This week we went live to talk about some promo & marketing changes for our channel and answer a lot of great questions including the responsibility of government officials, why the Sea Org is so violent, a typical Sea Org day, some thoughts on anti-social media and a lot more. Enjoy!

This week we went live to answer questions and had a great time talking about the process of changing Scientology materials, playing OSA’s spy game, “alternative medicine” and a lot more. Enjoy!

This week we covered some great topics in our live show, tax exemption for religions, when do body thetans first appear in Scientology, real issues in treatment and psychiatry and a lot more. Enjoy!

This week, it’s answers about staff actually living in Scientology churches, whether the Amish are a destructive cult, the whole deal with “silent birth” in Dianetics and a lot more. Enjoy!

(1) Why don’t the orgs let staff live on property? It would solve the rent problem since they don’t get paid, although as a never-in I can see that drawing homeless to them.

(2) I was wondering if you consider the Amish or Mennonites a destructive cult?

(3) LRH says that children are simply thetans in little bodies and they’ve lived trillions of lifetimes, so why the “silent birth?” Why shield the baby from noise? We’re all capable thetans that have fought wars, bombed volcanos & who knows what else!! And if a labor & delivery room is where thetans pick a meat body, why does gestational time matter? 

(4) The question about using TV/Movies as therapy triggered a different take. In the situation of Sea Org, I remember you talking about coming out and not knowing the references people would make to old TV shows and other things that were not available to you in the Sea Org. Do you think it would have been helpful to have someone loan you a season of Friends or some of the other popular series from the time they were in SO? There are a lot of societal things that come and go in real life and on trendy shows of the time. Maybe call it Culture Catch-up.

(5) In the Tom Cruise Medal of Valor ceremony, there was narration at the end which stated that Tom had introduced 1.5 billion people on earth to Scientology technology.  This is absurd but do you care to comment on the audaciousness of this? And what would it be like if this were actually true? 

(6) In a lecture on Factors of Clearing (1958) LRH talks a lot of word salad, as usual, but there were a few terms I’m not familiar with. He mentions “arbitraries” and “demon circuits” which seems to have something to do with valences, and then he also mentioned an “individuated thetan”. What do these mean in Scientologese?

This week we had a fun live show and answered a bunch of questions, including things like Scientology’s loaded language, escaping the Sea Org, what are engrams and a lot more. Enjoy!

This week we covered a lot of territory including OSA’s work on YouTube to divide channels, my honest assessment on cancelling Scientology’s tax exemption, why my channel is so “critical” and a lot more. Enjoy!

This week, it’s answers about generational trauma in cults, Christian Science vs Scientology, “do it yourself” Objectives and a lot more. Enjoy!

(1) Multiple ex-Sea Org members have said they got a lot of sleep, ate good food and watched a great deal of television once they escaped. There is literature on sleep deprivation and dietary restrictions in cults so we know it’s a good thing when people can get adequate food and rest after escaping, but I was wondering if there has been clinical work on using television when exiting a cult. On an intuitive level the use of television as a therapeutic tool makes perfect sense, and seems far more effective than the intervention tactics from the Seventies. I’m simply curious what cultic studies experts have to say about TV.

(2) What about generational trauma when it comes to cult experience? Is that a thing? It is a serious issue in the aftermath of domestic violence.

(3) I did some Objectives after watching your podcast on them by using my phone. Shortly after, I went on a cleaning and ordering frenzy of maximum proficiency and thoroughness with a sudden surge of energy, so I would say I found some benefit in doing Objectives. I got my place really made sparkling and did a lot of things I was putting off. However, I found this to wane after I was done. I cannot help but think this is a bit like a form of self hypnosis wearing off, brought about by the repetitive nature of the processes. Would you think that the problem is that it wears off and one needs more of it, so one could then become an auditing junkie? And even if it does, could it not be argued that a person gained regardless? 

(4) I’ve been interested in religions for a long time, and I’ve always been struck by the large number of similarities between Scientology and the culty group Christian Science.  In broad strokes, both believe that the world is actually spiritual and that matter is an illusion made up by the human mind. They have practitioners that counsel sick people, with the goal being for the patient to realize that the illness is all in the mind and essentially psychosomatic. Since Christian Science was a fad religion decades before Scientology, is there any evidence Hubbard was influenced (*cough* stole *cough*) from this group?

(5) I recently heard Jeffrey Augustine on another channel talking about the “Over the Rainbow” documentary (which he didn’t like). The conversation turned toward EST and Landmark and he mentioned that LRH concocted the “EST Repair Rundown”. I get that this is about making sure. CoS people are purged from Werner Erhard but what do you know about this rundown, and are there other rundowns to purge people from different beliefs other than Scientology? 

(6) Where is Pat Broeker? I’ve heard much talk of almost all the ‘old crowd’, what happened to them, where they went after they left or were ousted. We’ve heard about the rather sad last months of Annie, and of course in 2012 we heard about the private investigators who Miscavige had spend 25 years surveilling Pat, but aside from the information from the PIs there seems to have been almost nothing about him for 30 years which seems quite remarkable given the key part he played.I’m genuinely fascinated what this man has been doing for the last 30 years, how he feels, what he thinks, whether he still believes in Hubbard, the tech, and yet it seems like (perhaps because there’s so little information available) no one else is. The PIs said that he’d met with RVY in the late 90s but I wonder if he’s met with anyone else since he left, be it people like Jesse Prince or Sarge Pfauth, those who worked with and for Hubbard, or even the more recent leavers like Marty and Mike. He’d be a fascinating interview. What are your thoughts?

After a first aborted attempt at a live stream, we pulled it off with answers about Shelly Miscavige, some honest talk about recovery, the emotional needs of Scientologists, books on brainwashing and a lot more. Enjoy!

This week, I offer a description of the True Believer mindset, PTSD and cult recovery, odd Scientology practices and a lot more. Enjoy!

(1) Question regarding Grant Cardone: He is allegedly a scammer/swindler, very rich, and very ostentatious. Why would such an arrogant man part with any money to benefit the IAS? An ego that big would say “F**k charity!!”  (not that $cientology is an actual charity.) Recordings from auditing? Is it a tax thing?

(2) I was listening/watching one of your latest Critical Q&A. You were flipping through one of the workbooks (is that what they are called?) and you said it brings back some memories. I was wondering if you deal with PTSD from your time in Scientology? I can’t imagine the process that would be required to recover (fully or in part) from this time of your life.

(3) Aside from having to clean windows with old newspapers, were there other odd practices wholly unrelated to Scientology or its organization which nevertheless had to be followed due to it being ordered or endorsed by Hubbard at some stage?

(4) In a lecture “Prerequisites to Auditing” (1958) LRH talked about “birth engrams” (which are apparently terrible) and “overt act motivation sequence”. Can you elaborate on those terms?

(5) I have a possible source for Scientology’s body thetans (BTs) from American inventor Thomas Edison, who was also an early member of Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society. Usually people trace the exorcizing of BTs to the occult practice of exorcizing demons. However, given that Hubbard was well read, embraced pseudo-scientific ideas, and liked electrical gadgets, I think there may be an even closer inspiration where Thomas Edison wrote of swarms of highly charged and infinitesimally small entities, of extraterrestrial origin which inhabit one’s cells.

Edison said: “No one understands that man is not a unit of life. The unit of life is composed of swarms of billions of highly charged entities which live in the cells. I believe that when a man dies, this swarm deserts the body and goes out into space, but keeps on and enters another cycle of life and is immortal.”

Twenty years later, he wrote “I cannot believe for a moment that life in the first instance originated on this insignificant little ball which we call the earth. The particles which combined to evolve living creatures on this planet of ours probably came from some other body elsewhere in the universe. I don’t believe for a moment that one life makes another life. Take our own bodies. I believe they are composed of myriads and myriads of infinitesimally small individuals, each in itself a unit of life, and that these units work in squads — or swarms as I prefer to call them — and that these infinitesimally small units live forever. When we “die” these swarms of units, like a swarm of bees, so to speak, betake themselves elsewhere, and go on functioning in some other form or environment.”

This sure sounds a lot like BTs to me. Given that Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, dealt with electricity, it might explain why in Hubbard’s final days he wanted to use electricity in a last desperate attempt to exorcize his own BTs. What do you think? 

(6) Hey Chris do you know if there’s any evidence of Ron being injured from doing the OT3 research as he claimed? I think he mentioned in Ron’s Journal 67 that he broke both his arm and his back….or did he just make all that up too?

(7) What are the symptoms that a Scientology process has been overrun?

(8) As a parent of young kids I heard many influencers/youtubers advertise ABC Mouse; many of these influencers are active Mormons. I was surprised to learn that ABC Mouse had a connection with Scientology. As far as I can tell it’s mostly financial connections. It would be interesting for you, or someone you know from an ex-Scientologist network, to look at whether this app managed by a Scientologist is secular or not. 

This week, it’s answers about Miscavige’s shredding, what the Hubbard Management System is all about, street epistemology vs cult exit counselling and a lot more. Enjoy!

(1) As we know, during the Masterson trial there must have been numerous shredding parties at Scientology headquarters and lawyer offices. What are your thoughts on all the recordings of pc sessions? Do you think Miscavidge would ever go all “Keith Raniere” and start recording meetings and everything for posterity? Would they be deleting lawyer videos etc? Letters and emails and files are important but videos can be serious smoking guns too. Just something I thought was interesting, all the digital medias.

(2) Just started viewing your channel. I work with a firm that is using the Hubbard Management System (HMS) and many of my colleagues are Scientologists. I am not nor do I care to be but I believe in the purposes of the organization; given your experience am I going to be a target of being recruited to Scientology. Is using this HMS a negative issue in your mind and is it “veiled Scientology doctrine”?

(3) Have you ever had the chance to read any of LRH’s non-Scientology materials from back when he was still a writer, and if so, what did you think? From what clips you’ve shown on your shows, he seems to have some good ideas (as far as fiction goes) as well as a special talent for worldbuilding, but in my mind is in desperate need of an editor. I’ve given the book “Ole Doc Methuselah” a read, and while I certainly liked it as a pulp sci-fi, I think that Hubbard played a bit fast and loose with his own rules, and was no stranger to the occasional Deus Ex Machina.

(4) Do you see street epistemology as a substitute for cult exit counseling? Are the two techniques equivalent? I’ve been thinking about this for some time now. There is obviously some overlap in that both methods involve questions to stimulate critical thinking about fervent belief. But there are some fundamental, if subtle, distinctions. As I understand it, cult exit counseling has a basis in psychotherapy, while street epistemology is more grounded in philosophy. Some cult exit counselors have raised concerns that street epistemology is not therapeutic, especially when applied to a victim of traumatic abuse like most ex-cult members. I’d like to know what you think.

(5) I wanted to see if you have any knowledge of the “line charge” phenomenon that can happen in auditing. I remember when I was about 12, my dad was getting auditing at Flag and was so “blown out” that he was unable to stop laughing for days! At the time my mom said it was normal, but I felt a little freaked out that my dad was having a phone conversation with me and yet he couldn’t stop laughing for more than a few seconds at a time — and now I think my reaction was more appropriate than I realized at the time. I was wondering what was the actual psychological phenomena behind someone laughing like that? 

(6) I wanted to ask you a question about the OT levels.  Given LRH’s obsession with the number 8 (the infinity symbol as a sideways 8), and the lack of materials for levels above OT8, would any Scientologist make a connection that OT8 should be the final (and ultimate) OT level, and therefore there should not be any levels above it?