 1: because I'm a big fan of the festival um and
Speaker 1: it wasn't lost to my friends. Within about a week
Speaker 1: after that, I was back on a plane to London
Speaker 1: to go shoot a film with Tom Cruise. And Tom
Speaker 1: is a friend of mine and um. I mean, I
Speaker 1: consider him a friend in the business sense where we
Speaker 1: don't get to see each other that often, but he's
Speaker 1: always very kind and as people who know Tom know,
Speaker 1: he's a great person to be in the trenches of
Speaker 1: movie making with. He's very hard working and very very
Speaker 1: um passionate about the work. But when I saw the film,
Speaker 1: one thing I didn't get And maybe it's there, maybe
Speaker 1: it was in the book and maybe it's in the film,
Speaker 1: but it was I mean, I watched this film with
Speaker 1: intense scrutiny. There wasn't any sense to me of what
Speaker 1: are the people who are in scientology and remain in
Speaker 1: scientology and who are dedicated to this, What do they
Speaker 1: perceive they're getting out of it? Because I have some
Speaker 1: opinions about that when people have told me, well, what
Speaker 1: does it do for them? Why are they there? Especially
Speaker 1: when people go into scientology, they don't you know, they
Speaker 1: don't go into it because it's a cult. They go
Speaker 1: into it oftentimes because they're looking for something well, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes they're spiritual seekers or there. You know, you might
Speaker 1: be um one of those people that goes down on
Speaker 1: the subway and someone says, would you like to take
Speaker 1: our personality tests, you know, and um, sure Oxford capacity analysis.
Speaker 1: It sounds like, you know, might be and you know,
Speaker 1: well if we see that you have a little trouble
Speaker 1: of communicating with people, that's true, Well we you know,
Speaker 1: we can we can help you with that. Or in
Speaker 1: the case of Paul Haggis, um, you know, he had
Speaker 1: a girlfriend that he was having trouble with and say
Speaker 1: we we have a course that can help you in
Speaker 1: your relationships. And the truth is, oftentimes they can help.
Speaker 1: It's like going into therapy. People do benefit from it.
Speaker 1: So this initial exposure to scientology is often very positive
Speaker 1: to people. What about the people like Travolta, people who
Speaker 1: seemed to have the world on a silver platter and
Speaker 1: everything is going their way, Well that wasn't true. When
Speaker 1: he got in. He was a you know, troubled young
Speaker 1: man who was in his first movie in Mexico. He
Speaker 1: confided to an actress who was on the set. You know,
Speaker 1: he's having these difficulties, and she was a scientologist, and
Speaker 1: she gave him some auditing, which is what scientology calls
Speaker 1: his therapy, and gave him a copy of Dinetics and
Speaker 1: so on. He had an experience which happens to a
Speaker 1: lot of scientologists when they're being audited. He went exterior.
Speaker 1: In other words, he had an out of body experience.
Speaker 1: He had a sense that he had left his corporal
Speaker 1: being and could look around the room and you know,
Speaker 1: see things behind him and so on. At the time
Speaker 1: he was taking a course, when he tried out for
Speaker 1: this welcome Back Carter, the teacher had everybody in the
Speaker 1: class turned their direction. I think he cps studios, you know,
Speaker 1: but telepathically send the message to the executives that the
Speaker 1: John Travolta is right for the role. And he got
Speaker 1: the part. And so he always credited scientology was putting
Speaker 1: him in the big time, as he said, so you know,
Speaker 1: in that sense, he really did feel that it had
Speaker 1: changed his life. But it's one thing to get into it,
Speaker 1: and it's another thing to get out of it. If
Speaker 1: you are a star like Travolta was at one time
Speaker 1: the biggest star in the world, and uh, you have
Speaker 1: put your name down again and again and again. As
Speaker 1: a scientologist, you're identified with it, and they have tapes
Speaker 1: of you, yes, discussing your darkest moments. Right like if
Speaker 1: you and I were sitting in a scientology auditing session,
Speaker 1: right now, and you're my auditor, and you know, and
Speaker 1: I'm holding the cans which are attached to the E meter,
Speaker 1: and you're probing uh and asking me very impersonal questions
Speaker 1: about my life and and things that I would not
Speaker 1: want to disclose to anyone else except in its very
Speaker 1: confidential confessional atmosphereiating material that is actually secretly recorded, sometimes videoed,
Speaker 1: and then it becomes apparent to you that if you
Speaker 1: decide to leave UM, the church may use some of
Speaker 1: that against you. And I talked to that. I talked
Speaker 1: to a guy whose assignment was to go through all
Speaker 1: those old auditing sessions on John Travolta and find stuff
Speaker 1: they could use against him because they were worried that
Speaker 1: he was going to go over the wall right in
Speaker 1: the piece in the film. The one thing I found
Speaker 1: that was disturbing was that I mean, and you correct
Speaker 1: me with this, this assessment, and that is that there
Speaker 1: are celebrities and wealthy public figures who tie the certain
Speaker 1: amount of their money millions of dollars to this organization,
Speaker 1: a second tier, if you will, and this is my description,
Speaker 1: the second tier, if you will, or you know, the
Speaker 1: middle Americans, middle income who often go into debt often
Speaker 1: go into dangerous amounts of debt, an unwise amounts of
Speaker 1: debt in order to pay for these ordering courses. So
Speaker 1: for them to give money to the church. And then
Speaker 1: there's people who are poor, who have nothing, who wind
Speaker 1: up trading in kind services. They become you know, they
Speaker 1: become like a labor force from them, and then they
Speaker 1: get forty cents an hour according to the film, and
Speaker 1: and and they're doing a lot of work that benefits
Speaker 1: other people. In the film, they're saying that these people
Speaker 1: are maintaining the hangar of cruises airplanes. Well, not only
Speaker 1: maintained it. What they did was refurbish it. They built
Speaker 1: all the furnitur, they painted it, they you know, they
Speaker 1: essentially took an empty hangar and made it into an
Speaker 1: office in a place for his planes, and all these
Speaker 1: elaborate Have you ever been in his hangar burbank. Well,
Speaker 1: he's got you know these you know, big the cows
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, you know, banners hanging down. It is.
Speaker 1: It is a pretty swank environment. And they handcrafted a
Speaker 1: limousine for him, and oversaw the reconstruction of his tour bus,
Speaker 1: and they you know, refurbished his house and these are
Speaker 1: people who are paid fifty dollars a week. Many of
Speaker 1: them joined as children, so you know, they're impoverished, and
Speaker 1: they have no place to go they have, you know,
Speaker 1: and if if they do, they don't know what they
Speaker 1: know then But of course maybe it may be the
Speaker 1: case that their families and all are in the church
Speaker 1: and if they left, none of those people would ever
Speaker 1: speak to them. You think the people who were the
Speaker 1: beneficiaries of this kind of stuff, do they know what's happening.
Speaker 1: There's no question that Tom Cruise knows what's going on
Speaker 1: inside the Sea Org. And I hold Tom to account.
Speaker 1: I single him out in particular. And because they're only
Speaker 1: two ways that the abuses that we chronicle in the
Speaker 1: movie and in my book, there are only two ways
Speaker 1: that they can be addressed, and one is that the I. R.
Speaker 1: S Decides well, maybe we should re examine that tax
Speaker 1: exemption that we were bludgeoned into given them. In I'm
Speaker 1: explained for people who don't know, but this is a
Speaker 1: fascinating part of the film. It was during the time
Speaker 1: that m. Hubbard was alive, or was the settlement reached
Speaker 1: after Hubbard dies after he died, and and Apparently he
Speaker 1: had a brigade and I had been raising a lot
Speaker 1: of money, and he had and he had a lot
Speaker 1: of cash at his disposal and was just shelling the
Speaker 1: I R S and litigation to maintain their status. And
Speaker 1: finally the IRS just caved and said, well, here's the
Speaker 1: situation that described would have David Muscavage found himself in.
Speaker 1: After Hubbard died, he wrestled control of this organization. And
Speaker 1: Hubbard had decided not to pay the taxes, and so
Speaker 1: by the Church of Scientology was a billion dollars in
Speaker 1: arrears and it didn't have a billion dollars, and so
Speaker 1: this was an existential moment for the church. They had
Speaker 1: to get a tax exemption. And moreover, the I R
Speaker 1: S hated them because, you know, in the eighties Hubbard
Speaker 1: had infiltrated um all these you know, the Justice Department,
Speaker 1: the I R S, Food and Drug Administration hit all
Speaker 1: these Scientology spies inside the government until the FBI broke
Speaker 1: it open and what was called Operations Snow White, and
Speaker 1: twelve people went to prison, including Hubbard's wife. So the
Speaker 1: I R S among other government agencies did not look
Speaker 1: kindly on the Church of Scientology. So how do you
Speaker 1: just imagine how you would go about getting a tax
Speaker 1: exemption from the I R S. Well, the scientology way
Speaker 1: was to launch twenty four hundred lawsuits against the I
Speaker 1: r S and individual agents, to hire private investigators to
Speaker 1: follow agents around to go to conventions where they might
Speaker 1: be drinking too much or fooling around. I don't have
Speaker 1: a billion dollars to pay the taxes, but I've got
Speaker 1: fifty million to lobs some grenades. Yes, yeah, and so
Speaker 1: of you. And they they they they won, and they
Speaker 1: wanted my personal feeling. It is twofold. One is I
Speaker 1: think that the I R S just did cave because
Speaker 1: I guess the deal that the deal on the table was,
Speaker 1: will give you the exemption and and all those lawsuits
Speaker 1: will go away? And they did. And so did they say, well,
Speaker 1: will we'll give you the exemption and take away this lassus?
Speaker 1: Would you have to pay us some amount of this
Speaker 1: money and a million dollars? And that's all that's the
Speaker 1: I R S that's fired. And moreover, it was such
Speaker 1: an overwhelming exemption. The church has manifold different entities, you know,
Speaker 1: but even Hubbard's novels are considered to be scripture and
Speaker 1: tax and uh, in the church now has the authority
Speaker 1: to determine which parts of itself should be tax exempt.
Speaker 1: Who was it in the film? If I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: there's someone I think there's an individual use site who
Speaker 1: says to Hubbard early in his career, the only way
Speaker 1: you're gonna get riches if you started religious. They were
Speaker 1: about ten people he said that too, And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that Hubbard really, I think he really did
Speaker 1: believe that. But let me get back to that question
Speaker 1: of you know, just to touch back on Tom Cruise
Speaker 1: before we finish that if the if the I r
Speaker 1: S re examined after the licking it took from from Scientology,
Speaker 1: if it decided to go back and re examine that
Speaker 1: that might force change inside the church. But I haven't
Speaker 1: seen any evidence that the I R S has the
Speaker 1: appetite to do this. Almost the Senator on the West Coast,
Speaker 1: the Senator Ron Widen, is looking into this, and so
Speaker 1: you know, that's a possible. But the other way that
Speaker 1: change and reform could come in scientology is that some
Speaker 1: of the celebrity megaphones turn around in the other direction
Speaker 1: and demand change. And nobody has benefitted more from Scientology
Speaker 1: than Tom Cruise. Nobody is more identified in the public
Speaker 1: with the Church of Scientology than Tom Cruise. Nobody has
Speaker 1: wrought lured more people into the church than Tom Cruise.
Speaker 1: If you ask people name one member of the Church
Speaker 1: of Scientology, that's the one. And uh and moreover, it's
Speaker 1: a powerful I mean if you look at you know,
Speaker 1: he was the number one box office star, so he
Speaker 1: had Travolta then uh than Tom Cruise, and you know,
Speaker 1: and also Will Smith who started a scientology school. Although
Speaker 1: he says he's not a scientologist, he was one of
Speaker 1: the time he was number one. So you have one
Speaker 1: to three the most powerful actors in among the most
Speaker 1: And if you're a young actor standing out in central
Speaker 1: casting waiting to get maybe he's not a bad idea.
Speaker 1: If I stopped by this center, well, when you're standing
Speaker 1: in line, they'll be passing out brochure saying how to
Speaker 1: get an agent, how to get ahead and the business.
Speaker 1: Come to the celebrity center where that direct link. Yes,
Speaker 1: and he also back in the old days the acting
Speaker 1: schools like the Beverly Hills Playhouse was run. But could
Speaker 1: sell us who was my teacher? He was apparently a
Speaker 1: wonderful teacher, and he was a scientologist. And did he
Speaker 1: ever try to recruit you? I think I wasn't there
Speaker 1: long enough. I was there for under a year. I
Speaker 1: went briefly, and could sell Us was quite a character.
Speaker 1: He was I'm fascinated by well could sell Us. He
Speaker 1: said something that although it was very arch and very
Speaker 1: um kind of you might think this was egomaniacal. He
Speaker 1: was nonetheless right. There was a guy up on stage
Speaker 1: doing a scene. I was in this class mine then
Speaker 1: girlfriend got me into the class. This guy's up there
Speaker 1: doing a scene I'll never forget, and could sell Us
Speaker 1: is giving his notes on the scene, and the guy
Speaker 1: starts to debate him. He says, well, yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: think it's really and could sell Us says, I beg
Speaker 1: your pardner, and he says, well I don't. He goes, well,
Speaker 1: I think it's this, and he goes what it is is,
Speaker 1: and could sell Us is now insisting and being a
Speaker 1: little more because he was very powerful guy rhetorically, and
Speaker 1: he goes and says it again, and the guy debates
Speaker 1: him again, and could sell Us is He said, We're
Speaker 1: not here for you to debate what I tell you.
Speaker 1: He said, you come here and you pay me for
Speaker 1: me to give you my opinion. He said, I'm not
Speaker 1: interested in your opinion. I give you my opinion, and
Speaker 1: you listen. He turns to the classics. And that's it.
Speaker 1: We don't discuss what I'm saying. This isn't a debate.
Speaker 1: I say what I say, You listen, you write it
Speaker 1: down perhaps, and we're done. And um, scientology I have
Speaker 1: found and this is I mean, I I find it odd,
Speaker 1: but at the same time I find it kind of fascinating. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: where scientology says to you, this is what you were
Speaker 1: put on this earth to do, and and it gives
Speaker 1: you that license and that freedom. You tell your parents,
Speaker 1: your wives, your children, everyone in your life that nothing
Speaker 1: must get in the way of this thing. This is
Speaker 1: the goose that lays the golden egg movie stardom. You're
Speaker 1: so you are, you are different. There's an exceptionalistic nature
Speaker 1: to who you are as a person. And the only
Speaker 1: way you're gonna start first survived. I mean to stay
Speaker 1: in that orbit out there, in that spaceship, living that way.
Speaker 1: That's a very difficult thing to do. And I think
Speaker 1: when so many of these young people where they when
Speaker 1: they come. You know, it is a young person's game
Speaker 1: when they get into it. So many of the people
Speaker 1: that went into scientology, and this is true of anybody
Speaker 1: that tries to become an actor. Many people who try
Speaker 1: to become an actor, they leave high school. They don't
Speaker 1: go to college. You have to go right away. Nearly
Speaker 1: everyone we're talking about is un educated. And so you're
Speaker 1: in your vulnerable intellectually vulnerable. And and also you're risking everything.
Speaker 1: Your friends are going off, they're going to get law
Speaker 1: degrees and stuff like that, and you are out in
Speaker 1: you know, Hollywood, eating dog food, hoping to be a
Speaker 1: movie star. There's a sense of inadequacy that you haven't
Speaker 1: filled in the great blanks that all your friends are doing.
Speaker 1: And and so you alongcome scientologists, which says, why bother
Speaker 1: none of that? Yeah, we can, you can supersede all
Speaker 1: that because when we will get you, you will you
Speaker 1: will learn the secrets of the universe, and you'll acquire
Speaker 1: superhuman powers. And that's and also just being noticed at
Speaker 1: all at that level is you know, very powerful. Because
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure you've done this a million times.
Speaker 1: But I remember once when I was out in l
Speaker 1: a and I was a Norman Lear's company, and I
Speaker 1: walked into a room in the lobby and there were
Speaker 1: about forty guys who were blond and six ft two
Speaker 1: and extremely handsome and and I felt small and brown
Speaker 1: and uh, and you know, but there was a sign
Speaker 1: saying no actors past this point. And I was able
Speaker 1: to walk past this point, and all those blue eyes
Speaker 1: direction and uh, and I thought, one of those guys,
Speaker 1: one of those guys is going to have his life change,
Speaker 1: and everybody else is gonna go home and some of
Speaker 1: them become law and wars or something like that. But
Speaker 1: that's the risk to have the Church of Scientology come along,
Speaker 1: maybe in that same room and passing out brochure is
Speaker 1: saying that we can help you. And and by the way,
Speaker 1: on the brochure that might have a picture of Tom
Speaker 1: Cruise or somebody like that is a very powerful lure.
Speaker 1: And here's people who say to you, you are different,
Speaker 1: Just be different, just accept it, don't fight it. Where
Speaker 1: you're going to go right now is extremely unusual for
Speaker 1: the average person is going to be a very rarefied atmosphere.
Speaker 1: Stay calm in the pocket, and you're gonna throw the
Speaker 1: football a hundred yards down the field. You're gonna score
Speaker 1: the winning touchdown. Don't get in the way of your
Speaker 1: own success. And I have seen many of the people
Speaker 1: I know who are really prominent in scientology, they just
Speaker 1: that's what it did for them. What clarity was for
Speaker 1: them was this is who I am in a macho
Speaker 1: and anybody that tried to make you think what you
Speaker 1: were doing was less valid or less substantial, or less
Speaker 1: meaningful or silly or whatever. These guys and what you're saying,
Speaker 1: what did they get out of it? There is you know,
Speaker 1: this is you know, a sense of solidity of your identity.
Speaker 1: And uh, what's so confounding about scientology in many ways
Speaker 1: is that you know, it promises you you will become
Speaker 1: more yourself, and that you will achieve all this freedom
Speaker 1: of thought, and that you you know you you will
Speaker 1: become a saner and healthier and so on. But your past,
Speaker 1: what happened so often is the very opposite. You know,
Speaker 1: you'd be kind of you, you become kind of enslaved
Speaker 1: to the mentality of and you're not allowed to think freely.
Speaker 1: You know. One of the things that was so striking
Speaker 1: to me about Paul Haggis, who is a very skeptical, imaginative,
Speaker 1: curious person. But he was in the church for thirty
Speaker 1: five years, and for thirty four of those years he
Speaker 1: never heard a disparaging word about scientology, never looked on
Speaker 1: the internet, he never read any of those stories because
Speaker 1: he was told not to, and he didn't. He was
Speaker 1: just as obedient as all those other people because he
Speaker 1: was told it was trual curiosity go regarding that. What
Speaker 1: is the thing you're working on now? Well, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: doing you know I did. I did another book about
Speaker 1: camp David Carter b Against the Dot thing, which you know,
Speaker 1: I had a play and I'm now gonna do it
Speaker 1: as a movie for HBO. And I'm doing a pilot
Speaker 1: for HBO on Texas politics, and um, I'm working with
Speaker 1: Bob Balaban on a play about the making of the
Speaker 1: movie Cleopatra, which is the thing that I've been having
Speaker 1: the most fun with and I'm gonna write about. Isis
Speaker 1: okay that that's what I wanted to talk to When
Speaker 1: you say I'm going to write about isis? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: can't talk about it too much because there but but
Speaker 1: I is this more about religious fanaticism for you? Well?
Speaker 1: It in part it is I'm fascinated by the fact
Speaker 1: that the entire fabric of civilization can simply be ripped away.
Speaker 1: And you know that barbarism is just under the sheets
Speaker 1: and in most grotesque fashion. You know, we we look
Speaker 1: back in the twentieth century and you see Nazi is
Speaker 1: um and people. How did that happen? Well, you know
Speaker 1: now it's happening again. It's a mystery when these things occur,
Speaker 1: that human nature can encompass such savagery. But it's right
Speaker 1: there in front of you, and it's and it's also um,
Speaker 1: it's a fact of human nature that people are drawn
Speaker 1: to it. And that's what arouses my curiosity. Do you
Speaker 1: think that when you look at isis? Do you think
Speaker 1: that people I just want to get your general comment
Speaker 1: about this. Do you think that people over there isis
Speaker 1: I should say? And and whoever the next isis? Is?
Speaker 1: It seems to have another They seem to be opening
Speaker 1: up a new show over there every eighteen months or year. Um,
Speaker 1: Do you think that they just hate our guts that
Speaker 1: the United States viewed as a hero of the United
Speaker 1: States viewed as an answer the United States viewed as
Speaker 1: a good guy? Is this just more of people wanted
Speaker 1: to send us some kind of message about us. Far
Speaker 1: and Post think it has as much to do with us,
Speaker 1: although Iraq, our exventors in Iraq where it was, you know,
Speaker 1: that's what broke the egg. And I don't think we
Speaker 1: would be looking at what we're seeing now. But what
Speaker 1: the whole region, what worries me about isis is that
Speaker 1: everything that holds the Middle East together is breaking apart.
Speaker 1: The states are failing. You know, I've been in Syria
Speaker 1: before and it was to me, the least religious Arab
Speaker 1: country that I've ever been in. So it's quite surprising
Speaker 1: to see, you know, this Islamist savagery going on right
Speaker 1: there and there. Yeah, I just I was I was
Speaker 1: taken aback by it. But you know, if I spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time in Egypt and Saudi Arabia and
Speaker 1: places like that, and I know that they're not strong,
Speaker 1: resilient governments and they are very fractured societies, and uh,
Speaker 1: in that environment, we saw how it happened in Iraq,
Speaker 1: you know, just almost overnight, Uh, this band of marauders
Speaker 1: takes over an area of the size of the United Kingdom. Well, Jesus,
Speaker 1: you know, how did that happen, and will it spread?
Speaker 1: Will these societies be able because we can't stop it.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be up to uh Sunni societies in the
Speaker 1: Arab world to stop it themselves, and I don't have
Speaker 1: confidence that they can. That's what concerns me. The problem
Speaker 1: becomes when you identify yourself so much with your religion
Speaker 1: rather than your country or your family or so on,
Speaker 1: that that becomes the sole basis of your identity. And
Speaker 1: it's a real problem in Europe right now for marginalized
Speaker 1: young men who don't feel like they are part of
Speaker 1: French society. For instance, you know, there may be eight
Speaker 1: of the population of France is Muslim, six of the
Speaker 1: prisoners are, so you can you imagine a better example
Speaker 1: of how marginalized a group of people is in a
Speaker 1: country is And clearly France has done a horrible job
Speaker 1: of trying to integrate these people into their societies. And
Speaker 1: it's not just the fault of the French government. I'm
Speaker 1: holding you know, those Muslims responsible as well for not
Speaker 1: participating more fully in the countries that have adopted them.
Speaker 1: But this is a this is a profound problem, and
Speaker 1: it's gonna last a long time and I feel you
Speaker 1: know that we can't solve it ourselves, and if we
Speaker 1: try to solve it, it'll it'll rebound on us in
Speaker 1: a profound way. Not saying we should disengage entirely, but
Speaker 1: we should be honest about the limits of our ability
Speaker 1: to resolve a problem that is essentially a function of
Speaker 1: the societies that is in I know you're not a
Speaker 1: writer in the Halvardston tradition where you're gonna inhabit some institution.
Speaker 1: But if I can be so bold to recommend the
Speaker 1: next fanatic cool reality that Lawrence Wright shouldn't heaven write
Speaker 1: a book about. I'd love to see your book about
Speaker 1: the Pentagon. That's an interesting Let's see you write a
Speaker 1: book about the Pentagon from top to bottom. You'll give
Speaker 1: me the rights to do it with HBO. I can
Speaker 1: play portray as or someone. We'll have a great time. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll have We'll have a lot of fun. So you're attached.
Speaker 1: I'm attached. I think I'm I'm such a fan of
Speaker 1: you're writing. That's an easy yes. The answer is yes,
Speaker 1: I'm attached. Okay, that's good to know. If you also
Speaker 1: appreciate Lawrence Rights work, there's a lot more to consume
Speaker 1: nine books, five plays, countless articles. The documentary film based
Speaker 1: on his book Going Clear, Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison
Speaker 1: of Belief is currently available on HBO on Demand and
Speaker 1: HBO Go. And if you're ever in Austin you might
Speaker 1: be able to catch him playing keyboard in the Blues
Speaker 1: collective Who Do m H. Right said of playing in
Speaker 1: a band quote, I decided a while ago that I
Speaker 1: would only do things that are really important or really fun.
Speaker 1: This is really fun. This is Alec Baldwin you're listening to.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing.