October 21, 2020 • 54 mins
Founded in 1953 by L. Ron Hubbard, the Church of Scientology describes itself as a religion that puts its adherents on a path toward complete and certain understanding of one's true spiritual nature. In the first part of this two-part series, the guys are joined by Mike Rinder, a former senior official of the Church and cohost of Scientology: Fair Game, for a first-hand, inside look at the organization.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Note they call
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Paul Mission controled decades. Most importantly, you are you,
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. In previous episodes over the years,
we have covered aspects of quite a controversial organization that's
(00:49):
familiar to all of our long time listeners. That is
the Church of Scientology, the concept of scientology, and general
You'll note we did a previous episode several YouTube videos
on something called Operations snow White. We've also delved into
similar waters in the past, but uh today we are
(01:11):
immensely fortunate to be speaking with someone who has extensive
firsthand experience. As we always say, we like to go
to primary sources when possible, and that is why today
we are I'll say we are over the moon to
speak with Mike Render, former senior Scientology executive as well
(01:35):
as the co creator of the new podcast, Scientology Fair Game. Mike,
thanks so much for hopping on the show with us today. Oh,
you're very welcome, guys. I'm really happy to be here.
As one of my friends said, this is four white
males all and she said, yes, but they're good white males.
(02:02):
So I think I know, I think I know who
you're talking about. And uh and uh technically where uh
if you look at the four of us naggregate, we're
mostly white. But but splitty splitty two hairs the site.
You know, Mike, this podcast is doing some tremendous work
(02:24):
in terms of clarifying questions people outside of the organization
have had, correcting some myths, and giving an inside look
into scientology that many people would not have otherwise had
the chance to experience or learn about. So one of
our first questions for today is, um, Well, it's a
(02:45):
little bit of a loaded question, perhaps what was your
inspiration for the creation of Scientology Fair Game and could
you tell us a little bit about how it came
about shaw Um, Really, the inspiration was COVID nineteen. I
know that that that's a sort of a wise guy answer,
(03:06):
but the truth of the matter is, after the end
of the Scientology and the Aftermath, which was the TV
show that Leah and I had done. We wanted to
continue to move into new areas and to explore things
in more depth and to be able to cover some
(03:28):
of the ground that we just were not able to
cover on that program. And initially our thought was, well,
we'll just do another TV show, and then the COVID
hit and there was no way of doing a TV
show and someone suggested to us, you know, you guys
(03:49):
should start doing a podcast. And you know, I already
have a blog that I do every day, and Leah
was like, wow, this sounds interesting. Do you think that
we can do I said, well, yes, it's great because
we can do it from home. We don't have to
go anywhere, we don't need to shoot crew, we don't
need a whole bunch of people. We can just sit
(04:10):
down and interview people or talk amongst ourselves and cover
a lot of stuff that we haven't been able to
cover before. So I I guess it's not an incorrect
answer to say that it was the pandemic that was
the inspiration, but it really is simply our desire to
(04:32):
keep chipping away at this monolithic monstrosity that is scientology
by providing more and more information in whatever forum we can,
and this is a great one. We're thoroughly enjoying doing
this podcast. I have I have a terrific time because
(04:55):
we get to chat with people and there's sort of no, no,
your restrictions or limitations. You don't have. Oh we've got
to get in six minutes before the next ad spot,
and we've gotta you know, it has to be a
forty three minute program that, like broadcast television, has got
a lot more things that people don't even realize who
(05:19):
haven't ever done it. Oh, for sure, I don't think
you're alone in COVID being an inspiration to start a podcast.
It seems like there's been sort of a podcast golden
age that has sprung up around around COVID. For sure.
It's it's definitely been an interesting time and they're happy
that that this led to this podcast up for from
you and leah Um. Can you talk a little bit
(05:40):
about the practice of fair gaming and the idea that
sort of led to the title of the podcast and
where you kind of fit into that in terms of
the organization, and just give listeners a little bit of
a background about this practice. And where you kind of fitting.
Fair gaming is or is a term that was coined
by L. Run Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, for the
(06:04):
activity of dealing with the enemies of scientology. And L
Run Hubbard, like old cult leaders, had proclivity to UH
designating a US versus them world, and that there was
always some monsters out there that are out to get
(06:26):
us scientologists, and those monsters have to be vanquished. And
the practice in scientology is called fair game, and it
really means to do anything necessary to obliterate that which
is perceived to be an enemy. And Scientology loves to say, well,
(06:51):
fair gaming has been a fair game. The term fair
game has been canceled, and that actually is true. L.
Run Hubbard issued a policy letter. UH. Policy letter is
the the official Scientology UM documents and writings of L.
Run Hubbard. That A considered to be scripture of the religion.
(07:14):
And I use religion in in quotation marks and church
in quotation marks. You can't see me doing that because
you're only hearing me. But this is my quotation marks,
just like that UM, and this is the scripture of scientology.
And Hubbard fancied himself as UH as many things I mean,
(07:37):
he claimed to be everything from a master photographer, to
a master mariner, to a horticulturalist, to a great researcher,
to a philosopher, to a race car driver, to like
anything and everything. But one of the things that he
claimed to be was an intelligence officer in from naval
(07:58):
intelligence during the War UH and that he had studied
all the the arts of intelligence, and that he was
an expert on COVID operations and black propaganda and all
of these things. And he wrote extensively in scientology about
(08:19):
how you go about employing all these techniques to destroy
your enemies. And I'll just go back because I mentioned
that he said that he had canceled this fair game. Yes,
he laid out all of these dictates on how you
go about destroying someone, and he called it fair game.
(08:39):
But then that became public and created some media flaps
back in the sixties, so he wrote a policy letter
that said cancelation of fair game. And I'm going to
quote this paraphrase it, but it's almost verbatim. The use
of the term fair game is canceled. It brought about
(09:00):
bad public relations, so we will no longer use the term.
But nothing about how we treat enemies of Scientology changes,
So Scientology comes out routine Lean says, we don't do
fair game. It was canceled by all run how fair
(09:21):
game is dead, fair game doesn't exist. Fair game this
fair game? That so Lee and I went, you know what,
we're gonna call our show fair game, just to stick
it so that it you know, we know that that's
a bunch of bullshit, and we're not gonna subscribe to
the lies and the obfuscation and the misdirection and whatever
(09:47):
that Scientology likes to engage in. And you asked me also, Noll,
what's my involvement, Well, my involvement is you were you
were one of the vanquishers I mean, correct. I it
was for almost two decades the head of what is
called the Office of Special Affairs of Scientology, and the
(10:08):
Office of Special Affairs is the department of Scientology designated
with the responsibility of destroying the enemies of Scientology. So
that was SPCE correct suppressive persons SPS. And I went
from destroying SPS to being the sp to be destroyed.
(10:33):
I want to I want to talk more about that,
but the first thing that comes to mind is the
vocabulary um Mike. I don't know if you've seen that show,
The Vow that's on HBO Max right now. Oh, it's
wonderful And in fact, we interviewed Mark the Sente last
week on our podcast. Oh that's amazing. Yeah, we should
listen to it. It's it's an amazing episode because the
(10:57):
parallels between Keith Ranieri and Next and Scientology are astonishing. Well,
what I wanted to get to are the similarities, because
as I'm watching that show and thinking about Scientology and
what we've learned on this show in the past, something
that really struck me were those similarities you're talking about.
(11:18):
And one of the big things that I noticed is this,
on the surface a self improvement program, uh for the individual, right,
and it's aided introspection appears to be the way that
you get to that better place and you see improvement.
But both have this extremely insular vocabulary. UM, and I
(11:41):
just wanted to know in your experience, how does having
a very like a large modified vocabulary, how does it
affect the way you think on a regular basis? That
is such an amazingly, incredibly smart question that no one
has ever asked me before. Okay, okay, seriously, this is
(12:07):
this is not unique to scientology. If you now study
all high control organizations or cults, you will find that
terminology that limits understanding two our confined group of people
(12:28):
is an important aspect of keeping them under under your
thumb and control. It makes outsiders all outsiders who are
uninformed and incapable of understanding, and insiders all smarter than
everybody else because they're the only ones that really understand.
(12:50):
And what's so fascinating about nexium is the terminology that
Keith Ranieri stole from scientology is identical. They talk about
technology and levels and ethics. They have disconnection they I mean,
it's it's a crazy amount of parallels between scientology and Nexium.
(13:15):
The big screw up that Keith Rinieri made was he
did not turn it into a religion. He should have.
He should He could have taken all the money, just
like scientology does. He could have had all the power
he wanted, and he would have had the protection of
the First Amendment in the United States. And that protection
(13:36):
is is almost like being a superman. You can walk
through walls and do all sorts of things that mim
models are unable, incapable, or illegal to do, and get
away with it, and that I think was ultimately the
(14:00):
downfall of Keith Ranieri. If he had had the bront
from millions to wage a legal war on the basis
that he was practicing a religion and that his adherents
were following religious beliefs and practices, he probably would not
(14:21):
be in prison right now. We're paying taxes, yeah, exactly, exactly.
But but but you know, Ben, you say that, and
that is true. But from my perspective, I have always
argued that the more important thing about tax exemption for
scientology was not that they could They didn't pay taxes. Yeah,
(14:45):
that sucks. Every every citizen of the United States is
subsidizing scientology. I mean that is a fact. But Scientology
could pay that. They got plenty of money. They got
three billion and dollars. They could pay taxes. More importantly,
two things. One with religious status from the I R
(15:09):
S comes no government oversight. Scientology and religions do not
have to file any record of what they spend their
money on, how much they make, whether they're spending all
to higher private investigators to go around and destroy people's lives,
or lawyers to to just funk with people for the
sake of fucking with them. And secondly, when you walk
(15:34):
into court and you tell a judge, uh, your honor,
I am sorry. You are forbidden by the First Amendment,
by constitutional law from engaging even in an inquiry into
whether our practices are appropriate or not. Because there is
(15:54):
a complete separation between courts and religion. You can't go there.
It works, It works all the time. Scientology has made
it well. I help make it work. It works, and
it prevents courts and law enforcement from taking action where
they otherwise would. And so Keith R. Nary made a
(16:18):
big screw up because he should have turned himself into
another l Run Hubbard messiah. That leads me to a
question was on my mind, Mike um as some of
our listeners are who are familiar with your work may
know uh. And I think maternal alluded to earlier. Uh,
you were a former senior Scientology executive. I think a
(16:40):
lot of people don't understand like senior can mean a
lot of things, but I think a lot of people
don't understand the specifics of it until you've laid out
the Office of Special Affairs and such. This one thing
that hit me when I was learning more about your experiences,
is that you actually joined SEA org see ORG itself
(17:02):
being one of the I think we're for outsiders to Scientology,
that that's one of the organizations or one of the
arms of the of Scientology. That really baffles a lot
of people. You know, you hear stories of folks signing
billion year contracts. You hear about l. Ron Hubbard I
(17:23):
guess also known as the commodore at times UH living
in international waters to avoid UH certain legal implications. Was
Hubbard on Sea order on Apollo specifically to avoid UH
legal problems with the I R s? Or were there
other world governments evolved or what what led him? And
(17:44):
then ultimately you to see ORG. Okay, that's a compound question, uh,
council counter counselor that's a compound question, but I will
endeavor to answer it. Okay. First of all, the Sea
Organization is probably best analogized to an order of the
(18:06):
Catholic Church, like or the Vatican. This is the most
dedicated people in scientology who live, work, eat, sleep, and
and do every other activity within the confines of the
Scientology organization. They are four seven three d sixty five
(18:27):
days a year full time scientologists working for scientology, and
it's not just stories. Every SIOUG member has to sign
in order to join up with the SIOUG a contract
for a billion years. Yes, that's right, b with a
B billion and l Ron Hubbard started the Sea Organization
(18:53):
in nine seven after he had been effectively he was
living in England at the time. He had gone to
Rhodesia because he believed that he had been cecil rhodes
in a previous lifetime. He had gone to Rhodesia to
reclaim his country, but had gotten kicked out of the
(19:14):
of Rhodesia and then returned tried to return to England,
where he was living, and the government there had effectively
banned him from re entry into the United Kingdom and
told him his visa was being denied for extension. He
was already in trouble with the f d A in
the U S and the I R S in the US,
(19:36):
so he went, Okay, I'm gonna go buy a boat
and sail around in international waters where I am out
of the jurisdiction of any specific government. The only problem
with that is, though, when you're sailing in international waters,
that's true. As soon as you get to a port,
(19:57):
you're definitely in the jurisdiction of the government. And he
went to Greece and got thrown out of Greece, he
got thrown out of Spain, he got thrown out of Morocco,
he got thrown out of Portugal. I mean, it was
sort of one thing after another, but he believed that
this was the way to stay out of trouble with
(20:21):
government agencies and authorities, and to some extent that worked
for a number of years because he was able to
move from one place to the next, to the next
and sort of out out of this hot water, jump
into the next part, and then that would eventually boil
over and then jump into the next one, until in
(20:43):
ninety five he sort of went well. Actually, what happened
was he had a heart attack in nine and I
was on board the ship with him in Curasao, and
the medical care there wasn't what he thought it was necessary,
so he decided have to go back to the US.
So we all ended up coming back to the United
(21:04):
States and and taking up residents in clear Water, Florida,
which is still the quote spiritual headquarters of scientology in
the world, clear Water, Florida. We're going to pause for
a word from our sponsor, and then we'll be back
with more from Mike Render. And we're back with our
(21:30):
conversation with Mike Render, formerly of the Church of Scientology.
You you knew Hubbard. I mean you you were in
the church from a very early age and you got
connected at a relatively high level pretty early. I think
in your teens you were on that chip and you
knew l Ron Hubbard himself. Can you talk a little
bit about how that came to be from being in
(21:50):
Australia and raised scientologist and then being on this ship
and international waters with this, you know, science fiction writer
come religious guru. Yes I can, Okay, no, no, no,
that the truth of the matter is being raised a
scientologist as a It's sort of like the the old
(22:16):
idea of uh families in the Catholic Church sending their
oldest son to to the Vatican to to serve and
ultimately hopefully rise to the level of being a bishop
or whatever. That really was my idea when I was
(22:37):
growing up. Was eventually the most important thing for me
to do, and what I aspired to do was to
work with ll Run Hubbard, Like this is in in
the mind of a scientologist, This is like sitting at
the feet of Buddha. This is like going and and
being personally with the with the the ultimate authority and transcendental,
(23:05):
brilliant mind of the universe. And for a young scientologist
and a scientology family, that was kind of, oh, that's
pretty cool. If you can pull that off. There's not
many who do. There were only you know, people on
that ship with l Run Hubbard. That was it. That
(23:26):
was two fifty people in the entire world who got
to learn at the feet of the master. And so
it was it was a privilege and an honor, and
uh made the family proud that I went off to do,
(23:49):
you know, serve my time with l. Run Hubbard. And
he was he was an enigma in many respects. You know,
you read a lot, you know, since I left scientology,
I have read a lot, and I read a lot
about you know, personality disorders and sociopaths and psychopaths and
(24:13):
this and that. There are a lot of people and
they have very definite characteristics that are that are chattable
and documentable, and they all had them. And Hubbard was
on one side, astonishingly charming. I mean, he had the
(24:34):
ability to charm people and tell stories and be very
gregarious and funny and and endearing almost and on the
other side it was like the jackal and hide. He
was like a raging lunatic. And it's it's interesting that
(24:57):
when at least in my experience, you are you are
associated with those people. And it's funny because you know,
some of the books talk about this. You tend to
look at others as you see yourself, and so you
look at someone and they're they're like, they tell jokes
(25:20):
and they're kind of nice, and they they ask how
you're doing and are you well, which was like a
Hubbard sort of trait, and you know, being very solicitous
and you're almost self effacing and then turning into a
rage monster and you go, well, I guess he just
(25:41):
gives a little upset that like you excuse it because
you don't believe that that's the real person. You believe
that that's the anomaly, and that the real person is
the good part, because that's how good people are, and
that's how you look at others sort of through your
own lens. And it takes quite a lot when, particularly
(26:05):
when you've been raised to believe that someone is like
the Guru and has the answers to everything in life
and has discovered things that nobody in the history of
the universe has discovered before to shake off the idea
that they could that that the bad that you were
seeing is really bad, and that it's not just an anomaly.
(26:29):
And and so, you know, like I said, Hubbard was
an enigma. Anybody that you talked to that actually met
the guy will tell you, my god, he was charming,
he was larger than life. He walked into a room
and the room lit up, and he was amazing, and
there were all this sort of stuff. And then did
you ever feel like maybe it was your like, Oh,
(26:50):
I don't want to displease him. I don't want to
bring out that angry side. It could be my fault.
Maybe I did something wrong. Oh of course. And that's
a that's a fundamental prince of pull of scientology. I
was even gonna get to that null a fundamental principle.
And Hubbard was a genius in developing a lot of
the things that he did in scientology, because the idea
(27:13):
in scientology is that you are responsible for everything about
your state of being, and what if good things happen
to you, it's because you're good but if bad ship
happens to it's good things happen to it is because
scientology taught you how to how to experience the good.
If bad stuff happens to you, it's because of your
(27:35):
own evil transgressions, violations of the more rays of the group.
And if you look inside your own head and figure
out what it is that you have done that has
caused this bad ship to happen to you, it will
all resolve. So you look and you go, oh my god,
(27:58):
the old man is really he's really pissed. He's upset
of me. What did I do? How did I cause
that to happen? And that is probably the biggest trap
of scientology. You look around, because David Biscavige has a
lot less redeeming qualities than they'll run Hubbard. He's got
(28:20):
a lot of a lot more bad uh traits and
a lot less sort of charismatic nice things that you
could say about him. And you look around, you go,
but there's people there that have been there for twenty
years and that he's beating them, and he's abusing them.
(28:40):
He spits on him, he calls him names, he cursses
them out, He has him dig shit out of the toilets,
you know, etcetera, etcetera. Why do they put up with it?
The reason they put up with it is because they
have been indoctrinated to believe because they're somehow bad and
they haven't discovered what they're evil is yet. But if
(29:04):
they keep working at it, they'll get there. Right, They're
they're being punished for a reason. You know, you said
something you said to really interesting things previously, Mike, where
you said you alluded to something called the prison of
the mind for for people who were practicing scientology. And
(29:25):
then you had also said, and I won't do a
compound question this time, promise, You had also said that
he uh, that David Mimskevidge in in particular, Uh, it
seemed kind of like an anomalous nutcase until you read
a book called The Sociopath next stores. Was that the
correct one? Yes, brilliant book by Matha Sell. Dr Matha Stell. Yeah.
(29:49):
And from what we understand about the good and the
bad of scientology, the idea is that one should one
should be able to control one's emotions. So isn't that
kind of a contradiction that he would be so filled
with rage? It's a complete contradiction. And it's a contradiction
(30:12):
for another reason. And there is tons and tons and
tons of contradictions in scientology. You don't see them until
you get out. But think about this what I just
told you about the the idea that when something bad
has happened to you, it's because of your evil doing
(30:33):
for everybody except the guy at the top. For the
guy at the top, his upset or bad stuff happening
to him is because everybody else is doing bad stuff
to him. For everybody underneath, what's that bad stuff happening
to members because of what they did? When it comes
to David Muscavite or l Ron Hubba knew that that
(30:56):
rule suddenly goes out the window. That rule comes David
Muskevitch is being abused by his subordinates. They are seeking
to upset him, They are destroying him, and they must
look inside them, their hearts and their minds to figure
out why they are seeking to destroy this great man.
(31:19):
And that was the same with They'll run Hubbard, And
you're exactly right, Ben. The idea that you fly off
into rage and start beating the crap out of people
is the example of the pinnacle of the scientology world,
that this is what this would be like. You know,
the Dalai Lama. The story start coming out about the
(31:42):
Dalai Lama that you know, he's got a sword set
in his in his place over there, and when someone
displeases him, he chops their fingers off, you know, like
it's just it doesn't it doesn't match up with what
is presented to the world that scientology teaches you and
(32:04):
processes you if you pay enough money to eradicate irrational,
mis emotional responses to the stimuli of the world. And
it's a huge contradiction. Absolutely, We're gonna take a quick
break here and we'll be back very shortly, and we're back, Okay,
(32:36):
So I think that right there. I haven't honestly, I
have not listened to much of your your show Scientology
Fair Game yet I cannot wait to. But I imagine
that you guys get into quite a bit of discussion
about uh, David and a lot of that on your show.
Would that be correct? Yes? Absolutely? That Okay, that's awesome. Again,
(32:58):
just from a group of guys who have been making
a show for a long time, that sounds like a
terrifying thought. Just when you think about um possible. You know,
the things that scientology has done in the past with
its First Amendment rights and uh large bags of money
that they have. UM, but I want to I want
to talk specifically about you. UH an experience that your
(33:21):
co host of Scientology Fair Game, Leah Remedy had at
one point in her life. She was well, I guess
I don't know force would be the correct word. She
was told to go to a facility in Clearwater, Florida
that you mentioned for a thing that was termed reprogramming.
Can can you talk to us about what that term
(33:43):
means within the context of scientology. Yes, I'm gonna try
and do this without using too much Scientology's in in
the description. But Leah made the mistake of questioning, uh,
the judgment and act of at ease of Tom Cruise
and David Muscavige, and for that that is a modal
(34:06):
sin when the world of scientology. She was told that
she must go to the facility in clear Water at
her own expense and ultimately cost a three hundred thousand dollars, Yes,
three hundred thousand dollars two receive this scientology auditing and
(34:28):
auditing in scientology is is you know what the term
that is used to describe scientology counseling, and it is
done with this like little Anita that's sort of like
a little lie detector. You hold these two cans and
it registers, and the person is doing on the other
(34:51):
side sort of goes, oh, you've got this, or you know,
tell me about that or whatever. Yeah, I want to
know um. And it was to get her two effectively
admit that everything, every critical thought, every criticism that she
(35:11):
had was stemmed from something that she had done. And
it's exactly what I was telling you before. This is
a very very very fundamental concept in scientology. It's not
just if bad stuff happens to you. If you talk
shit about someone, it's because you've done bad things to them.
(35:36):
So it's it's the idea that you're critical of someone
because you have done something to hurt them or harm
them in some way. So now are seeking to make
less of them so that you can make it seem
that what you are doing and saying is correct. It's
(35:56):
that the problem with it is, and this is the
problem with a lot of scientology. There is some fundamental
truth to these things. There is some kernel of truth.
There is not a lot in scientology that is just
shear bullshit. There is a lot that is take a
(36:17):
thing and turn it into something with a twisted logic
that changes actually what it in, what it started out being,
into something that is almost diametrically opposed. And you see
that in the vowel too. You see how Ranieri managed
(36:39):
to twist things that had some fundamental concept or idea
in it, like being living up to your word, and
turned that into being a slave. Now, how you get
from one to the other is kind of astonishing, but
he managed to convince plenty of people to do it,
(36:59):
to the point where they were calling up and asking
am I allowed to eat in another thirteen calgaries? Masta?
That is that is crazy. But just like scientology, something
there was some fundamental principle that's you could agree with,
or a truth that you could agree with, that then
(37:20):
gets built upon and built upon and sort of interpreted
and twisted. And that's what happens with these concepts in scientology.
And that's what Leo was doing there for all that time.
Was until she had found something that explained every single
(37:42):
critical thought or comment she had made, she was not
free to go This sits on another thing that's um
that's been often talked about, again from outside reports and
often from former members of the organization, which is the
idea of essentially being held against one's will being allowed
(38:05):
to go. Uh. It makes me think specifically of the
news that we hear every so often about David M.
Kvig's spouse, who has been out of the public eye
for quite a long time. Mike, is is it true
that this organization has or does hold people against their
will or is it more of like an emotional peer pressure? Okay, yes,
(38:28):
this organization does hold people against their will. They can
be falsibly held and restrained and prevented from leaving. And
I have seen that happen and it is so or
people locked in a room and not let out, that
sort of stuff. But that's not really what the problem is.
(38:49):
The problem is people being held based on their will
because their will has been bent and they believe that
what they are doing is ultimately going to be their salvation.
That and you know, Larry Wright in his brilliant book
Going Clear that he's subtitled Scientology and the Prison of Belief,
(39:14):
because that's what it is. This is the Stockholm syndrome.
This is the idea that you can change someone's thinking
to the point where they believe that staying is best
for them, even if staying means being locked in a
room and sleeping on the floor and being tortured every day,
(39:39):
and you know, like crazy stuff. But you this is
not limited to scientology either. You know, look at the
people that were at Jonestown, Look at the people that
are in fundamentalist Mormon you know, Warren Jeff's turning their
kids over to some widow pervert to be to become
(40:01):
their sex slaves. I mean, this is and this is
a concept that is very, very difficult to to persuade
anybody to act upon. And what I mean by that
is so often you see um people seeking justice for
(40:25):
what has been done to them, and courts and law
enforcement don't recognize that twisting someone's mind is like is
just is just as as damaging and intrusive and and
(40:47):
inappropriate than twisting their arm. But because it's not a
physical you know, there's no physical assault, and the laura
is about salt and battery. There's no law about a
salt and battery of the mind. And so a lot
of this stuff goes and and you know, people don't.
(41:11):
Courts don't know what to do with it. Do Do
they believe that someone was brainwashed? Do they buy into
the idea that such a thing as brainwashing exists? Even
if you call it by another name, don't call it brainwashing,
mental coercion, whatever. Is that something that is actionable? Is
that something that you can do something about? Can you
prove it? It's but believe me, it is way way
(41:37):
more down. You can recover from a twisted um, it's
much harder to recover from a twisted mind. Well. And
you can also take a photograph of a bruise and
enter it into an exhibit in court. You can't take
a photograph of a of a damaged mind or even prove.
The burden for proving like pain and suffering or psychological
(41:58):
damage so much higher than being able to say, this
person punched me, and here's the proof, here's a polaroid,
and it's done. You know, you can't do it, um
And and this this leads to, I mean, quickly, just
to follow up, clearly, you and Leo were able to disconnect,
you know, and and go on with your lives, uh,
you know, but still that has resulted as you being
(42:20):
top listed people of folks who can threaten the church.
I mean, you know that to me is is easy. Again,
it's the mind. It's the twisting of the mind to
believe that you are foregoing your eternity, that if you
if you walk away from this, you're losing your family,
(42:44):
you're losing your friends, you're losing everything that you've ever known.
That if there's something, I mean, these guys managed to compartmental.
I've heard Jun travol To say this often, Well, you know,
I don't know everything that's going on. Bullshit, I don't
know everything that's going on. Uh not really, I don't
(43:06):
know everything that's going on. But what I do know
is that scientology has helped me. So why wouldn't I
continue to participate in something that has helped me? And
that is a pretty unassailable position to take, because who
are you to say, well, it hasn't helped you. Look
at your dummy, it hasn't helped you. But it is
(43:29):
also you can ask John Travolta, well, have you watched
The Aftermath? Did you read the did you read the
article in the Tampa Bay Times? Have you read Lawrence
Writes book? Why would I do that? Why would I
want to read bad stuff about something that has helped me.
(43:51):
And this is another thing that Scientology and Nexium and
everyone else has made a very a sort of a
study of how do you persuade people not to look
at anything bad about you? How do you persuade them
that it is harmful to them spiritually? If they look
(44:13):
at something bad, it's going to detract from their progress
in Scientology, and ultimately code code cost them more money
to have to undo the bad effects of that on them.
And and when I'm saying to you this, realize for
(44:34):
a scientologist, if they go read US magazine and there
is a negative story about Tom Cruise in there, or
Leah Remedy is interviewed in US magazine, they are going
to have to go in and pay for the auditing
that unburdens them of the horrible sin of having looked
(44:56):
at something negative about Scientology, because that's regress them in
their progress. So many questions we may not get to
all of them, But this reminds me, Mike of the
massive dump of internal documents from Wiki leaks a few
years back, which I know was a huge deal inside
the organization. I can only imagine, but definitely outside the organization,
(45:19):
And we were stunned when we realized that people who
were in the organization, we're being told, look, this is
out there, but don't read it, you know what I mean,
treated as though it doesn't exist. And uh, I see
(45:39):
now the financial incentive inherent there. You had earlier said
Scientology is worth three billion dollars with a lack of oversight. Uh.
Do people ever reach a point in the organization? Do
they progress to a point where there are no law
(46:00):
younger being asked to pay money for audits or anything
like that. It's a gift. Seriously, No, No, you can
reach the very top of the Scientology bridge to total
freedom and then be told, oh, sorry, we found something new.
(46:25):
You need to go back and start over. And this
is something that Nixium has too. I was speaking to
Sarah Evanson the other day and she told me, she said,
do you know we had to redo our training. We'd
get all, we get our scoff or whatever those things
sash and then they'd come out and say, oh no,
(46:45):
you have to go back and redo it all and
you have to pay again. And it's the same thing
in Scientology. You have to redo it. And we got
we found some new I'm just formally unknown piece of
information from l. Run Hubbard that was buried in someone's
suitcase under their bed somewhere, and suddenly, now everything that
(47:06):
you did before has to be redone. And not only that,
we now have a new fundraising program. We have to
buy new facilities for every church in the world. And
they we call these ideal Organs. And Scientology has been
opening these buildings around the world for the last twenty
(47:28):
years on a theory that David Bis Scavenge presented a
Scientologists that in order for Scientology to truly expand, it
had to have buildings and facilities that would allow all
aspects of scientology to be presented in an appropriate fashion
for everyone. So we need new buildings and they have
(47:51):
to be x number of square feet and it's gonna
cost twenty million dollars and blah blah blah blah. So
pay out and this pay up for that and for
the another thing called the International Association of Scientologists, which
is a uh is a scam. It's just a scam.
(48:14):
It's like scientologists believe that giving money to the International
Association of Scientologists is helping educate children in Africa or
save people from hurricanes, or you know, do good work
for the the victims of earthquake in Haiti or whatever.
And it's bullshit. It does not happen. The most that
(48:38):
happens is they go and shoot a video and then
they show everybody, look at this video. We got five
people in this video, but there were thousands more that
you just can't see. And keep giving us money, and
we will give you these gaudy bowling pin bowling trophies
and start calling you Platinum Excalibur something or other or
(49:00):
Platinum Meritorious Patron of the Gluteus Maximus or like it's
it's like these bizarre, absurd names and people hand over
ten fifty million dollars. And like I said, with no oversight,
(49:22):
scientology never has to show its books. They never have
to show tithing, right, And isn't that basically the same
thing as tithing to a church, like well, if if tithing, well,
you typically you think of tithing as like ten percent.
If tithing was fifty, that's more of the scientology model
fifty or more. Like Scientology is ruthless about getting money.
(49:47):
Go take a loan, go, you know, get cash in
your your college fund, get your stocks, sell your stocks,
sell your house, do whatever, get us the money now.
But us, this money right now is going to save
the world. They've been saying that for fifty years is
and things aren't going so good. Our conversation with Mike
(50:11):
Render continues and it goes in some fascinating to a
degree disturbing places, so much so that we did not
want to cut any of it, and we have decided
to make this a two part episode. We promised that
this is going to be worth it. We hope that
(50:32):
you join us for Part two of this interview, which
is coming out later this week. In the meantime, we
highly recommend checking out Mike and Leah's new podcast, Scientology
Fair Game. Yeah. There, you can find deep dives into
so many of the incredible stories that Mike and Leah
(50:53):
have from their time in Scientology. So definitely worth giving
both part two of our episode with my and the
entirety of Scientology Fair Game your full attention, absolutely, and
if you want to continue the conversation that occurred here today,
head on over to Here's where it gets Crazy our
Facebook group. You can you know, comment in there, respond
(51:16):
to somebody else, meet some other conspiracy realists. You will
enjoy your time, we assure you, as long as you
use Facebook or you're willing to, I guess. Or you
can find us on Twitter, where we are also conspiracy stuff,
or Instagram where we're conspiracy stuff show. Visit us on
YouTube while you're on the internet if you want to
(51:37):
see our excerpts from our recent episodes, or if you
want to see our original deep cut things that are
intros to rabbit holes galore, Uh, including piece on Operations
snow White, which we which we may may mention a
little more in depth in our interview. And I think
(51:59):
there's one called a Wednesday vlog. Something has a title
something like that. I can't remember exactly, but it's a
video on that channel with Ben in a parking like
underground parking deck two. We're discussing scientology and I can't
recall exactly what it is, but find it. Oh yeah,
those are the days when we were we were literally
(52:20):
sneaking around the office film me wherever we could. Uh.
You can also, if you feel so inclined, leave us
a review on Apple podcast or iTunes. Uh. It makes
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star review. Uh. Our boss calls us and says that
(52:41):
I am one week further away from being fired. Yeah,
and then angel gets its wings and my son says,
good chop, dad, I love you. Three amazing things that happened.
You have the power. And uh, if you are anti
internet but profull boy, do we have news for you.
(53:03):
You call our number. It is one eight three three
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(53:26):
and we'll we'll see what we can do. We're very
very much looking forward to hearing your stories from this,
especially if you have ever been involved in scientology in
one way, shape or form ever in the past or
are now. We just want to we want to hear
from you. But what do you do if you hate phones?
What do you do if you hate social media? It's
(53:49):
a pressing question for our times, boy, is it ever? Well,
there's a way you can send us a good old
fashioned email. We are conspiracy at I heart radio dot com. Yeah. Stuff,
(54:18):
They Don't Want You To Know is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Note they call
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Paul Mission controled decades. Most importantly, you are you,
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. In previous episodes over the years,
we have covered aspects of quite a controversial organization that's
(00:49):
familiar to all of our long time listeners. That is
the Church of Scientology, the concept of scientology, and general
You'll note we did a previous episode several YouTube videos
on something called Operations snow White. We've also delved into
similar waters in the past, but uh today we are
(01:11):
immensely fortunate to be speaking with someone who has extensive
firsthand experience. As we always say, we like to go
to primary sources when possible, and that is why today
we are I'll say we are over the moon to
speak with Mike Render, former senior Scientology executive as well
(01:35):
as the co creator of the new podcast, Scientology Fair Game. Mike,
thanks so much for hopping on the show with us today. Oh,
you're very welcome, guys. I'm really happy to be here.
As one of my friends said, this is four white
males all and she said, yes, but they're good white males.
(02:02):
So I think I know, I think I know who
you're talking about. And uh and uh technically where uh
if you look at the four of us naggregate, we're
mostly white. But but splitty splitty two hairs the site.
You know, Mike, this podcast is doing some tremendous work
(02:24):
in terms of clarifying questions people outside of the organization
have had, correcting some myths, and giving an inside look
into scientology that many people would not have otherwise had
the chance to experience or learn about. So one of
our first questions for today is, um, Well, it's a
(02:45):
little bit of a loaded question, perhaps what was your
inspiration for the creation of Scientology Fair Game and could
you tell us a little bit about how it came
about shaw Um, Really, the inspiration was COVID nineteen. I
know that that that's a sort of a wise guy answer,
(03:06):
but the truth of the matter is, after the end
of the Scientology and the Aftermath, which was the TV
show that Leah and I had done. We wanted to
continue to move into new areas and to explore things
in more depth and to be able to cover some
(03:28):
of the ground that we just were not able to
cover on that program. And initially our thought was, well,
we'll just do another TV show, and then the COVID
hit and there was no way of doing a TV
show and someone suggested to us, you know, you guys
(03:49):
should start doing a podcast. And you know, I already
have a blog that I do every day, and Leah
was like, wow, this sounds interesting. Do you think that
we can do I said, well, yes, it's great because
we can do it from home. We don't have to
go anywhere, we don't need to shoot crew, we don't
need a whole bunch of people. We can just sit
(04:10):
down and interview people or talk amongst ourselves and cover
a lot of stuff that we haven't been able to
cover before. So I I guess it's not an incorrect
answer to say that it was the pandemic that was
the inspiration, but it really is simply our desire to
(04:32):
keep chipping away at this monolithic monstrosity that is scientology
by providing more and more information in whatever forum we can,
and this is a great one. We're thoroughly enjoying doing
this podcast. I have I have a terrific time because
(04:55):
we get to chat with people and there's sort of no, no,
your restrictions or limitations. You don't have. Oh we've got
to get in six minutes before the next ad spot,
and we've gotta you know, it has to be a
forty three minute program that, like broadcast television, has got
a lot more things that people don't even realize who
(05:19):
haven't ever done it. Oh, for sure, I don't think
you're alone in COVID being an inspiration to start a podcast.
It seems like there's been sort of a podcast golden
age that has sprung up around around COVID. For sure.
It's it's definitely been an interesting time and they're happy
that that this led to this podcast up for from
you and leah Um. Can you talk a little bit
(05:40):
about the practice of fair gaming and the idea that
sort of led to the title of the podcast and
where you kind of fit into that in terms of
the organization, and just give listeners a little bit of
a background about this practice. And where you kind of fitting.
Fair gaming is or is a term that was coined
by L. Run Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, for the
(06:04):
activity of dealing with the enemies of scientology. And L
Run Hubbard, like old cult leaders, had proclivity to UH
designating a US versus them world, and that there was
always some monsters out there that are out to get
(06:26):
us scientologists, and those monsters have to be vanquished. And
the practice in scientology is called fair game, and it
really means to do anything necessary to obliterate that which
is perceived to be an enemy. And Scientology loves to say, well,
(06:51):
fair gaming has been a fair game. The term fair
game has been canceled, and that actually is true. L.
Run Hubbard issued a policy letter. UH. Policy letter is
the the official Scientology UM documents and writings of L.
Run Hubbard. That A considered to be scripture of the religion.
(07:14):
And I use religion in in quotation marks and church
in quotation marks. You can't see me doing that because
you're only hearing me. But this is my quotation marks,
just like that UM, and this is the scripture of scientology.
And Hubbard fancied himself as UH as many things I mean,
(07:37):
he claimed to be everything from a master photographer, to
a master mariner, to a horticulturalist, to a great researcher,
to a philosopher, to a race car driver, to like
anything and everything. But one of the things that he
claimed to be was an intelligence officer in from naval
(07:58):
intelligence during the War UH and that he had studied
all the the arts of intelligence, and that he was
an expert on COVID operations and black propaganda and all
of these things. And he wrote extensively in scientology about
(08:19):
how you go about employing all these techniques to destroy
your enemies. And I'll just go back because I mentioned
that he said that he had canceled this fair game. Yes,
he laid out all of these dictates on how you
go about destroying someone, and he called it fair game.
(08:39):
But then that became public and created some media flaps
back in the sixties, so he wrote a policy letter
that said cancelation of fair game. And I'm going to
quote this paraphrase it, but it's almost verbatim. The use
of the term fair game is canceled. It brought about
(09:00):
bad public relations, so we will no longer use the term.
But nothing about how we treat enemies of Scientology changes,
So Scientology comes out routine Lean says, we don't do
fair game. It was canceled by all run how fair
(09:21):
game is dead, fair game doesn't exist. Fair game this
fair game? That so Lee and I went, you know what,
we're gonna call our show fair game, just to stick
it so that it you know, we know that that's
a bunch of bullshit, and we're not gonna subscribe to
the lies and the obfuscation and the misdirection and whatever
(09:47):
that Scientology likes to engage in. And you asked me also, Noll,
what's my involvement, Well, my involvement is you were you
were one of the vanquishers I mean, correct. I it
was for almost two decades the head of what is
called the Office of Special Affairs of Scientology, and the
(10:08):
Office of Special Affairs is the department of Scientology designated
with the responsibility of destroying the enemies of Scientology. So
that was SPCE correct suppressive persons SPS. And I went
from destroying SPS to being the sp to be destroyed.
(10:33):
I want to I want to talk more about that,
but the first thing that comes to mind is the
vocabulary um Mike. I don't know if you've seen that show,
The Vow that's on HBO Max right now. Oh, it's
wonderful And in fact, we interviewed Mark the Sente last
week on our podcast. Oh that's amazing. Yeah, we should
listen to it. It's it's an amazing episode because the
(10:57):
parallels between Keith Ranieri and Next and Scientology are astonishing. Well,
what I wanted to get to are the similarities, because
as I'm watching that show and thinking about Scientology and
what we've learned on this show in the past, something
that really struck me were those similarities you're talking about.
(11:18):
And one of the big things that I noticed is this,
on the surface a self improvement program, uh for the individual, right,
and it's aided introspection appears to be the way that
you get to that better place and you see improvement.
But both have this extremely insular vocabulary. UM, and I
(11:41):
just wanted to know in your experience, how does having
a very like a large modified vocabulary, how does it
affect the way you think on a regular basis? That
is such an amazingly, incredibly smart question that no one
has ever asked me before. Okay, okay, seriously, this is
(12:07):
this is not unique to scientology. If you now study
all high control organizations or cults, you will find that
terminology that limits understanding two our confined group of people
(12:28):
is an important aspect of keeping them under under your
thumb and control. It makes outsiders all outsiders who are
uninformed and incapable of understanding, and insiders all smarter than
everybody else because they're the only ones that really understand.
(12:50):
And what's so fascinating about nexium is the terminology that
Keith Ranieri stole from scientology is identical. They talk about
technology and levels and ethics. They have disconnection they I mean,
it's it's a crazy amount of parallels between scientology and Nexium.
(13:15):
The big screw up that Keith Rinieri made was he
did not turn it into a religion. He should have.
He should He could have taken all the money, just
like scientology does. He could have had all the power
he wanted, and he would have had the protection of
the First Amendment in the United States. And that protection
(13:36):
is is almost like being a superman. You can walk
through walls and do all sorts of things that mim
models are unable, incapable, or illegal to do, and get
away with it, and that I think was ultimately the
(14:00):
downfall of Keith Ranieri. If he had had the bront
from millions to wage a legal war on the basis
that he was practicing a religion and that his adherents
were following religious beliefs and practices, he probably would not
(14:21):
be in prison right now. We're paying taxes, yeah, exactly, exactly.
But but but you know, Ben, you say that, and
that is true. But from my perspective, I have always
argued that the more important thing about tax exemption for
scientology was not that they could They didn't pay taxes. Yeah,
(14:45):
that sucks. Every every citizen of the United States is
subsidizing scientology. I mean that is a fact. But Scientology
could pay that. They got plenty of money. They got
three billion and dollars. They could pay taxes. More importantly,
two things. One with religious status from the I R
(15:09):
S comes no government oversight. Scientology and religions do not
have to file any record of what they spend their
money on, how much they make, whether they're spending all
to higher private investigators to go around and destroy people's lives,
or lawyers to to just funk with people for the
sake of fucking with them. And secondly, when you walk
(15:34):
into court and you tell a judge, uh, your honor,
I am sorry. You are forbidden by the First Amendment,
by constitutional law from engaging even in an inquiry into
whether our practices are appropriate or not. Because there is
(15:54):
a complete separation between courts and religion. You can't go there.
It works, It works all the time. Scientology has made
it well. I help make it work. It works, and
it prevents courts and law enforcement from taking action where
they otherwise would. And so Keith R. Nary made a
(16:18):
big screw up because he should have turned himself into
another l Run Hubbard messiah. That leads me to a
question was on my mind, Mike um as some of
our listeners are who are familiar with your work may
know uh. And I think maternal alluded to earlier. Uh,
you were a former senior Scientology executive. I think a
(16:40):
lot of people don't understand like senior can mean a
lot of things, but I think a lot of people
don't understand the specifics of it until you've laid out
the Office of Special Affairs and such. This one thing
that hit me when I was learning more about your experiences,
is that you actually joined SEA org see ORG itself
(17:02):
being one of the I think we're for outsiders to Scientology,
that that's one of the organizations or one of the
arms of the of Scientology. That really baffles a lot
of people. You know, you hear stories of folks signing
billion year contracts. You hear about l. Ron Hubbard I
(17:23):
guess also known as the commodore at times UH living
in international waters to avoid UH certain legal implications. Was
Hubbard on Sea order on Apollo specifically to avoid UH
legal problems with the I R s? Or were there
other world governments evolved or what what led him? And
(17:44):
then ultimately you to see ORG. Okay, that's a compound question, uh,
council counter counselor that's a compound question, but I will
endeavor to answer it. Okay. First of all, the Sea
Organization is probably best analogized to an order of the
(18:06):
Catholic Church, like or the Vatican. This is the most
dedicated people in scientology who live, work, eat, sleep, and
and do every other activity within the confines of the
Scientology organization. They are four seven three d sixty five
(18:27):
days a year full time scientologists working for scientology, and
it's not just stories. Every SIOUG member has to sign
in order to join up with the SIOUG a contract
for a billion years. Yes, that's right, b with a
B billion and l Ron Hubbard started the Sea Organization
(18:53):
in nine seven after he had been effectively he was
living in England at the time. He had gone to
Rhodesia because he believed that he had been cecil rhodes
in a previous lifetime. He had gone to Rhodesia to
reclaim his country, but had gotten kicked out of the
(19:14):
of Rhodesia and then returned tried to return to England,
where he was living, and the government there had effectively
banned him from re entry into the United Kingdom and
told him his visa was being denied for extension. He
was already in trouble with the f d A in
the U S and the I R S in the US,
(19:36):
so he went, Okay, I'm gonna go buy a boat
and sail around in international waters where I am out
of the jurisdiction of any specific government. The only problem
with that is, though, when you're sailing in international waters,
that's true. As soon as you get to a port,
(19:57):
you're definitely in the jurisdiction of the government. And he
went to Greece and got thrown out of Greece, he
got thrown out of Spain, he got thrown out of Morocco,
he got thrown out of Portugal. I mean, it was
sort of one thing after another, but he believed that
this was the way to stay out of trouble with
(20:21):
government agencies and authorities, and to some extent that worked
for a number of years because he was able to
move from one place to the next, to the next
and sort of out out of this hot water, jump
into the next part, and then that would eventually boil
over and then jump into the next one, until in
(20:43):
ninety five he sort of went well. Actually, what happened
was he had a heart attack in nine and I
was on board the ship with him in Curasao, and
the medical care there wasn't what he thought it was necessary,
so he decided have to go back to the US.
So we all ended up coming back to the United
(21:04):
States and and taking up residents in clear Water, Florida,
which is still the quote spiritual headquarters of scientology in
the world, clear Water, Florida. We're going to pause for
a word from our sponsor, and then we'll be back
with more from Mike Render. And we're back with our
(21:30):
conversation with Mike Render, formerly of the Church of Scientology.
You you knew Hubbard. I mean you you were in
the church from a very early age and you got
connected at a relatively high level pretty early. I think
in your teens you were on that chip and you
knew l Ron Hubbard himself. Can you talk a little
bit about how that came to be from being in
(21:50):
Australia and raised scientologist and then being on this ship
and international waters with this, you know, science fiction writer
come religious guru. Yes I can, Okay, no, no, no,
that the truth of the matter is being raised a
scientologist as a It's sort of like the the old
(22:16):
idea of uh families in the Catholic Church sending their
oldest son to to the Vatican to to serve and
ultimately hopefully rise to the level of being a bishop
or whatever. That really was my idea when I was
(22:37):
growing up. Was eventually the most important thing for me
to do, and what I aspired to do was to
work with ll Run Hubbard, Like this is in in
the mind of a scientologist, This is like sitting at
the feet of Buddha. This is like going and and
being personally with the with the the ultimate authority and transcendental,
(23:05):
brilliant mind of the universe. And for a young scientologist
and a scientology family, that was kind of, oh, that's
pretty cool. If you can pull that off. There's not
many who do. There were only you know, people on
that ship with l Run Hubbard. That was it. That
(23:26):
was two fifty people in the entire world who got
to learn at the feet of the master. And so
it was it was a privilege and an honor, and
uh made the family proud that I went off to do,
(23:49):
you know, serve my time with l. Run Hubbard. And
he was he was an enigma in many respects. You know,
you read a lot, you know, since I left scientology,
I have read a lot, and I read a lot
about you know, personality disorders and sociopaths and psychopaths and
(24:13):
this and that. There are a lot of people and
they have very definite characteristics that are that are chattable
and documentable, and they all had them. And Hubbard was
on one side, astonishingly charming. I mean, he had the
(24:34):
ability to charm people and tell stories and be very
gregarious and funny and and endearing almost and on the
other side it was like the jackal and hide. He
was like a raging lunatic. And it's it's interesting that
(24:57):
when at least in my experience, you are you are
associated with those people. And it's funny because you know,
some of the books talk about this. You tend to
look at others as you see yourself, and so you
look at someone and they're they're like, they tell jokes
(25:20):
and they're kind of nice, and they they ask how
you're doing and are you well, which was like a
Hubbard sort of trait, and you know, being very solicitous
and you're almost self effacing and then turning into a
rage monster and you go, well, I guess he just
(25:41):
gives a little upset that like you excuse it because
you don't believe that that's the real person. You believe
that that's the anomaly, and that the real person is
the good part, because that's how good people are, and
that's how you look at others sort of through your
own lens. And it takes quite a lot when, particularly
(26:05):
when you've been raised to believe that someone is like
the Guru and has the answers to everything in life
and has discovered things that nobody in the history of
the universe has discovered before to shake off the idea
that they could that that the bad that you were
seeing is really bad, and that it's not just an anomaly.
(26:29):
And and so, you know, like I said, Hubbard was
an enigma. Anybody that you talked to that actually met
the guy will tell you, my god, he was charming,
he was larger than life. He walked into a room
and the room lit up, and he was amazing, and
there were all this sort of stuff. And then did
you ever feel like maybe it was your like, Oh,
(26:50):
I don't want to displease him. I don't want to
bring out that angry side. It could be my fault.
Maybe I did something wrong. Oh of course. And that's
a that's a fundamental prince of pull of scientology. I
was even gonna get to that null a fundamental principle.
And Hubbard was a genius in developing a lot of
the things that he did in scientology, because the idea
(27:13):
in scientology is that you are responsible for everything about
your state of being, and what if good things happen
to you, it's because you're good but if bad ship
happens to it's good things happen to it is because
scientology taught you how to how to experience the good.
If bad stuff happens to you, it's because of your
(27:35):
own evil transgressions, violations of the more rays of the group.
And if you look inside your own head and figure
out what it is that you have done that has
caused this bad ship to happen to you, it will
all resolve. So you look and you go, oh my god,
(27:58):
the old man is really he's really pissed. He's upset
of me. What did I do? How did I cause
that to happen? And that is probably the biggest trap
of scientology. You look around, because David Biscavige has a
lot less redeeming qualities than they'll run Hubbard. He's got
(28:20):
a lot of a lot more bad uh traits and
a lot less sort of charismatic nice things that you
could say about him. And you look around, you go,
but there's people there that have been there for twenty
years and that he's beating them, and he's abusing them.
(28:40):
He spits on him, he calls him names, he cursses
them out, He has him dig shit out of the toilets,
you know, etcetera, etcetera. Why do they put up with it?
The reason they put up with it is because they
have been indoctrinated to believe because they're somehow bad and
they haven't discovered what they're evil is yet. But if
(29:04):
they keep working at it, they'll get there. Right, They're
they're being punished for a reason. You know, you said
something you said to really interesting things previously, Mike, where
you said you alluded to something called the prison of
the mind for for people who were practicing scientology. And
(29:25):
then you had also said, and I won't do a
compound question this time, promise, You had also said that
he uh, that David Mimskevidge in in particular, Uh, it
seemed kind of like an anomalous nutcase until you read
a book called The Sociopath next stores. Was that the
correct one? Yes, brilliant book by Matha Sell. Dr Matha Stell. Yeah.
(29:49):
And from what we understand about the good and the
bad of scientology, the idea is that one should one
should be able to control one's emotions. So isn't that
kind of a contradiction that he would be so filled
with rage? It's a complete contradiction. And it's a contradiction
(30:12):
for another reason. And there is tons and tons and
tons of contradictions in scientology. You don't see them until
you get out. But think about this what I just
told you about the the idea that when something bad
has happened to you, it's because of your evil doing
(30:33):
for everybody except the guy at the top. For the
guy at the top, his upset or bad stuff happening
to him is because everybody else is doing bad stuff
to him. For everybody underneath, what's that bad stuff happening
to members because of what they did? When it comes
to David Muscavite or l Ron Hubba knew that that
(30:56):
rule suddenly goes out the window. That rule comes David
Muskevitch is being abused by his subordinates. They are seeking
to upset him, They are destroying him, and they must
look inside them, their hearts and their minds to figure
out why they are seeking to destroy this great man.
(31:19):
And that was the same with They'll run Hubbard, And
you're exactly right, Ben. The idea that you fly off
into rage and start beating the crap out of people
is the example of the pinnacle of the scientology world,
that this is what this would be like. You know,
the Dalai Lama. The story start coming out about the
(31:42):
Dalai Lama that you know, he's got a sword set
in his in his place over there, and when someone
displeases him, he chops their fingers off, you know, like
it's just it doesn't it doesn't match up with what
is presented to the world that scientology teaches you and
(32:04):
processes you if you pay enough money to eradicate irrational,
mis emotional responses to the stimuli of the world. And
it's a huge contradiction. Absolutely, We're gonna take a quick
break here and we'll be back very shortly, and we're back, Okay,
(32:36):
So I think that right there. I haven't honestly, I
have not listened to much of your your show Scientology
Fair Game yet I cannot wait to. But I imagine
that you guys get into quite a bit of discussion
about uh, David and a lot of that on your show.
Would that be correct? Yes? Absolutely? That Okay, that's awesome. Again,
(32:58):
just from a group of guys who have been making
a show for a long time, that sounds like a
terrifying thought. Just when you think about um possible. You know,
the things that scientology has done in the past with
its First Amendment rights and uh large bags of money
that they have. UM, but I want to I want
to talk specifically about you. UH an experience that your
(33:21):
co host of Scientology Fair Game, Leah Remedy had at
one point in her life. She was well, I guess
I don't know force would be the correct word. She
was told to go to a facility in Clearwater, Florida
that you mentioned for a thing that was termed reprogramming.
Can can you talk to us about what that term
(33:43):
means within the context of scientology. Yes, I'm gonna try
and do this without using too much Scientology's in in
the description. But Leah made the mistake of questioning, uh,
the judgment and act of at ease of Tom Cruise
and David Muscavige, and for that that is a modal
(34:06):
sin when the world of scientology. She was told that
she must go to the facility in clear Water at
her own expense and ultimately cost a three hundred thousand dollars, Yes,
three hundred thousand dollars two receive this scientology auditing and
(34:28):
auditing in scientology is is you know what the term
that is used to describe scientology counseling, and it is
done with this like little Anita that's sort of like
a little lie detector. You hold these two cans and
it registers, and the person is doing on the other
(34:51):
side sort of goes, oh, you've got this, or you know,
tell me about that or whatever. Yeah, I want to
know um. And it was to get her two effectively
admit that everything, every critical thought, every criticism that she
(35:11):
had was stemmed from something that she had done. And
it's exactly what I was telling you before. This is
a very very very fundamental concept in scientology. It's not
just if bad stuff happens to you. If you talk
shit about someone, it's because you've done bad things to them.
(35:36):
So it's it's the idea that you're critical of someone
because you have done something to hurt them or harm
them in some way. So now are seeking to make
less of them so that you can make it seem
that what you are doing and saying is correct. It's
(35:56):
that the problem with it is, and this is the
problem with a lot of scientology. There is some fundamental
truth to these things. There is some kernel of truth.
There is not a lot in scientology that is just
shear bullshit. There is a lot that is take a
(36:17):
thing and turn it into something with a twisted logic
that changes actually what it in, what it started out being,
into something that is almost diametrically opposed. And you see
that in the vowel too. You see how Ranieri managed
(36:39):
to twist things that had some fundamental concept or idea
in it, like being living up to your word, and
turned that into being a slave. Now, how you get
from one to the other is kind of astonishing, but
he managed to convince plenty of people to do it,
(36:59):
to the point where they were calling up and asking
am I allowed to eat in another thirteen calgaries? Masta?
That is that is crazy. But just like scientology, something
there was some fundamental principle that's you could agree with,
or a truth that you could agree with, that then
(37:20):
gets built upon and built upon and sort of interpreted
and twisted. And that's what happens with these concepts in scientology.
And that's what Leo was doing there for all that time.
Was until she had found something that explained every single
(37:42):
critical thought or comment she had made, she was not
free to go This sits on another thing that's um
that's been often talked about, again from outside reports and
often from former members of the organization, which is the
idea of essentially being held against one's will being allowed
(38:05):
to go. Uh. It makes me think specifically of the
news that we hear every so often about David M.
Kvig's spouse, who has been out of the public eye
for quite a long time. Mike, is is it true
that this organization has or does hold people against their
will or is it more of like an emotional peer pressure? Okay, yes,
(38:28):
this organization does hold people against their will. They can
be falsibly held and restrained and prevented from leaving. And
I have seen that happen and it is so or
people locked in a room and not let out, that
sort of stuff. But that's not really what the problem is.
(38:49):
The problem is people being held based on their will
because their will has been bent and they believe that
what they are doing is ultimately going to be their salvation.
That and you know, Larry Wright in his brilliant book
Going Clear that he's subtitled Scientology and the Prison of Belief,
(39:14):
because that's what it is. This is the Stockholm syndrome.
This is the idea that you can change someone's thinking
to the point where they believe that staying is best
for them, even if staying means being locked in a
room and sleeping on the floor and being tortured every day,
(39:39):
and you know, like crazy stuff. But you this is
not limited to scientology either. You know, look at the
people that were at Jonestown, Look at the people that
are in fundamentalist Mormon you know, Warren Jeff's turning their
kids over to some widow pervert to be to become
(40:01):
their sex slaves. I mean, this is and this is
a concept that is very, very difficult to to persuade
anybody to act upon. And what I mean by that
is so often you see um people seeking justice for
(40:25):
what has been done to them, and courts and law
enforcement don't recognize that twisting someone's mind is like is
just is just as as damaging and intrusive and and
(40:47):
inappropriate than twisting their arm. But because it's not a
physical you know, there's no physical assault, and the laura
is about salt and battery. There's no law about a
salt and battery of the mind. And so a lot
of this stuff goes and and you know, people don't.
(41:11):
Courts don't know what to do with it. Do Do
they believe that someone was brainwashed? Do they buy into
the idea that such a thing as brainwashing exists? Even
if you call it by another name, don't call it brainwashing,
mental coercion, whatever. Is that something that is actionable? Is
that something that you can do something about? Can you
prove it? It's but believe me, it is way way
(41:37):
more down. You can recover from a twisted um, it's
much harder to recover from a twisted mind. Well. And
you can also take a photograph of a bruise and
enter it into an exhibit in court. You can't take
a photograph of a of a damaged mind or even prove.
The burden for proving like pain and suffering or psychological
(41:58):
damage so much higher than being able to say, this
person punched me, and here's the proof, here's a polaroid,
and it's done. You know, you can't do it, um
And and this this leads to, I mean, quickly, just
to follow up, clearly, you and Leo were able to disconnect,
you know, and and go on with your lives, uh,
you know, but still that has resulted as you being
(42:20):
top listed people of folks who can threaten the church.
I mean, you know that to me is is easy. Again,
it's the mind. It's the twisting of the mind to
believe that you are foregoing your eternity, that if you
if you walk away from this, you're losing your family,
(42:44):
you're losing your friends, you're losing everything that you've ever known.
That if there's something, I mean, these guys managed to compartmental.
I've heard Jun travol To say this often, Well, you know,
I don't know everything that's going on. Bullshit, I don't
know everything that's going on. Uh not really, I don't
(43:06):
know everything that's going on. But what I do know
is that scientology has helped me. So why wouldn't I
continue to participate in something that has helped me? And
that is a pretty unassailable position to take, because who
are you to say, well, it hasn't helped you. Look
at your dummy, it hasn't helped you. But it is
(43:29):
also you can ask John Travolta, well, have you watched
The Aftermath? Did you read the did you read the
article in the Tampa Bay Times? Have you read Lawrence
Writes book? Why would I do that? Why would I
want to read bad stuff about something that has helped me.
(43:51):
And this is another thing that Scientology and Nexium and
everyone else has made a very a sort of a
study of how do you persuade people not to look
at anything bad about you? How do you persuade them
that it is harmful to them spiritually? If they look
(44:13):
at something bad, it's going to detract from their progress
in Scientology, and ultimately code code cost them more money
to have to undo the bad effects of that on them.
And and when I'm saying to you this, realize for
(44:34):
a scientologist, if they go read US magazine and there
is a negative story about Tom Cruise in there, or
Leah Remedy is interviewed in US magazine, they are going
to have to go in and pay for the auditing
that unburdens them of the horrible sin of having looked
(44:56):
at something negative about Scientology, because that's regress them in
their progress. So many questions we may not get to
all of them, But this reminds me, Mike of the
massive dump of internal documents from Wiki leaks a few
years back, which I know was a huge deal inside
the organization. I can only imagine, but definitely outside the organization,
(45:19):
And we were stunned when we realized that people who
were in the organization, we're being told, look, this is
out there, but don't read it, you know what I mean,
treated as though it doesn't exist. And uh, I see
(45:39):
now the financial incentive inherent there. You had earlier said
Scientology is worth three billion dollars with a lack of oversight. Uh.
Do people ever reach a point in the organization? Do
they progress to a point where there are no law
(46:00):
younger being asked to pay money for audits or anything
like that. It's a gift. Seriously, No, No, you can
reach the very top of the Scientology bridge to total
freedom and then be told, oh, sorry, we found something new.
(46:25):
You need to go back and start over. And this
is something that Nixium has too. I was speaking to
Sarah Evanson the other day and she told me, she said,
do you know we had to redo our training. We'd
get all, we get our scoff or whatever those things
sash and then they'd come out and say, oh no,
(46:45):
you have to go back and redo it all and
you have to pay again. And it's the same thing
in Scientology. You have to redo it. And we got
we found some new I'm just formally unknown piece of
information from l. Run Hubbard that was buried in someone's
suitcase under their bed somewhere, and suddenly, now everything that
(47:06):
you did before has to be redone. And not only that,
we now have a new fundraising program. We have to
buy new facilities for every church in the world. And
they we call these ideal Organs. And Scientology has been
opening these buildings around the world for the last twenty
(47:28):
years on a theory that David Bis Scavenge presented a
Scientologists that in order for Scientology to truly expand, it
had to have buildings and facilities that would allow all
aspects of scientology to be presented in an appropriate fashion
for everyone. So we need new buildings and they have
(47:51):
to be x number of square feet and it's gonna
cost twenty million dollars and blah blah blah blah. So
pay out and this pay up for that and for
the another thing called the International Association of Scientologists, which
is a uh is a scam. It's just a scam.
(48:14):
It's like scientologists believe that giving money to the International
Association of Scientologists is helping educate children in Africa or
save people from hurricanes, or you know, do good work
for the the victims of earthquake in Haiti or whatever.
And it's bullshit. It does not happen. The most that
(48:38):
happens is they go and shoot a video and then
they show everybody, look at this video. We got five
people in this video, but there were thousands more that
you just can't see. And keep giving us money, and
we will give you these gaudy bowling pin bowling trophies
and start calling you Platinum Excalibur something or other or
(49:00):
Platinum Meritorious Patron of the Gluteus Maximus or like it's
it's like these bizarre, absurd names and people hand over
ten fifty million dollars. And like I said, with no oversight,
(49:22):
scientology never has to show its books. They never have
to show tithing, right, And isn't that basically the same
thing as tithing to a church, like well, if if tithing, well,
you typically you think of tithing as like ten percent.
If tithing was fifty, that's more of the scientology model
fifty or more. Like Scientology is ruthless about getting money.
(49:47):
Go take a loan, go, you know, get cash in
your your college fund, get your stocks, sell your stocks,
sell your house, do whatever, get us the money now.
But us, this money right now is going to save
the world. They've been saying that for fifty years is
and things aren't going so good. Our conversation with Mike
(50:11):
Render continues and it goes in some fascinating to a
degree disturbing places, so much so that we did not
want to cut any of it, and we have decided
to make this a two part episode. We promised that
this is going to be worth it. We hope that
(50:32):
you join us for Part two of this interview, which
is coming out later this week. In the meantime, we
highly recommend checking out Mike and Leah's new podcast, Scientology
Fair Game. Yeah. There, you can find deep dives into
so many of the incredible stories that Mike and Leah
(50:53):
have from their time in Scientology. So definitely worth giving
both part two of our episode with my and the
entirety of Scientology Fair Game your full attention, absolutely, and
if you want to continue the conversation that occurred here today,
head on over to Here's where it gets Crazy our
Facebook group. You can you know, comment in there, respond
(51:16):
to somebody else, meet some other conspiracy realists. You will
enjoy your time, we assure you, as long as you
use Facebook or you're willing to, I guess. Or you
can find us on Twitter, where we are also conspiracy stuff,
or Instagram where we're conspiracy stuff show. Visit us on
YouTube while you're on the internet if you want to
(51:37):
see our excerpts from our recent episodes, or if you
want to see our original deep cut things that are
intros to rabbit holes galore, Uh, including piece on Operations
snow White, which we which we may may mention a
little more in depth in our interview. And I think
(51:59):
there's one called a Wednesday vlog. Something has a title
something like that. I can't remember exactly, but it's a
video on that channel with Ben in a parking like
underground parking deck two. We're discussing scientology and I can't
recall exactly what it is, but find it. Oh yeah,
those are the days when we were we were literally
(52:20):
sneaking around the office film me wherever we could. Uh.
You can also, if you feel so inclined, leave us
a review on Apple podcast or iTunes. Uh. It makes
a big difference every time that there is a five
star review. Uh. Our boss calls us and says that
(52:41):
I am one week further away from being fired. Yeah,
and then angel gets its wings and my son says,
good chop, dad, I love you. Three amazing things that happened.
You have the power. And uh, if you are anti
internet but profull boy, do we have news for you.
(53:03):
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(53:26):
and we'll we'll see what we can do. We're very
very much looking forward to hearing your stories from this,
especially if you have ever been involved in scientology in
one way, shape or form ever in the past or
are now. We just want to we want to hear
from you. But what do you do if you hate phones?
What do you do if you hate social media? It's
(53:49):
a pressing question for our times, boy, is it ever? Well,
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fashioned email. We are conspiracy at I heart radio dot com. Yeah. Stuff,
(54:18):
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