Danny Jones Podcast - #163 - Scientology is on the Verge of Destruction | Aaron Smith-Levin

Episode Date: November 29, 2022

Aaron Smith-Levin was raised in Scientology. From early childhood he worked for the organization full-time, as a staff member and a Sea Org member. He held various positions in Philadelphia, Clearwater & Los Angeles, all related to training Scientology auditors. Aaron officially left Scientology in early 2014, and since 2015 Aaron has been educating the public about Scientology and exposing abuses within the organization through his YouTube channel “Growing Up In Scientology.”   EPISODE LINKS:  Aftermath Foundation: https://theaftermathfoundation.org YouTube: https://youtube.com/@GrowingUpInScientology Instagram: https://instagram.com/asmithlevin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're like the biggest voice in Florida or like the Clearwater area on Scientology. It's pretty wild. It's true. Mike Rinder's on that list, but he doesn't live in Clearwater. He doesn't live here anymore? Well, he's up in Palm Harbor. He's in Palm Harbor. Okay, yeah, he is on that list.

He was like number three in Scientology, right? Depending on how you define it. I mean, depending on how you define it, he was number two. Oh, really? There's no hard, hard to find. The corporate structure and the hierarchical structure of Scientology is so redundant and complicated. that there's no hard, fast definition. But the way I'm thinking about it,

it would be accurate to even call him number two at one point. Scoot that thing out just a little bit. You're talking a little bit in front of it. Perfect. Yeah, it would be accurate to even call him number two at one point. Really? Yeah, yeah. How did you get involved in Scientology?

I was essentially born and raised in it. So I was four years old when my mom got involved. Yeah. Like, most Scientologists are second, third generation Scientologists. Most Scientologists these days did not join Scientology. So like I was four years old when my mom started to get involved. I was 12 years old when my mom pulled me and my siblings out of school to start working full time for Scientology. 12. I did not go to high school. I did not finish middle school. I do not have a diploma. I do not have a GED or anything.

And you you weren't down here, right? This was in Philadelphia where my mom joined. Okay. Yeah. But we came down here soon afterwards. Not soon after she joined, but soon after she joined, but soon after. after she pulled us out of school to start working for Scientology. So we were in Philadelphia, the suburbs of Philadelphia, living in the suburbs, but there's only one Scientology organization in all of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, and that's downtown Philly. Okay. So my mom, her husband, me, my brother, stepbrothers, step sisters, all started working

full-time for Scientology when I was 12 years old in 1993. That's fucking wild. And then it was the end of 1993 or the very beginning of 1994 when, you know, when, you And we came down here to Clearwater. So I don't want to get too far off into the weeds too early. So stop me if you want to. But we were staff members of the organization in Philadelphia. But we were coming down here to do full-time training so that we could then go back there and do the jobs that we were training for.

Okay. So I was down here for like three years, formative years, 12 to 15, well, 13 to 15 years old. And I was 15. And by the way, that's no school. just studying Scientology and then doing labor to pay for the fact that we were living here on Scientology facilities. So like literally working in the restaurants, working in the laundry facilities, doing demolition, construction. I mean, this is a legal shit. This is a legal shit.

This is Scientology does not care about normal laws. And so from the age of, well, basically. basically 12 to 15, I was studying Scientology and doing labor for Scientology. And then at 15, I finished my training for the job that I was supposed to do in Philly. So then I went back to Philly. And that's when I was now working, you know, seven days a week. The same schedule that I had been doing here in Clearwater, I was now doing there, except I was now living in the real world, not just living here on Scientology's campus in Clearwater. So I'm working, I'm 15 years old. I'm working full time in downtown Philadelphia. I'm living in South Jersey at a friends in my mom's house. I'm 15 years old.

I now have a 16 year old daughter and I don't like at the time at 15 I thought there was nothing unusual about what I was doing. Now I have a 16 year old daughter. I would never in a million years let her do anything remotely like what I was doing. So how old were you when your mom told you, hey, I'm going to pull you out of school and what did she say to you? Well, I was 12. I was 12. And just to put it in sort of a perspective like chronologically speaking, this was in 1993 when Scientology had just gotten its tax exempt status back. I don't know if you know. I heard in the interview. I didn't know they lost it. They did. They did. They had tax exemption when Elron Hubbard was still alive in the early years, like in the 60s. They had gotten it. And then the IRS took it away because they were

able to demonstrate that El Ron Hubbard was personally enriching himself from the funds of Scientology. Was that when he took off on the boat? That was much later. Much later. And so Scientology had tax exemption. They lost it. When El Ron Hubbard died, he had an estate worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The instructions in his will were that this estate was to essentially be gifted to Scientology,

but not until there was a tax exempt entity that it could be transferred to without being taxed. So that's why Mr. Miskavich, David Miscavich and was so hell-bent on getting the tax exemption back. that's where they started harassing the IRS, filing thousands of lawsuits and everything. Because that was essentially Ms. Scavich's task, his main task he needed to complete when Owen Hubbard died, was to get this tax exemption back. So the reason I'm mentioning that, 1993 was an important year for Scientology. And once they announced the tax exemption, they announced a huge recruiting effort to train,

to recruit and train 20 Scientology auditors for every Scientology organization in the world. well my mom had been a staff member earlier and then had left staff to take care of all the kids and she'd always wanted to figure out how to join staff again but couldn't do it because of all the kids how do you join staff with all the kids right she was like well i got a bright idea why don't all the kids join staff too and so that's what we did so we i led a relatively normal life up until the sixth grade okay then in the seventh grade my mom pulled us all out of school and we did homeschool for the seventh grade and we would do homeschool shit in the day

and then we'd go to the Scientology org at night. And then... So at least we were still keeping you in education somewhat. Yes, but then once we had finished enough, remember so we're doing the homeschool day, studying at the Scientology org at night, but what we were studying was the stuff we needed to study to qualify to come down here to Clearwater.

So once we finished studying, like some of the entry-level, you know, relatively entry-level courses, in Philly. Now it was like, great. We're approved to go to Clearwater. And that's when we picked up. And for the next three years, we were down here. None of the authorities in Philly or Pennsylvania knew that we were in Florida. None of the authorities in Florida knew that we were here. We were just living in the Scientology bubble. So you were doing all this work just to pay off your admission to be in Scientology and for, I guess there were the prices or the fees for taking certain courses. specifically what I was paying off with that labor was the fact that we were Philadelphia staff members

but we're living here in facilities owned by the Clearwater organization. So we were essentially paying and they're feeding us three meals a day. So we're doing the labor just for the room and board, not for the courses. Technically staff members get their courses for free unless you break your contract and you have to pay for it all. So we're doing the labor just to live in an apartment with eight other people and get fed three meals a day. You're doing like 25 hours of labor a week. Now I say it now and I realize how crazy it sounds now. I didn't have any particular problem with it back then.

I rather enjoyed it, to be honest. It's a weird thing to say. But just think, I don't know what your high school experience was like, your middle school experience because I never had one. But I can tell you that the school experience I do remember, it wasn't exactly a great experience. and realize when I say we're doing these labor jobs, it's not just like you send all the kids out to the field and do labor. We're working side by side with normal adults who are doing the same study program and doing the same work. I guess what I'm saying here is at that young age, it sort of felt cool to be treated like an adult.

That's what I'm really trying to say there. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, definitely. It wasn't like, oh, geez. I mean, was I going, oh, man, I love the fact that I'm working in a kitchen. No, but you don't really thinking about it. You're just kind of living life. We were around other kids your age?

There was about a hundred other kids my age from all over the world. Wow. Man, one of the most fucked up things about it, especially when you watch that documentary, I just watched it like the third time. But when she, when that lady, I think her,

what's her name, Spanky? Spanky, she talks about her daughter being fucking sitting in some unair conditioned rooms surrounded by flies and her eyes crusted shut from infections and stuff. Yeah. Like, is that,

like, thing that's happening today, do they really have these malnourished children that are being held hostage from their parents? Today, no. Okay. Because they changed the rules about being able to have kids in the Seahork. So in Spanky's story, she was a C-org member in Los Angeles. And there was a time when Seahorg members were allowed to have kids, which is a horrible idea in the C-organization. Yeah. Now these days, you can't have kids in the C organization. So what does that mean? It means if you get pregnant, you're very much pressure to go get an abortion so you can stay in the C or. Now, I'm pro choice. That, like, the idea of someone getting an abortion is not offensive to me. The idea of an organization pressuring you to get an abortion, an organization that calls itself a church is fucking disgusting. I mean, that's disgusting. it very difficult for you to leave. Yeah. And Flag, I mean, you know the one in downtown Clearwater. Oh, of course. It's called Flag. They have a shuttle that takes Seorg members to the abortion

clinic. Really? Yeah. Well, because they got like 1,500 Seorg members. And these people don't have access to health care. They make 50 bucks a week, you know, like they're going to, they get pregnant. They have a weekly shuttle. They had to start spreading out the abortion business to multiple clinics because red flags were starting to go up is, why does this organization keep bringing shuttles of people for abortions. Like, it's crazy. I mean, it's crazy. You said it's absolutely crazy. Have you ever been inside that building? The new building, no. I was already on the house with Scientology. It's like the Jack Tar. It used to be the Jack Tar Hotel, right? Oh, the Fort Harrison. I've been inside the The Four Harrison. That's different. The flag building is the one they built across the street from it.

That's just this giant massive like 500,000 square. The one closer to the water? You're thinking of the sandcastle. The one, I'm thinking of there's two buildings and there's like a bridge that goes over the road on top of it. The one that's closer to. the water is the Fort Harrison Hotel. Like if you're looking on a map, the hotel is on the west side, closer to the water. Exactly.

But then across from it, it's just a massive, like four or five story. It takes up a whole city block. That's the one I'm talking about. That's called the flag building. Everything inside, it looks like Trump Tower on the inside. Like it's all gold-plated and looks.

Well, it's bronze. It's not gold. Bronze. The only reason I know what it looks like is I saw a Grant Cardone post on Instagram where he's filming himself going through it. I'm like, holy fuck, that's what's inside that place? Fucking Grand Cardone, man.

Insane. Yeah, no, I was already on the outs with Scientology. I wasn't officially, you know, the word they use is declared, declared an espade, declared a suppressive person. Yeah. It's being expelled. And Scientology doesn't, it's not in the business of getting rid of people. So what it'll do is if it thinks you're sort of like straying away, it'll try to keep you,

try to keep you, try to keep you. And then when they realize they're not going to do that, they're like, get the fuck out out of here. We don't want you anyway. You were never any good. Really? Yeah. So Scientology will say that people like,

me and Ronnie Miscavitch Sr. who you've interviewed. He's not with us anymore. But, and Mike Rinder, they'll say, oh, these people were expelled. No, no, no, no, no. Once you gave up on being able to keep us, then you put a little paper together. It was like, oh, yeah, these guys are expelled. Have you heard the story of his, Ron McSavage's story of trying to escape? Oh, yeah. Ron was a friend of my God. It's terrifying how he had to escape. Yeah. He literally had to plan it out for, I think it was months. He planned it out months. And he got chased out like fucking wild. Yeah. I mean, that's not even the craziest one. I mean, one of these days, once, you know, Shelley Miskavich's assistant, the young woman who used to work for Shelly Miskavich, her name's Valerie Haney. And she's got a lawsuit going right now against Scientology. But when that lawsuit's all concluded, you should plan on interviewing her. She escaped in the trunk of a car of a non-Scientologist.

I mean, it's bad shit crazy. Whatever happens. So there's a current story going on with Shelley Miscavage, right? Apparently that they hadn't been able to find her, but they did find her. It's a very convoluted story. It is. So everything I'm going to, every answer I'm going to give you this is something that's already been discussed, for example, on the Leah Remini and Leah Remini Scientology and the Aftermath television show. Have you seen the whole thing? No. Okay. There's an episode specifically about Shelly Ms. Cavage. And the reason why I mentioned that is because Leah Remini is the one who originally raised the issue of like, where's Shelly. Right. And she's the one who filed the missing persons report on Shelly. So, you know, in Leah Remedy's TV show, she did an episode about Shelly where they actually show where she works, where she's working. It's, stop me if I get too far off into the weeds. But you're familiar that Scientology has an international management base like out in the desert in California, right? You're familiar with that?

Yeah. They call that. Was it called the gold, something? It's called the Int Base. Okay. But on the Int base is a movie studio called Golden Air Productions. Right. Okay.

So if you're a public Scientologist, you might hear someone say, oh, I shot a film at Gold. Okay. But gold refers to the studio, not the base. Sometimes it's used interchangeably. Okay. But most Scientologists will call it the Intonologist. we'll call it the int base. Okay.

Okay. Shelly Miskavitch worked at the int base, and that base is, the location of that base is confidential in Scientology. Like, you can Google it and find out where it is. You can drive by it on the freeway. Scientologists don't know where it is, and they're not allowed to ask. Really? Okay.

So, but most, to most Scientologists, that int base is like the most secretive base in Scientology. But what Scientologists don't know is that the Seahorg member, who work on the int base don't even know the location of other more secretive bases. Saying this shit out loud is so crazy. So there's a whole other like shadow organization in Scientology called CST, the Church of Spiritual Technology. Have you heard of this? No. You're going to love this. So this organization. This is amazing. This organization is the one tasked with what, what they call the preservation of the technology project.

So, you know, Scientologists call everything LRH wrote the tech. You've heard that word. I've heard that, yeah. The tech. So the tech is the books, the policy letters, the lectures, the bulletins. Okay. Well, Hubbard believes that this civilization will eventually wipe itself out through nuclear war. And nothing could be more important to civilization than Scientology.

Not a crazy belief. Not a crazy belief. But Elron Hubbard wanted to make sure that once, we all nuked ourselves that the civilization that was remaining would eventually be able to rediscover Scientology. So CST, the Church of Spiritual Technology, takes all of his original works and etches them onto steel plates and nickel like LPs, this like records, right, and stores them in like titanium containers like pumped through with like argon like neutral argon gas or whatever and stores them in secret underground nuclear proof

vaults. Wow. CST. The location of those vaults is one of the most confidential secrets in Scientology. People who work at one of the vaults

do not know the location of the other vaults. This is like some funny. You think Scientology is funny. This is a whole other level. So when we get annihilated by a comet and some other civilization comes back in a billion years, and trying to find remains of our civilization,

they're going to find fucking Scientology tablets. That's the hope. Except I'm sure, you know, the bunkers might be nuclear proof, but I doubt they're comet proof. And it's like, I think civilization that's rebuilding itself is going to have other things they care about more than like El Ron Hubbard's book on how to use a fucking dictionary. So here's the thing.

Let's take Shelley Miscavich out of the equation for a second. these bases would be considered to any normal seorg member one of the most highest privileges and honors to be promoted to the level where you're allowed to work at these bases it would also be considered a sweetheart deal the life of a seerg member your day-to-day life is extremely um it's the word nerve-wracking it's stressful there's constant demands on your time like there's no such thing as downtime. There's no such thing as time off. There's no such thing as relaxation. There's no TV. There's no nothing. It's extremely stressful. And you're usually working with public who will complain if they're not being serviced correctly and everything. The idea of being able to work off

in some remote base where your only job is to like guard the vault, that would be like a dream for any Seward member. Okay. Shelley Miscavage is working at one of these bases. So there's two issues here that could possibly get conflated. Did David Miskavich send Shelley to work at one of these bases as a punishment? Yeah. He doesn't want to see her anymore. So she's at one of these bases. If Shelley Miskavich wanted to leave, would it be easy to leave one of these bases?

No. It wouldn't be easy to leave. So if we assume just for the sake of the argument, if Shelley Miscavich really wanted to leave and whatever, could one of these bases be used as sort of a prison? Sure. Is that what these bases are? are though? No. Any Seargue member would kill to work at one of these bases. Was Shelly banished

there as a punishment? Yeah. Does that mean Shelly wants to leave the Seorg? No one has any reason to believe Shelly Miscavich wants to leave the Seahorg. Shelly Miscavich was raised by El Rund Hubbard. Practically. She's been working for L. Ron Hubbard since she was like 13, 14 years old. She believes L. Ron Hubbard is coming back. If you're a true, believer. And if you're Shelly Miscavich and if you're married to David Miscavish and you think your husband's a piece of shit and he's lost his mind and he's taking the whole organization and, you know, changed its purpose. If you just put yourself in Shelly Miscavish's shoes, there's nothing about that whole scenario that would make you go, oh, I no longer believe in Scientology anymore. And so I want to leave.

And therefore, I'm being held against my will. Like she believes in the cause. She believes in the purpose. She believes in Elron Hubbard. She didn't join Scientology just because she was married to David Miscavich. So what happened is she used to be David Miskavich's assistant, not just his wife. Her job in the Seward was to be Miscavich's assistant. That is the only reason anyone ever saw or heard of Shelly Miscavich.

That's why Leah knows, that's why Leah knew Shelley Miscavich. Being someone's spouse in the Seorg means nothing. So let's say you're David Miscavich, right? And you have a wife. And she's not your assistant. She has some other job. she would never travel with you, ever, under any circumstances for any reason. Seargue members only do what it is their job to do.

It's not like the normal world where if you're the president or you're a CEO, you go to a function, you would just have your wife with you because she's your wife. That's not how it works in the Seargue. So I was working full-time for Scientology for 15 years. I couldn't have picked Shelly Miskavich out of a lineup. She was not a public person. Wow. If Miskavich is walking around, he's got an entourage,

maybe five, six, seven, eight people. You would never know which one is Shelly. He would never be like, let me introduce you to my wife. That's not how it works. Her job would be to be seen and not heard unless directly addressed. Because Leah is a celebrity, and because Shelley was always with Dave, Leah would see Dave and Shelley at these events. So they became acquaintances.

They became friends to the degree where maybe Leah would get letters and maybe a gift or something like that. We're not talking about two women who were going girls' trips together. Okay. So my point here is, once Dave became no longer happy with Shelley for reasons that were not Shelly's fault, he removed her from her post as his assistant. That's the last time anybody would ever expect to see Shelly again. Right.

Okay. There's probably a dozen or two dozen other senior executives of Scientology who've not been seen in 10 or 15 years. Nobody really gives a shit about them because they're not Shelly Muscavich. you see what I mean? Yes. So now there's nothing I have just said that Leah Remedy wouldn't agree with. Leah Remedy's position is it's simply inhumane for us not to be able to know that Shelley's okay. That's that's that's Leia's position.

And she hasn't been seen anywhere. She hasn't made any kind of public statements, nothing of the sort. She hasn't, but we also wouldn't know. Because she wouldn't do that anyways. Right. It's not her nature. Right. And let's say Shelley Miscavage.

had returned to the normal int base. We would never know. So all we know is that we don't know. But here's what we learned in the last few weeks. The police did finally, LAPD did finally in the last few weeks come out and say, when Leah Remedy filed her missing persons report, they went out to one of these bases and did meet face-to-face with Shelly, with an attorney present.

They had never made that information known before just a few weeks ago. When was that? When did they do that? I want to say 2013, 2014, but I'm a little fuzzy with my date sometimes on that. But here's the thing. Leah had given the LAPD a letter to deliver to Shelly, saying, go with these people, leave. I will take care of you. Don't worry about the fallout. Don't worry about the consequences.

I'll take care of you. And she wanted the police to confirm for her that they had given the letter to Shelly. Well, the police wouldn't. They wouldn't even tell Leah that they didn't give the letter. Right. They just said that's classified. Well, now they're just being assholes. Right.

There's no such thing as fucking classified when it comes to the police. It's not the CIA. It's ridiculous. Okay, so, but this is where Leah's like her, this is why she still has this beef. She has not been able, because the LAPD have basically been essentially trolling, like treating her like crap,

just not giving her the information. Like the LAPD's behavior is such that it seems like they're covering for Scientology. Yeah. Are they getting paid by David Miscavage? really in the pocket of Scientology. Well, the LAPD does get money from Scientology. We know that. How so? Well, because every, every year there's a fundraiser at the frickin' celebrity center for the LAPD. And then a representative of the LAPD goes up on stage is like they give them this giant oversight. Every year that's happening. Every year at the holiday party, the holiday party is a fundraiser

for the LAPD. And so you've got, you know, Captain Polka or whatever, used to be the head of the LAPD Hollywood division. He's up there getting a giant, you know, the like, the, like, the, you know, the, 20,000 oversized checks. Like, thanks Scientology for the $20,000 check. Wow. You're like, well, yeah, no wonder you guys are being assholes of Lee remedy, you know. Like, they literally wouldn't even tell Lee. Actually, here's, I've spoken to some, some police people about how this should have been

handled. They should have told Leah up front, whether they were or were not going to give that letter to Shepard. They shouldn't just be stringing Leah along for nine years or whatever it's been. Do you know what I mean? Like, there's, there's really much better ways this could have been handled. Can she do anything about it? Can she sue the police department?

Well, no, because Lee is not even a family member. Right. Like, you don't have the right. You don't necessarily, like, take Lee out of the equation, take Shelley out of the equation. I don't have the right to just know, to demand to know where someone is who's not like my mother, father, or child. Right. Right. But, I mean, if there's clear signs of corruption, I'm surprised there hasn't been any sort of investigation into it or any sort of poking or prodding that's kind of like upset the nest.

if the LAPD went and did physically see Shelly and talk to her and an attorney was present, at that point, there's just literally nothing else the police can do. Shelly's an adult. They can see you're healthy. Like, the police aren't even allowed to be like, are you here of your own free will? They got to be careful. This is a religious order. Legally speaking, the C organization is a religious order.

Right. You can't be like, you couldn't go into the Vatican and ask a cardinal, do you really want to be here or are you just like you can't do that right right so to some to me there's there's it's unquestionable that there is corruption between scientology and the l-a pd is that the same case here in clearwater oh i got to be careful with that one why you're the you got what like a hundred thousand subscribers and all you do is talk about scientology oh i'm not afraid of talking smack about any of these assholes but you don't want to talk about You don't want to talk or assume that.

When I said, I'll be careful. I'm going to be careful about specifically impuging people just because I think it and not because it's actually true. So I'll tell you what. Chief Slaughter, let's name names, Chief Dan Slaughter of the Clearwater PD, he was very, very angry with the fact that the Clearwater police were made to look, came off looking very bad in an episode of the site of Leah Remini's TV show where they shot here in Clearwater for like two or three days. And without rehashing the entire show, the police ended up looking very corrupt. The police ended up looking that they were just essentially like the jackboot soldiers for Scientology. And you have to go, well, whose fault is it that they came off looking like that? The police should understand that Scientology uses them as tools and props.

And they should conduct themselves accordingly. You know, the police are essentially, here's how I would describe it. Well, I mentioned Dan Slaughter a moment ago. Dan Slaughter historically has been on Scientology's payroll. That's just a fact. It's proven. Well, yeah, he was doing, he was the guy, he was the guy in charge of all of the off-duty police work for Scientology. Oh, wow.

So when I say on science, you know, it's not illegal for police to do off-duty work. Right. But it sure is a problem when you're doing it for a human trafficking cult that is taking over your downtown. Maybe you want to exercise some discretion on who the fuck you let your officers do off-duty work for. You know, and I've spoken to Chief Slaughter about this. And he said, look, there's an approval process on how an organization gets on that list. And once they're an approved organization, you can't exactly say no, because now you're discriminating. How does Scientology become an approved organization of the Clearwater Police Department? No, no, no, just an approved organization to hire police officers to do off-duty security work. Right, but who approves that? well, it's, it's going to be, uh, that's going to be decision made by either a person or a panel at the Clearwater Police. It's not, it's, it's definitely not a county or a state thing. Like the Clearwater Police are the ones making that decision. Okay. But his point is, in order to say no, you'd have to remove them from the list. Right. But you'd probably have to have to have some cause for that. And then you'd probably have to be ready to fight a lawsuit about that. And for some reason, the city is very scared about, you know, I say, are they still on the list? Oh, yeah.

So they're still hiring cops off duty to do their... 100%. And I'm told that they pay three times the normal rate. This is how you get corruption. This is how you get corruption. I mean, I don't know how... What else would it look like? That is how you get corruption.

That is fucking bananas. And I can tell you this, because here's the thing. What I'm not doing, I'm not even calling Chief Slaughter out for being corrupt. I actually like Chief Slaughter. and I believe he's sort of been like I'm not saying he's corrupt I'm actually saying like I do not think Chief Slaughter is out there carrying Scientology's water for them

I think he he got suckered into this the way Scientology suckers law enforcement agencies and politicians in cities all over the country into sort of kind of accidentally and inadvertently looking like they're cozy now I mentioned the off-duty work

okay but police do off-duty work for scores of organizations. I don't think that when the Clearwater police first started doing off-duty work for Scientology, it's because they were like, yeah, we love Scientology. We're going to help them take down their enemies. I think they were like, hey, easy money. It's good money. It's good money.

So I'm not even calling out Chiefs Lauder is what I'm trying to say. However, here's something else to follow them. There was a couple years ago, there was several people who had gone to the police to talk about child sex abuse that they had experienced at the hands of Scientology decades ago. And all I can tell you is every single one of those people told me they were treated like fucking shit by the Clearwater Police. And that shit really pisses me off. Because it's like if you're in the Clearwater Police, you already know you have a perception

problem. You already know you have this family destroying human trafficking cult shaping the reputation of your city. you should be bending over backwards to try and change that reputation. And treating any of these victims, alleged victims, real victims, whether the police believed them, not believed them, I don't even know. Treating them with anything less than complete respect and care and patience is in my, I mean, I'm going to use the word malpractice. I know that doesn't probably apply to police, but like it's disgusting. If you're a detective and it's your job to handle these things and you're not, you know, treating these victims with the utmost respect,

then what you're really doing is you're reinforcing the idea that you all just fucking secretly work for Scientology and the Clearwater Police can never be trusted. Now, I don't think that about the Clearwater Police. But the Clearwater Police doesn't do anything to change that perception of themselves. And that that brings up its own host of questions. Like at some point someone's going to go, are you guys just that stupid and incompetent? Or is there really an underlying issue here, which is what people have been saying all along?

I might be kind of like contradicting it. Like I'm saying it's corruption, I'm saying it's not corruption. I'm saying it looks like corruption, and the Clearwater police don't exactly do anything to change people's minds. And I think they could, and I think they should. And I think they're fundamentally afraid of Scientology.

That's what it comes down to. So, you know, decades ago, Scientology successfully sued the Clearwater government for discrimination. They were passing some ordinance that would, and I might butcher this, but I have the broad strokes correct. They were passing subordinates that would prevent people from like handing things out or doing things. But it was very clear from the statements that had been made while the ordinance was being discussed. This was really only being done to keep Scientology from doing various things. And so basically clear water fucked up. Clearwater did something that allowed Scientology to sue them,

and they ended up paying Scientology like $600,000 or $800,000 or something. And ever since then, they've been terrified to do anything that would allow Scientology to sue the city. And so it ends up looking like the city is doing their bidding for them. But really, they're just being really, really, really careful, so careful that it looks like they're working for Scientology. Wow. All these things that are happening, like with the instance of the police working for them off duty, the child sex, what was like child sex trafficking.

Sex abuse. Sex abuse. That never gets reported to the authority. Kids that are in there. I mean, obviously there's major people, like there's major individuals talking about this online. There's TV shows and documentaries getting made about it. You can find stuff on the internet. But like, how come there is not a bigger hammer.

coming down on them after all this evidence coming out? It can be very hard. So there's building a case and then there's prosecuting a case, right? Like the police build a case. The FBI builds a case. District attorneys and prosecutors and state attorneys decide whether they want to prosecute a case. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah.

So like the FBI can spend years building a case and some piece of shit, you know, state attorney can be like, eh, we don't want to prosecute this. Right. Okay. So I believe there are cases being built against Scientology. And I believe Scientology will be prosecuted. Not even for the child stuff, for the stuff that the government can sink their teeth into much easier than that.

The financial stuff, credit card fraud, bank fraud, wire fraud, which is rampant in Scientology. And that's the stuff that's easier to prove because it's black and white, its numbers, it's bank statements. You can't hide that shit. Okay. Another answer to your question. Scientologists will blatantly lie to protect Scientology.

So let's take the child stuff. let's say someone comes forward and says as a child such and such happened to me well 20 Scientologists will come forward with affidavit saying this person is completely lying right you can't bring a case when you have one person saying something happened to me and 20 people saying not only are you lying but you're known to be a liar Scientologists will do anything to protect Scientology what will it take what will it take to eventually the financial stuff brings high and tell you down and will they continue to evade this in evade their inevitable downfall by using manipulation and leverage and money i think the financial stuff will be their downfall but how how like if they're if they're using leverage on people there they'll do any whatever it takes to blackmail people or find some sort of leverage personal leverage on people or pay off certain individuals like if they continue to do that how do you how do you how do you do you see any hope of this ever happening? No, no, no, it's, it is happening. I'm not, I'm not speaking theoretically. Oh, okay. Please enlight me. People who leave Scientology have the financial records to prove the credit card fraud, the bank fraud, the wire fraud. Scientology fundraisers have been, there's so many different ways this fraud has been occurring. But I'll

give you one example. We spoke early about Seorg members, the people, we haven't defined Searge members, but if you understand what are, who cares? You know what Sear members? Okay. Well, Searag members, these guys sign the sign the billion year contracts. Okay. So when they start getting older and sicker, the Seerog just sends them off to houses to basically die.

Okay. But not before opening up several hundred thousand dollars of credit cards in their name, maxing out the cards and giving all the money to Scientology, because they're going to die in a year anyway, and then it's free and clear money. What? Oh, yeah. That's Scientology.

that's fraud. It's credit card fraud. It's bank fraud. If state lines are, I mean, you're talking about federal, federal crimes now. Holy fuck. And there's evidence of this. Lots of evidence. Yeah. And it's not the kind of evidence you can just hide. And it's been, it's been, this evidence has been available for how long? I'll say years. Years. Still nothing. still nothing has happened when you say charges haven't been filed right but remember

psychology still exists and is doing well right building a case and prosecuting a case are two different things okay right so we can say evidence has been

being compiled for years I don't think we will have to wait much longer to see charges indictments and could it be

one year could it be three years could it be five years I would bet more closer to three years But remember, you have to have political will to take this on. I believe that political will exists. I'm not naming names or anything, but I believe that will is there.

And so it's one thing to go, well, Jesus, it's been years. Sorry, I don't want to burp into the mic. It's okay. You can burp it to the mic. We do it all the time. Let's talk about, like, not to switch subjects, but the same subject. The Danny Masterson case that I'm sure you've heard about. Those victims came forward like five years ago.

For people that don't know, can you explain? Well, Danny Masterson is a Scientologist actor from that 70s show who's been accused of violent, forcible rape, including drugging, the women. He's facing charges for three women, but seven or eight women have made accusations, almost all exactly the same. And the three women who he's facing charges for were all. Scientologists, but Scientologists aren't allowed to report Scientologists to the authorities, for any reason ever. So that's why it took these women so long to come forward. But we also know

Scientology has this culture where all Scientologists snitch on each other constantly in written reports. So there's dozens of meticulously detailed reports about what Danny did, right? So Scientology might be the reason these women took so long to come forward, but Scientology is also the reason why so much fucking evidence exists about what he did. Okay, I mentioned Danny Masterson because it took five years for that to come to court. And Danny Masterson isn't a multi-billion dollar organization with a fearsome reputation. The prosecutor sat on that case for two years, meaning the police had already done their job. The police had already done the investigations. The case was sitting on the prosecutor's desk for two years. And she would have never brought the case, except the person running against her for the next

time she was up for re-election was like part of his old campaign thing was, I'm going to take care of the Scientology business that this one's not taking care of. Jackie Lacey was the one who was sitting on it. Wow. And that's just a celebrity. That's just a celebrity. Right. So all I'm saying is it's easy to get dissatisfied that it could take years and years to build a case, but I don't necessarily, or to bring it. But I don't necessarily fault, I don't necessarily fault the players in the system for the fact that it can simply take that long to put a case together, especially when you know what you're going to be up against. What is David Miscavage doing right now? Where does he live? And like, what does he, where do you think he, where do you think his mind is on all this?

Like, where is, like he's sitting in a penthouse in Clearwater right now, somehow pondering how he's going to expand Scientology because it's been on the decline for a while now, right? It's got less than 30,000 members now or it used to be, what, over 100,000? Yeah. What do you think his mindset is right now? He lives in a very funny world. I mean, he lives in a world. It's almost like, like, I don't know, however you might think of North Korea.

He almost has this North Korea that manages to exist within the boundaries of the United States. Except realize Scientology has bases in Europe, in a strong. Australia, many bases in Europe. He's got a base in England. He's got a base in Copenhagen. There's a base in Taiwan, a base in Australia, multiple bases in Los Angeles. He sort of lives in a world of his own making. So people go, where does he live? Well, legally speaking, I believe Scientology says he lives in Clearwater, but it's kind of like where does Tom Cruise live, wherever the fuck he wants to live, right? He's got houses all over the world. Miscavish has residences all over the world. Never mind, the Scientology cruise ship that

he could be outside of the U.S. waters any time that he wants. So you have, okay, well, where does he pay taxes? Probably Florida, because we don't have taxes. And so a lot gets made in the media that he lives in Clearwater now. That's just a matter of paperwork. He doesn't fucking live anywhere. Right. Except for the fact that Scientology is currently conducting a massive management training evolution.

Kind of like I mentioned, I was here on a big training evolution back in 1993. they're conducting one right now, retraining command teams for every Scientology organization in the world. So he has a reason to spend a lot of time here in Clearwater. And honestly, but even in Clearwater, Scientology could have purchased properties that he lives at,

that no one even knows Scientology purchased because they buy them through shell companies and corporations and LLCs and lawyers. Like, Miscavage could be anywhere at any time and nobody would ever know. He's probably on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean on the laptop watching videos right now on YouTube.

You know, Ms. Gavage watches, he's infatuated with watching everything. You know, the A-A-A-Rond thing started out. It was just a joke and now it's like my brand. It's hilarious. I love it, man. I love it. You know he's watched your videos. 100%.

100%. What has been the backlash that you've received since starting your YouTube channel? The YouTube channel specifically nothing. I mean, the major backlash came when I was on Leah Remini's TV show. So time goes by so fast these days. I don't even know how many years ago it was. Like three years, four years, it could be five years. I'm really loose track of time.

But every single person who appeared on that show got their own website. So, Aaron Smithleven.com is a website created at the bottom. Oh, God, pull it up. Oh, it's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. That's incredible. Every single, the website went live the night my episode aired. They're not subtle about it.

How do they know? How do they know this shit's happening? The production company does have to send letters asking for comment or whatever. So, like, for example, if you watch my episode of Scientology in the aftermath, the episode starts with Liam Remini reading the letter that Scientology sent the show. Aaron Smyl Levin was expelled. He's a heart, most worst staff member we ever had. He's a, you know. And that's true for every single person who appeared on the show.

This is your website? This is my website. Who is he really? I've seen Aaron snap at Heather. I've seen Aaron snap at his kids. He's just kind of would explode hesitantly toward her. Hostily. Sister and, oh, your sister-in-law still in Scientology? Yep. My wife's entire family is still in Scientology. Wow. No moral compass. So Brendan Tai is a friend of mine. We did a bunch of real estate business together. So they added him to my website. Wow. Yeah, I have him in my phone as my protege. because that's how they talk about him, that he's my protege. It's just the stupidest thing they've ever said. Brendan himself used to be, is a former Seargue member.

He used to actually work as one of the security officers here at the Flagland Base. Oh, you should interview him as well sometime. Wow, bro. So they had the, see, here's a question. You can click through some. There's even videos. They produced videos. My sister-in-law, my mother-in-law, my father.

That's my sister-in-law up there. Right there. Erica Sledge, sister of Heather Smith-Levin, who's my wife. Right there? Oh, yeah, if you click on us, you'd be like, I've seen Heather, I've seen Aaron. He spanked his kids once. He snapped at Heather once. That's your wife's sister.

That's my wife's sister. He seemed to just kind of would explode kind of hostilely towards her. I mean, this is prison, this is like POW quality. Yeah. Where's the jihadist standing behind her? Those videos are filmed. in the flag building and he was antagonistically replied to her

which was the surprise because I had never expected that he would respond that way you know like my family we don't talk to each other like that my husband and I never would talk to each other like that I hope you put this website in your bio

on your YouTube channel I have done so I bring up I mentioned this website all the time fucking wild man and so the thing is like when I say every person on the show, I mean, literally every person,

do you know how much time and you know how much it takes to produce stuff like this? Oh, yeah. I mean, that's a good looking website. Yeah. Oh,

you can click through all the links. There's actually scroll down to the bottom of the website. Scroll down all the way to the bottom and it will literally say they're not subtle about it. Church of Scientology International. If you go all the way down. What does that say? 2021 Church of Scientology International. Oh my God.

And they have links to other. people's websites. That's Mike Rinder, Mark Headley, Leah Remney's own website, Amy Scobie Tom. These are all former Scientologists and former Seerog members. I mean, you know, Mike. So are you and like Leah and Mike Rinder, are you guys essentially protected because you docks yourself so publicly, you're so publicly known? And if anything sort of, if anything out of the ordinary happen to you, you would

immediately talk about it. Yes. That's why you're not worried. Not worried at all. It's not that they don't try to screw with my life. it's that there's so it doesn't have any chance of working right so like I'll get phone calls um why I showed I mentioned my friend Brendan there on the website we did a whole bunch of real estate jobs together right yeah um so we probably did like let's say like 20 20 house flips we did

together right well I would get phone calls from people that who had purchased the like houses that we'd finished right yeah and like hey I just want you know I just got a phone call from someone saying they were they were hiring you and just wanted to check references and wanted to just see what I thought what my experience was with you. Well, right away, I go, I'm not for hire. I work for myself. So, like, I'm not, I'm not for hire. So what that is is that's a Scientology private investigator doing pretext phone calls

to people they know have done business with me to see if they'll find someone to talk shit about me. So, but they call me and I, I'm like, yes, evidence. Because I, some people, so people ask me, do they follow you? I go, shit, if they do, I don't know. I can't tell. But if you look at this website, scroll up a bit, you're going to see what looks like a bunch of mug shots. Yeah, yeah.

I'm going to show you what that is. It's evidence that they're following, that they were following me. So me and Mike, we did a house flip together, right? We went 50-50 on it, right? Okay. And we hired some people off Craigslist to, like, clean out the house or do some painting or whatever. Well, it didn't even occur to me. In retrospect, you realize if you're looking for a job on Craiglist, maybe it's because

you have a hard time finding work, and maybe it's because you got a criminal record. So they published mugshots of laborers that we had, hired off of Craigslist just to do some manual labor. Well, what does that mean? That means they're staking out the house. It means they're running license plates of every vehicle that pulls up, doing background checks, right? And so when I see a website like this, I go, do you realize how bad this makes you look? Like, you seem to think that I'm going to look at this website. Oh, no, Aaron's a horrible person. He gave someone with a felony record an opportunity to make some money. But they think that somehow this makes me look bad. I go, the website makes you guys look

bad. Right. It's one thing if the stuff that they were publishing was all true, then maybe they'd be able to get into people's heads. But for the most part, they make it up. It's hard to get into someone's head when you're just making shit up. Right. And you're the Church of Scientology and nobody really believes anything that you say anyway. What's the worst thing they've done to try, have they done anything bad or crazy to try to intimidate you or? I mean, this is, well, I mean, the worst thing they've done is destroy my wife's entire family. That's the worst thing. they've done, you know, frowned upon. But as far as like, they've never been able to actually interfere with my business.

Okay. I've never ever lost business or money because of them. The reason I ask is in the documentary. I mean, they have people like that they had a group that they bought the house right next door to somebody's house. Oh yeah. One of the main guys. Oh, yeah.

And they had people filming his house 24-7. Well, that was Mike Rinder. No, it wasn't Mike. It was somebody else. It was the other guy. The guy who was the like the, the, Marty. Marty. Marty Rathman.

Yes. Totally. They did it to both of them. Oh, really? Now, Marty went back to Scientology. Did he really? Yeah. Now let me define what that means. It's not like he's a card carrying member who goes in and gets auditing and does courses. He was the guy who was the number one auditor of Tom Cruise, right?

Yeah. Yeah. If you look at Marty Rathman now, he does videos shitting on Mike Rinder and Leah Remini and me and every other person who was on Lee Remini's TV show. Yeah. He did a deal with Ms. Gavich. He did a money deal. And I'll say allegedly, because there's no proof of it. You know, Marty Rathman is an old You know, older gentleman, no real ability to earn a living for himself. He and his wife had recently adopted a baby son. And I think he was confronting the fact that he really had no long-term prospects to provide for his son and his family. And they had a lawsuit going against Scientology, him and his wife. His wife specifically is the one who filed the lawsuit.

So they had to create a settlement. Well, they were winning the lawsuit. Every decision that had come down from the courts with respect to the lawsuit had been in their favor. They had Scientology over a barrel. Right. And all of a sudden they fired the lawyers, dismissed the lawsuit, disconnected from all their friends, bought a house. Was it a civil lawsuit? Yeah.

Yeah. Bought a house. Open to bakery. Right. Started doing attack videos on everyone who'd been their friends over the last, you know. Got a very good settlement agreement. But it had to be secretly done because they owed lawyers money. Right.

So it's more likely that Scientology has set up some kind of a trust just, you know, for the sun, when the sun gets older and maybe they're funneling business to them. Whatever it is, it was done very secretly. There's no evidence of whatever it was. Right. So that's why I have to say allegedly. But you were talking about the harassment. I mean, the stuff that they've done to Mike and Marty, although it is wild. What's even more wild is the shit they did to people in the 60s and the 70s and they're.

80s. You've heard of Paulette Cooper? No. She was a journalist. You've got to read the book or listen to the audiobook called The Unbreakable Miss Lovely about Paulette Cooper. Just to hear some examples. They had someone pretend to be like a political canvasser to get her to sign something and they use a special paper to get her fingerprints. And then they took stationary from a hotel where they knew she had stayed at and they forged a bomb threat letter and put her fingerprints on the letter and sent it to an embassy. I mean, you couldn't make this up. Wow. And they had her, um, that this story that I'm just, that's the tip of the iceberg. For years, this woman was never even a Scientologist. She was just a journalist who was writing some critical stories about Scientology.

I mean, Paulette Cooper ended up. up on trial for sending a bomb threat to an embassy. Completely fabricated. I have heard about this. By Scientology. That is fucking bananas. Gabe Cesaris, the former mayor of Clearwater, they framed him for a hit-and-run car accident,

tried to set him up with prostitutes and stuff. So you hear about the stuff they've done to Mark and Mike Rinder, Marty Rathbunit, and Leah Remney. And that's bonkers shit. But it pales into comparison to what? what they used to do. And one of the reasons they don't quite push the envelope like that these days is now they have a lot more to lose because they got their tax exempt status back.

Right. And the most important thing to David Muscovich is protecting that tax exemption. You know, it's such a funny thing, especially like in politics, you hear a lot of people talking about tax the rich, the billionaires need to be taxed more, but then you have Scientology that's worth over $3 billion, I think. that is essentially completely tax free, pays zero tax.

Yeah. Zero income tax, zero property tax? There's zero politicians that talk about it, I feel. None that I see at least. I think most people have absolutely just no idea what Scientology is. They think Tom Cruise, whatever.

Most politicians just don't know. And I think one of the problems that we do have politically and legislatively speaking is the evangelical right would rather err on this of protecting too many people under the banner of religious freedom

than to accidentally skew a little too far into threatening the protections enjoyed by, you know, legitimate religious organizations. So like Scientology sort of banks on the fact that if you're a member of the evangelical Christian political right, they bank on the fact that you would rather protect Scientology

and maybe make a member of, a mistake by doing that, then to make an example out of Scientology, and then perhaps tomorrow someone makes an example out of you. Do you see what I'm saying? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, they've exploited sort of a gray area into, and they're fucking masterful at doing it. And they are. And they will hire the best talent out. I mean, they put their tax-free money to a very advantageous use. So, you know, they'll hire former, you know, I mean, the, the former justice of the Texas Supreme Court is on Scientology's payroll. I mean, you have to question the moral integrity of any of these people who will take Scientology's, you know, money, but they're out there.

Have they done anything to help their local communities or actually do things that are not in their own interest? Like the hurricanes that come through Florida. Do they do anything to help people at all? Is there anything good that they're doing philanthropic with their money? So they will do stuff, but just so they can put out a press release about it. Now, on some level, someone might go, well, who cares what their motivation is as long as they're helping people. That's like most companies. And if most, I would agree, I would agree most companies operate the same way. But most churches don't.

Your local Presbyterian church is not out helping people with a camera crew following them around and putting out a fucking press release. Right. They're just doing it because they want to be like Christ. They are, they are a company. They're not really a church. They're not technically a church. They're a fucking company. Well, and the analogy, the comparison is good because that essentially is how Scientology is how Scientology.

operates, they operate like a company because that is essentially what they are. Yeah. And, you know, I think I will consider my definition of victory or taking them down or whatever is just getting their tax exam status. If they're just a normal tax paying, you know, member of the community who's subject to the same laws and oversight and criminal regulations that were all, you know, responsible to, then fine. That's my definition of victory. Right. Well, I mean, they are kind of, they are kind of, I mean, well, how do you? you define a religion. That's the biggest question. You define a community that believes in some sort of common thing, some common belief to, for a moral structure that bonds a group of people

together. I could give you a really good steel man argument for how Scientology is a religion. Whether they deserve tax exam status is a completely different conversation. Right. Well, the biggest difference to me is that they have a fucking paywall. The biggest difference to me, they have a paywall. You can't learn about the whole like in christianity or in judaism you can read all the text and learn everything about it before you decide to convert to it yeah scientology doesn't work that way they have this amazing self-help sort of facade or aura to it in dionetics where it's it seems like a pretty positive thing in eliminating negative influences learning to control your environment yeah it seems like a lot i mean a lot of people that i've met around here that are ex-scientologists are very

kind successful people. In fact, one of the guys, one of like the most entertaining dudes I've ever met around here is like one of the biggest real estate guys. He sold a friend of mine like this giant house on Bel Air Beach. And he's one of the most successful realtors around here. He's not a scientist. He's not a former Scientologist.

He told me he was. The Polok. Pollock? Pollock? He's Polish. His name is a... My friend called him the Polok. That was his nickname.

His name. His name is, fuck, I'm losing, his name is escaping me right now. Wazio. Raffa Wazio. He is not a former Scientologist. What? He is a guy who all the Scientologists use. I know, I got his number.

I thought he was former. He's not. Why the fuck did he tell me he was former? Wait, he told you he was former? I believe so. No, no. It must be a breakdown, a misunderstanding somewhere because understand this. If he was a former Scientologist, he wouldn't be allowed to work with current Scientologists.

and all the rich Scientologists in Clearwater use Rofal. Okay. I spoke to Rofal just a few weeks ago. I was showing someone a property that he was representing. And no, Rofal's- I must be mistaken. I mostly mistaken. But I would go even further.

And I would say most current Scientologists are fantastic, friendly, caring people. Like, it's not like Scientologists don't genuinely believe in what they're doing and its value. They do. And that's where you get a very interesting conversation about, well, what is a religion and is Scientology a religion? Look, in this country, if we didn't have tax exemption so intimately tied up with whether something is a quote unquote real religion, like honestly, at some point you know, what the fuck's a real religion? There are some people who think all religion is bullshit. So now we're talking about which ones are real. How do you define real?

Well, there's different ways you could define it. And I think there is an argument that could be made. I could definitely give you the argument for how Scientology is a religion. But is it deserving of tax exemption? Does it represent, does it serve the public interest? Is it violating public policy? Do you know what I mean? And those are these evangelists.

Those should be two different conversations. Right. But in this country, they're not. But there's also evangelists that fly around on Jets that do big seminars similar to what you see in Scientology. Exactly. That's kind of the same. How could you, what is your argument for Scientology being a religion? So here's, so let's, uh,

I would approach that from this way. What do Scientologists genuinely believe? What are the core held beliefs? They believe that we are all immortal spiritual beings. To a Scientologist, that's unquestionable. Like, you are not your body. That's a fair belief. I wouldn't say that's completely crazy.

It's not crazy. I mean, that's like almost like, that's the first. Any religion believes we're spiritual beings. Right. Okay. They do not believe in a heaven or a hell. They literally believe you as a being, Have you've been around for trillions and trillions and trillions of years.

Okay. And you cannot die. It's not even possible. You can't die. When you say a being, is it similar to like a soul? It is a soul. A Scientologist would do it this way. Like, your eyes are not what's looking at me.

You as a being are simply have located yourselves behind your eyes and you're looking at me. You as a being. Okay. And when this body dies, you literally just, boop, jump over to the hospital and jump into a new baby body and live a new life. Okay. And the only reason you don't remember your previous. life is because you zipped over to the moon where the alien implant brain wiping, memory wiping

station, wiped your memory before you shot down into the new body. This is where Scientology bleeds get very crazy. Is that legit? They'd say that? That's what they believe, yes. There's a brainwashing station on the moon. Venus, the moon, maybe Mercury, El Ren Hubbard says a few different things. And they're run by the alien psychiatrists who have created a prison planet called earth. We got off into the weeds pretty quick there. But this is what science. So, but I'll get back to that what do Scientologists genuinely believe that that they would call religious, that the law might consider religious, that we are all immortal spiritual beings who have simply, like literally we have amnesia. Like literally, you just have amnesia of your previous lives. But with enough

Scientology auditing, we can remove that amnesia and you can regain all the memory of your previous lives, and you can remember how you tricked yourself into getting trapped into these bodies. And you can remember how you got tricked into reporting to the memory wiping station every time you died. And so, in other words, you've seen The Matrix, the Matrix. Of course. Scientologists believe. Can they have been spoons? Yes. In fact, you created, does the spoon even exist? That's what will really pull your mind. Right, right, right. So Scientologists would believe that with enough Scientology auditing, you essentially unplugged yourself from the matrix, you realize you're not a body, you realize you're not even trapped in the physical universe,

and that only with enough Scientology auditing, can you remember how you allowed yourself to be trapped in this prison? They truly believe that. So when they say auditing, they call it religious counseling, well, Scientologists don't really use those words, but they do believe in this spiritual aspect of existence, and they truly do believe that Scientology is the only way to regain your native spiritual potential. Any Scientologist does very truly believe that. So now you go, okay, well, maybe they don't believe in God, though, but someone might go, someone might go, well, do you have to believe in a God in order to be a religion? I don't know. If you do, then Scientology could not be called a religion.

If you don't, I don't really know what Buddhism. beliefs. Buddhism, I don't think they believe in a god. They believe in the highest state of being. You're trying to achieve nirvana. It's very spiritual, but I don't think they have a god. Do you know El Rund Hubbard said he was Buddha? I did not know that. Yes. So if what you're saying is true, if what you're saying is true, that Buddhists. Can you confirm that awesome? It's called the Him of Asia. Just Google the Him of Asia, El Ron Hubbard, or did El Ron Hubbard say it was Buddha? You'll find it. Can you confirm whether Buddhism believes in a God? Oh,

oh oh so let's say that's true right then scientology and buddhism in some respects could be argued i mean no matter what i say on this people are going to be pissed off you could argue they're very similar i mean elron hubbard certainly argued they were similar so elron hubbard said that as buddha he was trying to achieve this particular buddhist do not believe in any kind of deity or god good well scientologists would say scientologists would say that the closest thing to scientology is buddism So Elwyn Hubbard said that when he was Buddha, he was trying to create this state, and I guess called Nirvana. But he thought he had achieved a permanent state. He thought Nirvana was a permanent state.

And he was like, yeah, job well done. I can go under my next lifetime or whatever. But then he was like, oh, shit, I messed up. It's only temporary. And he's like, so I had to come back as El Ron Hubbard to create a permanent state of Nirvana. and that is what Scientology calls the state of clear. Right. So if you have going clear,

the prison of the belief, Scientototalk, going clear. So Elrond Hubbard says, yeah, he had to come back to finish the job he had started as Buddha or El Ron Hubbard said, Gualtama,

Sadartha. And in this book, Him of Asia, he says, I am Metrea. And, and he's, yeah.

Is this one of his books, the Him of Asia? The Him of Asia is a book that he wrote You cannot buy it I mean maybe you can fight it on like eBay But you can't buy it in a bookstore Wow It's interesting to me

You know his His psyche When you are When you spend so much time writing And all of that Fiction That just came out of his mind Through his fingertips

How that evolved his brain is fascinating to me. He was very clearly a master bullshit artist. Oh, yeah. And storyteller. Oh, yeah. I mean, one of the best books that I've read that really lays out,

and it's actually a very generous and charitable book, is called Barefaced Messiah. And it's sort of the unauthorized biography of Elvron Hubbard. And what's amazing is that even his real life, like never mind the bullshit version, Scientology tells, where he's essentially like this super, hero from the age of three. If you ignore all the bullshit, his actual life, as told in his unauthorized biography,

is already incredibly amazing. Like, it's remarkable that Scientology decided they had to lie about his life. That's where they messed up. That's where they really messed up. Is it true that he, like, fucking drop depth charges on, like, logs and shit and, like, was, like, like, accidentally fired on an island, like, some random Mexican island by accident? The best guess about the same. So he claims he was hunting a Japanese submarine that he claims he's scared away.

The best guess researchers have been able to come up with is that there's some magnetic rocks on the ocean floor there. And that's what was maybe being detected. Wow. But yeah. Yeah. But when I said his life is amazing, I don't even mean necessarily what he was able to accomplish. Like his military career was horrible, like just an embarrassment. but I'm talking about things like the people he became friends with and who actually sort of

looked up to him as something and someone. You're like, wow. Like being a member of the Explorers Club and going on certain expeditions and whatnot. Did he lie his ass off about what these expeditions were and what he really did? Yeah, he lied his ass off about everything. But I got to tell, being a master bullshit artist can get you really far in life. Yeah. And I mean, I think that's demonstrably true.

I mean, watching the interview of him on that boat done by the British. I know which point you're talking about. The British media company that put together a little mini documentary, whatever you want to call it. I mean, I just, all I saw was Trump and him. Like he was so, like, even they even look similar. That's a really funny and apt comparison, including how Trump can get up there and speak off the cuff for hours.

that's what Hubbard would do as well. Right. Both extremely charismatic. Both will bend and manipulate reality to fit whatever they're trying to communicate. Both have the ability to amass such a massive amount of people to follow them. Remarkably

remarkably similar. It was kind of spooky. Yeah. Jesus Christ, man. How old was he died? 86. 86 he died. And he, he, I believe I learned this on your YouTube channel, but he didn't even intend to leave it to David Miscavage. Is that right?

Correct. He had some sort of living will that he wanted to leave it to two women or two girls. Well, it was a man and a woman a married couple, Pat and Annie Broker. Oh, Pat's a man. I don't know. Pat Broker and Annie Broker. Okay. Remember, he'd been off in seclusion and hiding for the last six years of his life. From 80 to 86, he was basically running from the, hiding from the offense. That was when the IRS revoked. No, they revoked shit much earlier. Much earlier, okay. So why was he hiding?

I probably won't be able to do it justice. Like there was just, Scientology was in trouble in various countries. Okay. Like even Elron Hubbard's own son was trying to like sue him. Like between the IRS and because Scientology had its tax exam status revoked, but it's not like they just started voluntarily paying taxes. They were still like not paying taxes. By the time Scientology got a tax exempt status back in 93, they owed a billion dollars in taxes.

Right. Right. So my point being, Scientology was in trouble in a lot of different governments. It wasn't even just the U.S. Right. It's ironic, right? Because he was hiding in the U.S. If he was hiding from the U.S. government, you think he would have been in Brazil.

Right. The dude was in a motorhome in the desert in California. Like, it's a little weird. It's a little weird. Okay, so he'd spent the last six years of his life in hiding. And there was only a few people that was with him. Pat Broker, Annie Broker, and a guy named Steve Fowth or Sarge Fowl. And here's where the story gets a little weird, because the easy version is, oh, yeah, he wanted Pat and Annie to take over.

But his last will and testament was signed one day before he died. Someone just sent me a copy of the death certificate and the coroner's report and everything just this past week. His last will and testament was signed one day before he died, except his doctor, Dr. Eugene, Denham, who, by the way, was a Scientologist. His doctor had said to the authorities that Elron Hubbard had a stroke about eight days before he died and was not able to easily speak. And you're like, huh, did Elron Hubbard just magically decide to write a new will one day before he died?

Doesn't seem likely. Doesn't seem likely. Now, look, the whole last will and testament thing is sort of a separate conversation than Pat and Annie Broker, because it's not like he left everything. to Pat and Annie broker. But there was, shortly after he died, a publication that went out

to all Scientologists saying that Pat and Annie were being promoted to this new Seorg rank called loyal officer. And it was implied that they would decide, they themselves would decide

which other people to promote up to take over Scientology. Scientology was never supposed to be like one person's taking over from Elron Hubbard. It was supposed to be like a lot of people. Like a whole structure

was supposed to take over. he leave anything specific to his kids? Are his kids still in Scientology? There's only one descendant of Elrond Hubbard still in Scientology. How many kids? Yeah. I think he had three. Remember, he was married three times.

Right. So if you include all three marriages, maybe it was five or six. Okay. I think only a few of them were ever involved in Scientology. And his daughter, Diana Hubbard, is the only descendant. And when I say descendant, I don't even mean only daughter. I mean granddaughter, great-granddaughter's great. Of all of his descendants of his descendants, there's only one.

There's only one left. And I mean, that's kind of remarkable. Meaning still alive? No. They had all, whether they're alive or dead, every single one of them left Scientology. Oh, so we say staying in Scientology, right? Yeah, yeah. Wow.

And she's still a member of, you know, she works at the international base, the confidential base. the confidential base. Wow. Yeah. So going back to your childhood, missing out on between how old were you when you got in 12 years old? When I started full time working for Scientology, I was 12. And when like, that's so fucking crazy. At what point, how old were you when you kind of under, finally understood? Because there's no way you understood what you were doing when you were 12 years old. At what point did you like realize what this is and did you ever actually make a conscious decision that like, hmm, or did you ever come to a crossroads in your childhood? Be like, okay, I want to do this. Or did you contemplate at a young age, any other path in life?

Or was just this always the way it was and always the way it was going to be? So when I was, I told you I went back to Philly when I was 15 to start and like working full time in Philly. Right. Just before I turned 18, I was having such a miserable time working at the Philadelphia org. They call them orgs. I was having such a miserable time there that I was like, yeah, I don't want to do this anymore. Now in my mind, I was thinking, I don't want to keep working here. I wasn't thinking I want to leave Scientology. I was just like, I'm not going to keep, you guys are a bunch of assholes. You're making my life difficult. And I moved to Hollywood for two years. It had nothing to do with Scientology for two years. But I still considered myself a Scientologist.

Like it's hard to truly explain the thought process Because it's not a black and a white thing Right I just knew I wasn't happy doing what I was doing And I just decided I wanted to do something different But without really thinking through necessarily The long term consequences You know I'm 17 years old

I'm just kind of So you didn't like formally leave You just decided to move and go do something else That's right now because I was leaving Without finishing my contract I had what they call a freeloader debt Your billion year contract Well I hadn't joined the Seorg yet

I was just a local. So at that point, it was a five-year contract that I'd broken. Okay. But I had a, handed me a bill for $100,000. I was 17 years old. So what that means is you can't do any more Scientology until you pay this bill or finish your contract.

Got it. And I was like, all right. Well, I don't have to worry about that right now. Right. Just going to go to L.A. and do my thing. Right. So I was kind of fucked off in L.A. for a couple years. But eventually I had to be like,

all right, well, where's this? Where am I going? Because in my mind, I'm still a Scientologist. Right. And I'm like, well, I guess I got to go back and finish my contract. So I ended up going back to Philadelphia and finished my contract. Now, so like I said, it's not black and white. Like, so that was a crossroads in the sense that I sort of took a two-year hiatus from working at the org. But in my mind, I hadn't really taken a two-year hiatus from Scientology. I was just sort of, do you, do you? Yeah, I understand. Like, okay. So I, I went back and finished my contract.

And then when my contract was up, then I joined the fucking C-org. Okay. Then I joined, I did the billion-year contract and went back to L.A. And I was a C-org member. Okay. And I did that until I was 26. And, you know, when I joined the C-Rug, I met my wife, got married. She's also born in a race in Scientology.

And we were having such a miserable time working in the C-org in Los Angeles that we were like, hey let's get pregnant because that's a golden ticket out of here okay so then we get pregnant we leave the sea org so i'm describing these things because in some ways they're crossroads but they're not crossroads in the sense of do i still believe in scientology they're just crossroads in i don't want to really be doing this anymore let's do a different version did you is it a common thing for people to leave Scientology who have become like form a bond with somebody else like they either get married with somebody that like two people together in Scientology that have a long-term relationship. Are those typically the people that you see leave?

Is that a, there's no pattern there? I would say in, I would say in those cases it's more common that one person starts to leave and the other person divorces them. Really? Oh yeah. It's all. I would just imagine that the two people having like just over. open conversation with each other in private would kind of like lead them to realize or come to

some sort of reality of where they were and be like we can fucking get scientology couples don't have open and honest conversations with each other about scientology because your spouse is more likely to write a report on you and turn you in than they are to be like oh yeah I totally agree that's so crazy it makes family dynamics it makes them completely different than anything anyone would consider normal. The fact that Leah Remney, when she left, was able to leave with her entire family is almost unheard of. And probably wouldn't have happened if she weren't like the sort of, I'll say breadwinner,

but the matriarch, you know, like, she's the nucleus of that family. How did being in Scientology at such a young age and working for them for so long? How did that change your childhood experience? Like, how did it affect your, your upbringing and your moral framework and everything about your childhood upbringing? Compared to other kids you knew. Well, that's the thing. It's hard to say because I don't have anything to compare it to. Okay.

And I tend to be a pretty positive person, so I tend to focus on the positive things I've taken away from it. And it's probably hard for me to truly identify the damage that it's done. But it's probably on an emotional level. You know, like, emotion is really considered a bad thing in Scientology. it really is being sad being upset being angry i mean you can be angry at someone to get them to do something but if you're angry about something that happened to you that's that's not okay you can be angry at other people to get them to do what the fuck you want them to do that's considered okay but if you're angry or sad or like scientology's big on not being a victim right

you know anything that happens to you they want you to sort of evaluate what you could have done differently and just approach things from that perspective. And look, like I said earlier, being a master bullshit artist can get you really, really far in life. So can having the idea that everything is on some level, something that you can control and be, Scientology would say be at causeover. Right. So now that gets really, that gets really sick and twisted when you talk about like kids who experienced abuse and Scientology wants them to figure out how they were responsible for that. That's where you get some really sick, twisted shit.

Yes. But let's just for right now. now call that the outlier case you can probably see how scientology does kind of hand you a set of tools and a mindset your gary vander chuck grant cardone grind grind grind grind that look can get you pretty far no no i'm just talking about it's that look it's that mindset it's it's it's just selling it's you're just pitching you're trying to sell people shit right um Tony robbins exactly so what was I is that um i feel like okay i get this question a lot like what in what ways did it help you what positive things did you take away from it it's almost unfair i can answer that question

but it's almost unfair for me how do i know scientology gave that to me it's the only fucking path i traveled how do i know i wasn't innately going to have that sort of personality trait i don't know now to be fair i tend here's why i'm giving that preamble I tend to give Scientology credit for the positive personality traits that I have retained in life. And yet there's a part of me that also goes, how do I even know that Scientology is what gave me that work ethic, for example, or that way of thinking? Honestly, how do I know? So I'm almost unfairly, I almost unfairly tend to give it credit for everything positive I have turned out with because I have. don't have anything else to point to.

Do you understand what I'm saying? Yes. And so I'm almost just trying to be as honest with myself as possible. I tend to give them all the credit. But then I go, well, that's kind of stupid, isn't it? Because how the fuck do I know? I'll give an example. I was raised mostly by a single mom.

Okay. My dad, like, I always had a relationship with my dad, but like my dad lived in Minnesota. We lived on the East Coast. We would visit him like every year or whatever. I'm using that. I've spent. I could probably count the amount of hours I've spent with my dad. And yet when we're together, we have remarkably similar personality traits,

speech patterns, jokes that we say, right? So I go, I've had almost no involvement with this guy most of my life. And yet we share so many common traits. That's interesting. But here I am in my mind thinking, well, everything positive I've come out with in life, it must be, I must have just taken the nuggets from Scientology. Well, that's not a sensible conclusion to make. is it. It's the easy conclusion to make. Do you see what I'm saying? Yes. So in some respects,

I want to be honest and fair about what I have taken away from the experience, but I also can't necessarily say that I know I got those from Scientology. So the whole grinding mentality, you know, I sort of have that mentality. But that's only healthy to a degree. You do need to be able to relax and not do anything and not feel anxious about the fact that you're not doing anything. Do you see what I'm saying? Right. But someone like Gary Vanderchuk would want you to think that that's not okay. You should always be grinding.

Right, right. No sleep. Don't sleep. I'll sleep when I'm dead. Yeah, exactly. And so, look, anything positive that there is to take from Scientology is not unique to Scientology. I mean, you could probably say that about anything.

Yes. Well, so, I mean, it's all, it's very similar to that nexium cult. You know, they were very similar. Very much the same. Scarily similar. Yes. and I would almost even say that guy Keith Reniery

and David Miscavage are scarcely the same even though one's a hippie and one's like a clean cut kind of like dictator guy Isn't it weird that they're both about five feet tall? That is the weirdest thing of all to me. Yeah. So many cult leaders are like five three. It's amazing.

Gary V looks like a tiny dude to me. Grant Cardone's not a tall guy himself. Great Cardone. Oh my God. Yeah, he's like, David Miscavage is like five foot three, isn't he? He's legit, he's five foot three with lips and his shoes.

With good shoes. He's five foot one. That is so fucking weird. So fucking weird. If you ever look at, look at Tom Cruise and Dave Miscavich standing side by side. Tom's a little bit taller. Tom's a lot taller.

Is he a lot taller? He's a lot taller. He's a lot taller. He's a half a head taller. And Tom also, you ever see the boots Tom wears? Got these fat soles on him. Yeah.

So, and you know, yeah. Tom's a good half a head taller. than Dave. And Tom's already, if you, if you ask people who met Tom, they thought one for one, be like, I was just really surprised at, startled at how shorty is. Yes. I've heard that. I've heard that. Is leverage the one thing they utilize to sort of protect themselves? How so? Because when it comes to people like Tom or people like John Travolta or people like that, like the reason that

those people could easily single-handedly probably destroy Scientology. Do you mean using leverage to keep them in Scientology? Yeah, using leverage to not just keep them in Scientology, but to keep them from speaking out negatively or telling the truth about it. Those guys are true believers. To do favors. Like even the way they use the police department, leveraging them with money, using them, you know, for charities or whatever.

Like it seems like one of their biggest weapons is leverage to staying, to keeping their existence. Scientologists are true believers. True believers. I would go so far as to say. say, I do not know of, I do not think there is a single Scientologist who stays in Scientology because they're afraid of what Scientology will do with their secrets. I don't think a single Scientologist stays in for that reason. I think science, because here's the thing, you can leave Scientology and just keep your mouth shut. You can leave Scientology and not speak out. And if you do that,

Scientology will not lift a finger to do anything to you. So like, if you're a John Travolta and you want to leave Scientology, you could just leave and keep your mouth shut. And Scientology will leave you alone. So it's not... You could publicly leave? Well, you don't publicly leave. He would have to completely not.

He would have to say nothing. Even if he was asked in interview, did you have you left Scientology? You would have to lie. He would probably lie if he said something like what Jason Lee said, where he just said, oh, I'm no longer practicing Scientologist. And never said us.

Nothing negative. Hmm. You know, if it just wasn't for me. Some of these people will pretend like they were never really in it. Like Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. They just pretend like, oh, we were just students of world religion. And you're like, yeah, you literally recruited other celebrities into Scientology. Student of World Religion, my ass.

That's a crazy one. Yeah. So like, but leverage, honestly, to be totally fair, Scientologists don't stay in for that reason. Tom Cruise is a true believer. And John Travolta is too. He's not quite as fanatical as Tom. is but yeah but you don't think that throughout their involvement in scientology there has been

any use of leverage from like david moscavage to keep them in when they were kind of getting farther and farther away from it like when they explained in the documentary when he was filming um whatever the movie whatever the fucking movie was like eyes wide shut yeah eyes wide shut and he was saying david ms they were saying that moscow was pissed off because they hadn't talked to him in like a year you don't think it's possible to you don't think it's possible that he utilized leverage at all with some of his auditing to sort of being like, look, we got to...

If by leverage, you mean... Even if it's not... I don't mean necessarily blackmailing. I don't necessarily mean like saying, hey, Tom, if you don't fucking come back and do all this stuff, we're going to out you. I don't mean doing it that way. I mean doing it sort of subconsciously

or doing it vaguely, like vaguely, you know, letting him know that I suggest you do this. Otherwise, it could be bad for you. Let me paint the picture. this way. When I was describing what do Scientologists really believe as far as what you might call the religious philosophy of Scientology? They believe this is a prison planet. They believe we're

trapped in these bodies. They believe we're living in the matrix. Okay. So all you have to do to handle, to bring back a wayward celebrity like Tom Cruise, you know, during the year or two years, they were filming house by shut, remind them what's it. stake, not for them, not for their career, not for their private life, not for their PR. Fuck that. What's at stake? This is the only brief breath in eternity that we have to free ourselves from the trap. And LRH says, if we miss this brief window, we may never again have another chance.

You take someone who's been steeped in that, it's very easy to rekindle. that belief. And then you'll hear, I think you've heard the version of the story where they sent Marty to go audit Tom to sort of, and it's almost like Miscavich considered that the auditing was working when Cruz would reach out to Misscavich instead of Misscavich having to reach out to Cruz. Right? Right. Misscavich was pissed because Tom wasn't only not calling him, he wasn't returning his calls. Right. So he's like, fuck, Nicole's taken Tom away. Right. So then he sends Marty to audit Tom. But auditing someone in Scientology is a form of help, right? So he's auditing Tom. And you know that Tom's had his purpose rekindled when he's like, oh, I got to get back in touch with Dave.

We got to get back fucking, you know, working out, saving this planet. Right. So, so again, it depends on how you want to define leverage. What they're doing is leveraging Tom's belief that Scientology really is the only answer. And nothing to do with. secrets in the auditing folders. So the idea that David Miscavage could have

a file cabinet somewhere that has evidence of Tom admitting that he had sex with his mom. That is nowhere anywhere in his psyche.

He doesn't care at all. Could be the most fucking absurd thing he's ever done in his life that would completely ruin his career. He doesn't care about that. Not at all.

All he cares about is transcending his body. Literally saving every being. on this planet from eternal amnesia. They truly believe in it. Wow. Yeah.

I mean, it's so much easier to think that everyone's just being blackmailed. Yeah. So what did it take for you to question all of this? Excellent question. So for me, because remember, my brand of belief, was a different brand of belief than someone who consciously chose to join Scientology. Like the second generation brand of what it means to believe in Scientology is just different. Because you're just steeped in it.

There's certain things you just take for granted. You haven't had to think about it much. Right. Okay. And since I was working for them for such a young age, for me, so much of Scientology, for me, just came down to doing my job. Doing my job didn't require me to believe anything. Did I believe a lot of stuff? Yes.

Is that what was keeping me there? Not necessarily. It's just the only thing I ever knew. Okay. So in 2009, the Tampa Bay Times, it was the St. Pete Times back then. Right. Published a series of articles. They called it the Truth Rundown where they were interviewing a lot of these former international managers like Mike Rinder, who you interviewed. Who in Scientology, those guys were celebrities. Like in Scientology, like five or six times a year has what they call major international event.

Right. Okay. David Miscavage is up on stage. That big crazy thing. It looks like a freaking Nazi, you know. And, you know, those events are held live either in Clearwater or L.A. And videos of those events are sent to every organization in the world and every Scientologist. They used to them at Ruth Eckerd Hall, right? Yep. Yep.

So the management executives, who were the regular speakers at those events, those are the celebrities of Scientology in the world of Scientology. Right. Okay. So in these articles, they're interviewing people who I've known my entire life, not personally. personally, but from stage, who are talking about their experiences working at the international base and how it was essentially a place of torture. I mean, just to put it in, you know, some hyperbolic words, but now in all my years working for Scientology, I'd experience, there's good experiences, there's bad experiences, but I

always thought that at the international base, that was a utopia. I was like, that's perfection up there. I was like just pure L. Ron Hubbard standard technology, standard administration, standard ethics, no public crying about this, demanding that, you know. Floating around, bending spoon. But it's just great. No stress. Everyone's happy.

Like just utopia. To find out that that international management base was not only not only not. better than what my experience had been, it was significantly worse. That was just the first crack in the dam. That was just the first crack in the dam. It wasn't even the first crack in the dam for, do I still believe in Scientology? It wasn't even the first crack in the dam of, do I think there's something wrong with LRH? It was, something is different than what I thought my whole life was true. I was electrified. I wasn't even like, oh no, what does this mean? I was like, oh shit, it's on.

Like, that was my response. I was like, oh, shit, there's some juicy shit here that I have not known my entire life and I want to fucking know the goods. So what did they tell you about just haphazardly listening to the TV or reading the newspaper? Don't they warn you about that? Oh, yeah, the merchants of chaos. The media is just controlled by evil psychiatrists. Is that something you can get reported for? And now.

No? So you're allowed to, right now if I'm in Scientology, I'm allowed. to go watch your YouTube channel. Oh, no, no, no, no. You're not allowed to watch things that are negative. Okay. But, like, you can watch TV. And if it just happens to be in the programming and someone says...

You should turn it off. You should turn it off. Okay. I mean, if you as a Scientologist were to talk to another Scientologist and it's like, hey, I checked out that Leah Remini show on Netflix. Yeah, you'd have a report right on you. They'd be like, what do you mean you checked it out? Oh, I just watched an episode to see what they were talking about.

No, no. You'd be in deep shit. Okay. You're in deep shit. So you're not necessarily like seeking out anything by reading the newspaper by finding that series of art. You're allowed to read the news. Okay. A Scientologist might look side-eyed at you for reading the news because they generally consider that the purpose of the news is just to upset people.

So like, but you wouldn't just literally get in trouble for reading the news. Right. But a Scientologist just as a matter of culture, not as a matter of policy, but as a matter of culture would probably not watch the news. They wouldn't go home and turn the news on. But they might, you know, go to Google News and Yahoo News and say, hey, what's going on today? And that's acceptable. Okay. But they're not allowed to read anything negative about Scientology.

That makes sense. So when you first read those articles, you saw, you were seeing people like Mike Render speak out about what they were dealing with, the kind of conditions they were living in. And that was the first crack in the dam, as you say. That was the first crack in the dam. And then eventually, I started getting in touch with it. them. How did you get in touch with them? Marty Rathbin created a blog. Okay. Oh, yeah, yeah.

And then later Mike Rinder created a blog. And that's how I got in touch with them. And I was like, guys, what are you talking about? You got to like, you got to download to me. What's going on? Right. To me, it was just sensational. I mean, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, the word I used as electrified. Like, every day, I was like, what am I going to learn today? This is amazing. Like, something. Like some people have some existential crisis. They're like, oh, no, what do I really believe? Have I wasted my life? For whatever reason, that is not what I experienced. I was like, oh, it's game time, bitch is what?

I want to know more. That's fascinating. And so, but again, in the beginning, it was just sort of learning new things about international management, learning new things about what these executives were experiencing. Because on some level, everything I'm learning about here, that only goes back to David Miscavage. Because, you know what I mean? It wasn't L.R. Hubbard running the show up there beating everybody up and imprisoning all the executives.

That was David Miscavage. So even as I'm learning all this stuff, it's not necessarily making me question Scientology or El Ron Hubbard. It's just making me question the regime, the existing structure. But then I started to hear from some of these executives who I knew knew what they were talking about and weren't bullshitting that, you know, what Scientologists believe about the upper confidential levels of the bridge, the confidential levels, that, you know, Scientologists believe that L. Ron Hubbard, before he dropped his body, they say, before he died, researched a whole bunch

of these extra confidential OT levels, that is what they call them, and that they've just been sitting in the fucking vaults for 30 years waiting to be released, and these things are going to change the world. These things are going to be what LRA really promised, you know, being able to exteriorize from your body at will, you know, being able to bend the fucking spoon for real, right? Like, I believed that stuff. Right. When I heard from someone who I knew knew that that's, that was all a lie. We searched every fucking scrap of paper Elron Hubbard left behind in all of his files.

We dug up everything. There's no OT lot. There's no OT 9 and 10. It doesn't exist. It's nobody knows. Is you ever meet anybody who was OT8? Oh yeah, there's tons of them. Really?

Yeah, there are tons of them. They're almost one for one complete losers. What? And in Scientology, when I was still a true believer, I already knew that. And I was, but this is why, this sort of speaks to why me learning, there's no upper O.T levels. For me, that's where I went like that. Because I was like, I already knew the O.T.7s and A's were total fucking idiots, douchebags, losers.

Like, my fellow staff members who hadn't done any of those OT levels. and were just more of the, you know, get on with it kind of thing. I had more respect for those people. Those people were demonstrating more competence in life than any of these Scientologists who'd done the entire bridge. But doesn't it cost fucking tons of money to get that level? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, when I say, so I'm going to take half a step backwards here. Scientology is roughly divided up into staff and public.

The public are the ones who live normal lives in the real world. old. Okay. They might be doctors, lawyers, chiropractors, dentists, whatever. YouTube celebrities. And they pay, Dr. Burke, they pay to, Grant Cardone. They pay to do Scientology. Right?

Got it. Those are public. Okay. Okay. Those people tend to be rich because it takes a lot of money to do Scientology. But then you have the staff. Those are the people who work for Scientology. Oh, okay.

They don't usually speaking pay for it. They pay with their life. They pay with their work. Oh, okay. business side of the e-meter. The e-meter is the tool that you use in an auditing session, okay? So you have the business side of the emeter, the person conducting, taking care of business. Well, put yourself in the frame of mind of someone who's getting auditing. You're basically going. There's something wrong with me and I would like to get better. Here's some money. Can you fix me?

And you basically sit back and get auditing. It's the difference between, and I'm sorry for the analogy, people, no matter what an analogy you, somebody will object. It's the difference between the therapist. and the person getting therapy. Okay. The person getting therapy is like, there's something wrong with me, can you fix me? I'm not saying this drugatorily.

I'm just saying, you have the person who's trying to improve and you have the person who's doing the improving. Okay. Scientology calls the staff members are the ones on the business side of the e-meter. They're not the ones sitting back going,

please fix me, I'm broken. Right. So you have two different mentalities. Now that's an example of something I've taken from Scientology and I'm not quite sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing. I don't have that unbroken, will you fix me mentality?

And it's almost impossible for me to assume that role. Like if, you know, I don't seek guidance from other people. I guide myself. Yeah. Okay. Where was that going? I was taking a slight, I said I'm going to take a half a step back because I wanted to explain the staff and the public thing. But it was because we were talking about something else.

We were talking about the people who were like OTA and their complete losers. Oh, yes. that my co-workers who were on staff, those people to me demonstrated more competence in life, right? More abilities to deal with adversity. What Scientology would call being at cause, right? And these people, for the most part, hadn't done any of the bridge. They were on the business side of the e-meter. And then I would look at the public who had paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and done the entire bridge.

bridge and I would know these people. I mean, there's nothing admirable about you. You are a whiny crybaby who happens to work in a profession where you make a lot of money. Congratulations, you're a dentist. No offense to dentists. But it's like, I would look at these people, remember, I've been working for this organization since I'm fucking 12 years old. You're a 50 year old man coming in here saying, I'm broken. I want to handle relationships better. Can you fix me? Okay. I know I'm being very derogatory about this, but you have to understand. Even as a as a true believing Scientologist, I did not look up to or respect or admire these public who had quote unquote done the entire bridge. I was like, okay, I respect my boss who hasn't done any bridge,

10 times more than I respect you. And you don't seem like you're competent. You don't even seem like you're a good speaker. Right. Right. Okay. So, but I still, so, Even though the evidence that the bridge didn't really do that much for you was right in front of my face. I still bought into the whole, yeah, that's because it's the upper O.T levels that are the real magic. See, it's always the, it's always the next step. It's always the next step. And any Scientologist who's in Scientology today, I promise you, they're waiting for the next fucking step. There's no Scientologist who's ever gotten from Scientology, what El Ron Hubbard said.

supposed to get from Scientology. Elron Hubbard in all of his lectures talks about exteriorizing at will. That means leaving your body, leaving your body at will with full perception. So like, boop, I'm over here, you know, check what they're doing over there. Like Elron Hubbard talks about that. Like that is a normal result of auditing. No one's ever had that. I think there was in that interview I was talking to you about back in, I forget when it was,

maybe in the 60s, the black and white little mini documentary on the boat where they were said they were talking to one of the staff members where they interviewed him. Remember when they interviewed Elron Hubbard inside the cabin and he's talking to him? Is that the one where he goes, oh, the only person who's never questioned whether he was a madman is a mad. That one? Yeah, okay. So they said that when they ran it, when the camera crew was on top of the boat talking to some of the C.org staff that was working, one of the guys was talking about how he just teleported somewhere across the world and was doing something else. Yeah, man.

People are just completely out of their minds. Yeah. And here's the thing. It's almost, I want to call it like a contagion of aberration where everyone individually knows that they haven't gotten this thing, but nobody wants to admit it because they think there's something just wrong with them. Right. Because everyone's telling the same lie. Everyone's telling the same lie. Because part of the Scientology programming is that the only reason auditing wouldn't work on you is if there's something wrong with you. like you've still done some really bad shit you're not telling anybody because that's the only reason auditing doesn't work you're still withholding crimes i mean this lifetime last lifetime you're not being honest you haven't come clean it's part of the scientology programming so it's almost like

scientologists compete with each other for who can get the most gains out of auditing the fastest right it's this self brainwashing mechanism that scientology has perfected in fact i think i think nexium might have perfected it even more than Scientology has to be perfectly honest. But it's this thing where nobody can be honest with each other about what they have gained and not gained from Scientology. But every Scientologist knows they sure as hell hasn't gained what El Ron Hubbard said they were supposed to gain. They haven't achieved full operating Thayton, at cause over life, exterior with full perceptions. Well, it's interesting.

Some of these documentaries on things like Nexium or a Heaven's Gate. There's so many similarities between Scientology and these other cults, these other weird cults. Jones Town. Yeah. I'm sure you've seen them all. Which one do you think is closest resembles Scientology? Or which one kind of like resonated with you the most like, oh my God, this is exactly what we were doing in Scientology? What blows my mind every single time is how everyone seems to be exactly like the other.

So the first thing that I read was that made me go, oh wait, this is a lot like Scientology. college was a book called Combating Cult Mind Control by a guy named Steve Hassan. And he's a cult expert. And he, in his book, tells how he was recruited into the Mooney's when he was in college.

And before I read this book, which one is the Mooney's? The Mooney's, it's just the moon. I mean, they're just called the Mooneys. It's a Korean thing. Okay, a Korean, Korean cult. Yeah. Okay. But they had a big presence in the U.S. and still do,

really. Okay. I wasn't familiar with them. You never heard of the Mooney's? I mean, I've heard of them, but I'm not super familiar with the story. So before I read this book, I'd already sort of come to terms with the fact that Scientology was bullshit. But I didn't realize I was still holding on very tightly to this idea that it might be bullshit. But boy, that's some unique special bullshit, isn't it?

That's some special brand of bullshit. Like, we might have been believing some bullshit, but that was fucking special and shit, right? I didn't realize I was still holding on to that so tightly. So I started reading this book about the fucking Mooneys. I'm like the Moonies. Who gives a shit about the Moonies? And it's devastating me because it's exactly like Scientology.

I was bawling reading this book. I'm like, it was just garden variety bullshit. And then I watched Nexium. And I'm like, what the fuck? These guys are using the same language. This is why you're still in Scientology? Wait, what? Are you still a member of Scientology when you're watching this stuff?

No, no, no, no. Okay. I'd already believe, I'd already like, you already got out, okay. But I didn't realize that I still thought, yeah, it was bullshit, but I didn't realize how much I was going, but it's really special bullshit. Right.

I didn't realize that I still had this, but it's really unique. So I read combat and cult mind control. And I'm like, oh, Scientology is just garden variety bullshit. And then I watch Nexium, and I'm like, what the? Now, Nexium came after.

So Nexium was more likely a rip off of, not just Scientology, but have you ever heard, Have you ever heard of Landmark and Est, at Landmark or Earnhardt seminar training, Est, do you ever heard of those? No. Okay.

They're sort of like, anyway, they're nexium-like organizations. Est and Landmark came from Scientology. Nexium came from Scientology, and I believe probably Est and Landmark. Okay. Yeah. So,

so you're saying which one is more closely related? No, it's even worse than that. They're all the fucking same. They're all the same. Yeah. Just mix and match. Yeah. And the fact that so many of these high control organizations, whether it's the Moonies, that does, I do believe they consider themselves a religion. Like, I do believe they consider their leader to be more of a religious leader. It's funny. Scientology calls itself a religion, but they don't consider El Ron Hubbard to be a god or a prophet or anything. And then you have Buddhism. I don't know. What do Buddhists think about Buddha? I don't know. But clearly they don't think he's a God because that's what it says there.

So whether these organizations call themselves religions or not, the fact that so many of them have been able to spring up using the exact same methodology, the exact same recruitment method, the exact same way of controlling behavior and information and thought does not speak very highly for the human organism. No, it really doesn't, man. And that's a fucking wild thing to think about, how gullible people are. And then not to piss off all the other viewers now. and then you go, and what are the other world religions believe? And is it really much crazier? Right.

They're really much crazier. Now, I realize we can separate belief and behavior. The Roman Catholic Church doesn't have a policy of utterly destroying their enemies and manufacturing evidence against them. Do you see what I'm saying? So just because an organization might believe some crazy shit doesn't mean they're in the same category of Scientology.

Right. But again, it goes back to your question, which one is more closely related to Scientology? What strikes me isn't that any of them is most closely related. What strikes me is how similar they all are. Right. It's creepy. Well, we don't have any evidence of David Miscavage running through a bunch of girls and branding them with his logo.

At least there's that. In fact, we know he doesn't. But if his wife, the weird thing is, if his wife, he says, sent his wife out to some random prison camp. He's got to be getting it somewhere. So I'm sure he has a line of assistance. Mike Rinder has a different opinion on that. Really?

Yeah. And you know, Mike Rinder and I, we're colleagues, we're friends. Like we both were on the Aftermath Foundation together. You know, we vacation together.

What is his opinion on that? Miskavich is almost following exactly in El Rond Hubbard's footsteps. Mr. El Rond Hubbard banished his wife as well. So you remember, I'm sure you've read about Scientology, having infiltrated the federal government and the IRS, different than suing the IRS.

I'm talking about infiltrating the government, not suing them, infiltrating. How do they infiltrate? They sent people in to go work for the IRS and the FBI and the DOJ and the FDA. It was the largest infiltration of the federal government in history. Wow. It was called Operation Snow White.

Eleven Scientologists went to prison, including El Ron Hubbard's wife. You didn't read about this? No. Oh! 11 Scientologists went to prison, including Elvon Hubbard's wife, Mary Sue Hubbard. Elvin Hubbard never spoke to or saw his wife again, threw her right under the bus. Wow.

Those six years that L.R.H was in seclusion the last six years of his life, he had no contact with his wife during those six years. And he had cut her off even earlier than that. Like if you look at it, he might want to Google. Google, when Operation Snow White, when did those guys go to? prison. Because remember, L.R.H. went into seclusion in 1980. I'm almost positive they went to prison before that. Operation Snow White was a criminal conspiracy by the Church of Scientology during the 1970s to purge unfavorable records about Scientology and his founder Elron Hubbard. This project included a series of infiltrations into and thefts from 136 government

agencies, foreign embassies, and consulates as well as private organizations critical of Scientology. What were you operating? Operation Freakout. This operation also exposes the Scientology plot, quote, Operation Freakout because Operation Snow White was the case that initiated the U.S. government's investigation. Operation Freak Out is what they did to Paulette Cooper, which was exposed when the government raided Scientology offices. When the FBI raided Scientology. Yes. That's how they learned what Scientology had done to Paulette Cooper. So Operation Freakout is what they did, Paulette Cooper. Operation Snow White was the name of the operation they did to infiltrate the government. And it was, it was essentially to find out the infiltration, the purpose of it, was to find out what information the government had on Scientology in its files.

And in some cases, they just wanted to copy the information so they knew what was there. But in other cases, it was just to remove the information. Wow, they were fucking wiretapping and stealing documents from the IRS. Yeah. The FBI Holy shit Oh there's a picture of the document down there on the right That's insane

And so when did they go to prison If you scrolled down it would probably say Aftermath and trial Item number three there Number three 77 No no no no On May 13th

Gerald Oh that's Gerald Wolf Guilty plea So late late 70s we're looking at Wow That's fucking spooky man Oh so where was I going with that oh, Miskavitch, Shelley, Elrne Hubbard, Mary Sue.

So he's following in the footsteps of... Yeah, so... And it's not like once Mary Sue Hubbard went to prison, right? Once Elrind Hubbard cut Mary Sue off. Because Hubbard was sitting there going, thinking Mary Sue is a liability to me. Mary Sue has done this and that, and she's a liability to me.

I'm going to cut her off. It's not like Elron Hubbard was out now, you know, banging a bunch of chicks. He essentially became an asexual person. And this gets back to what Mike Rinder, the opinion he shared, is that Miscavich is just sort of following in Hubbard's footsteps.

Miskavich is not out there flandering and doing whatever. He's like, he's doing what Ellen Hubbard did. Got to get rid of the wife. Take one for the team. I mean, even when he and Shelley were together, they did not. By all accounts of people who were there and were personally working for Ms. Gavich and Shelley didn't exactly have an active sex life. Is it frowned upon to be a sexual deviant in Scientology?

100%. Really? Yeah. Interesting. That poor fucking guy. What a shitty life he's made for himself. What a shitty life. Yeah.

And now he's essentially on the run. He's in hiding. Right. Because there's a couple of civil lawsuits going on right now on Scientology and two of them named Muscovich and process servers have been trying to serve Muscavich for three years now. And he, it's funny because Scientology says he lives in Clearwater, but the process servers will go to every single Scientology building in Clearwater. and they're like, Debbie Miskavich, who is that? We don't know anybody named David? They're pretending like they don't know where David Miskavich lives or works,

and yet Scientology says he lives in Clearwater. Well, an interesting thing is that Hubbard did tons of media appearances and interviews, and David won't do any. Oh, well, maybe in the 1950s when he was promoting dienetics. He probably didn't do tons. Well, back in the 50s, when he was. selling dionetics and everything. Yeah, he was a huge public personality. But once he created the C organization, now that's why you don't see any footage. That's why that crazy black and white

interview you're talking about. It's one of like one of only two or three. And there's the one where he's in front of that colorful painting. Yeah, but that's he, that he filmed that. That's not an interview. Like he filmed that himself. Oh, that was set up. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then there's one interview where it's actually a Scientologist doing the interview. You just don't know it. Oh, Mr. Hubbard. It has said that. It was totally. It's a Scientologist just feeding him questions.

Right, right, right. What efforts? So I grew up in Clearwater. So I grew up as like a young kid, you know, around downtown Clearwater, Clearwater Beach, that area. And it's always been like when I was younger, we never really thought twice about the Scientologist. We just knew that it was some weird, creepy thing where these like drone people would hover around all wearing the same outfits. And it was all, it's always been a ghost town. Like no one.

Like there's a couple. like nice places to go in downtown Clearwater. But by and large, it's really been a ghost town forever. Why is that? And why do they want to keep it like that? So it's a great question. There's two answers. The main answer is if there were enough Scientologists in the entire goddamn world to Clearwater and make Clearwater a thriving downtown, they would. Scientologists are not against awesome restaurants. They're not even against going out and having a drink. They're not against bowling or karaoke or piano bars. Scientologists love that shit. There aren't enough Scientologists in the world to make a thriving downtown. So I'm going to answer this question in two different ways.

You cannot join Scientology in Clearwater. Flag is a class 12 organization. It's one of the two highest level organizations in the world of Scientology. You can't join Scientology here. If you are a Scientologist in, say, Philadelphia, and you have not been authorized to come to flag. And, you know, you're coming to Florida for a trip. You're going to Disney World. If you pop into the Fort Harrison Hotel unannounced, unapproved, like, hey, I'm a Scientologist from Philly. I've never been to flag before I just wanted to see the place. They'd be like, which order are you from? And what's your name? And you don't have any authorization to be there? Okay. Security Guard will walk you out of the building and say, do not come back without authorization.

Okay, people don't, people don't know that, right? People don't understand. Flag is the highest level organization. You don't join Scientology there. You don't come there without approval. So why am I explaining this? Because if Flag was a normal lower level Scientology organization where you could join,

they would want as many non-Scientologists in downtown Clearwater as possible because they would want to hand you a flyer and bring you in for a personality test and sign you up for a course. Like the one on Hollywood Boulevard. Exactly. So if you could join Scientology in Clearwater, Miscavage would support any initiative that would bring non-scientologists to the area. Okay. But you can't join. So therefore, Ms.cavich wants to keep the non-scientologists away because they're just a security risk.

Okay. Now, even though Miskavish doesn't want non-scientologists around, if there were enough actual Scientologists to open up restaurants and bar, and a movie theater and this, he would do it. Scientologists aren't against economic development. They're not against prosperity and commercial activity. In fact, they're usually very, very much for it. What you're seeing in downtown Clearwater is a combination of the fact that they don't want non-scientologists around the base if they can help it,

and there aren't enough Scientologists to compensate for that fact. Do you see what I mean? Yes. Yeah. And the Clearwater government doesn't understand that, No matter how many fucking times it's explained to his idiots. But why wouldn't he, why would he care if there was other people who weren't Scientologists hovering around the place? There was a fucking Starbucks right across the street.

Like, why would he care? Scientology brought that Starbucks there. Oh, really? Yeah. They called someone from Starbucks and they said, hey, would you open a Starbucks there? And they were like, yeah, no thanks. And they're like, hey, why don't you send a representative here? And we're going to show you what happens three times a day on this intersection.

This is before the big flag building opened up. And the Clearwater Bank building right on the corner of Fort Harrison and Cleveland is, where all the Seorg members ate their meals three times a day. So you had 1,500 fucking people walking through that intersection three times a day. So Scientology had a representative from Starbucks come down and was like, let me show you what happens at least three times a day. 1,500 people walk through the intersection. They're like, do you want to put a Starbucks there now?

And they're like, sure. But then Scientology opened up the flag building. It has three cafes in it. And now that Starbucks is completely empty. Is it really completely empty? homeless people hang out there. Really? Yeah.

So Starbucks is not franchised. It's all, no, it's franchise. Is the owner or Scientologist, that Starbucks? No. No, no, no, no, no. I'm sure Starbucks is pissed off that Scientology now opened up its own. Cheaphares inside their buildings, given Scientologists, no reason whatsoever to go to that Starbucks anymore.

So there's a bunch of, like, storefront spaces there right on Cleveland and Fort Harrison that are just completely empty. Yeah. And they're apparently Scientology owned. Yeah. So they just buy up shit and leave it empty. Yes. Just so it just, just for the purpose of having less people there. To prevent anyone else from doing anything with those properties that would bring non-Scientologists.

What is this, Austin? It's a map of what they're on. Oh, this is a map of what the Scientologists own. Yep. So what is the red? Here, scroll up and see the legend. So previously reported partnership. Peritioner.

previously reported parishioner tied properties. So one of the things Ms. Gavich has started to do so that the press can't say Scientology is buying all the properties. Is he saying Scientologists buy them instead? And he goes, what? I don't have anything to do with that. But the Tampa Bay Times doesn't fall for that bullshit. So the Tampa Bay Times put a map together showing

here's the properties that Scientology officially owns. Here's the properties that public Scientologists own who have to do whatever David Muscavich tells them. And here's, so this is a report that they put out showing how Scientology basically tripled its footprint secretly over just a period of a few years. And they're doing this to screw the city of Clearwater. Wow. And what does the local government in Clearwater, the city of Clearwater, what do they do about it?

What have the, what, I mean, how is not a goddamn thing? Because they're getting paid by Scientology? Because Mayor Frank Hibbard's closest friends are literally on Scientology's payroll. Joe Bredet, Mary Rapper, Brian Ongst Jr. Oh my God, I know some of these people. Yeah. Mary Rapper was Scientology's lobbyist when she ran Frank Hibbard's mayororal campaign. Joe Burdett works for Scientology.

Brian Ongst Jr. represents the Scientologist who are buying up all the fucking property on David Miscavage's behalf. What? These people are pieces of shit, taking money from a family destroying cult going, what? I'm just an attorney. I'm, it's like, yeah, okay. You've also lived here for generations and you're helping this cult take over Clearwater.

I don't know. I'm just a fucking attorney. Right. And Mayor Frank Hibber doesn't have any fucking balls. He's a giant pussy. And in private, he's like, in private, he'll tell you a story about a time he once yelled at David Miscavich. Oh, you're such a fucking warrior. Thanks, dude.

Oh, yeah. In private, the guy hates Scientology. It's like, I don't care what you think about in private. You're the mayor of fucking Clearwater. Say something. Do something. Because the truth is, Scientology doesn't have enough members to control Clearwater. Scientology doesn't control Clearwater.

There's never been a Scientologist on the Clearwater City Council, ever. You wouldn't know that because the press talks about everything Scientology is doing, rightfully so. And no one in Clearwater City government other than Council member Mark Bunker will dare say anything negative about Scientology. I mean, so I tend to go, I tend to go, Mayor Frank Hibbard and his friends are the reason people think Scientology runs this town. Because if they use their platform and, you know, their megaphone, if they use their voices to make it clear that Scientology doesn't run this town, then people wouldn't have that fucking opinion. People have that opinion because they see what Scientology is doing and saying, and then they see everyone else doing and saying nothing. Right. So they go, well, these guys must all work for Scientology,

just like people think the Clearwater PD works for Scientology. Right. People go, well, these guys must be in Scientology's pocket or else they would be saying something, right? But they don't. They don't. Mayor Frank Hibbard thinks it's good enough that his friends know what he thinks about Scientology.

That's not good enough, dude. You're not a private citizen. You're Mayor Frank Hibbard. Fucking speak up, dude. Stop being such a pussy. Right. Yeah. Isn't there some big development going on down there?

I support that. project, yeah, there is. That's not a Scientology-tide project. The reason I support that project is because it is something that will bring, potentially, we hope, non-scientologists back to downtown Claywater. So if they're going to, don't they people that are buying that and redeveloping that area, don't they have to consider like local retail and like the They are. There's first floor commercial. It's all going to be first floor commercial. So they don't give a fuck about like the down. They're not concerned about the, what's going on in the downtown area with all those storefronts being bought and just a left impact.

do like that. Like the fact that there's like one restaurant there. There's maybe two restaurants there. There's a handful of restaurants there. Ironically, the restaurants actually do pretty well do okay. Oh yeah. I love the.

I love what's it called? Clear Sky. Clear Sky. Clear Sky is good. Roxies. You got downtown pizza. You ever go to downtown pizza? No.

It's just a couple doors down from from Clear Sky. It is, it is the hope that this massive mixed use residential commercial project will sort of be the spark. Because, you know, it's not just residential commercial. There's a huge musical venue being built in Coachman Park. Right. Like 4,000s.

It's going to be a musical venue that world-class musical acts can come and play right on the water. The hope is that you can force the economic activity. Like, there will be economic activity there. It's still an unresolved question whether there will be success in spreading that economic activity up Cleveland Street. But what you can know for sure is that David Miskavich will do anything he can to sabotage and undermine and prevent that from occurring. And this goes back to the question you asked before of, yeah, but why?

Because most non-scientologists have heard about missing Shelley Miskavich. Right, right. And the documentaries. And going clear and Scientology in the aftermath. And Miskavich doesn't want Seargue members walking down the street and someone going, hey, have you seen Shelly Miskavich? Now, Searge remember these days probably doesn't even know who Shelley Miskavich is.

Honestly, they've probably never heard Shelly Miscavage's name. They wouldn't be able to tell you what she looks like. They wouldn't pick her out of a lineup. But he doesn't want someone going, Hey, how have you spoken? Can I tell you about our Lord and Savior Zeno? If I'm going, this is random.

If I'm walking into that Starbucks there, if I'm going to a restaurant there, walking into the Starbucks, how do you, how do I tell out who's a Scientologist and who's not? you pick them apart. To me, it's very obvious, but it's a little hard to describe. How they dress, how they stand, how they walk, how they talk. To me, it's obvious.

I don't know that I could put it into words. Really? It's just a cultural thing. Aren't a majority of the pedestrians down there, Scientologists? It's weird. In some ways, I'm going to say yes. The majority of the people who live in those buildings are Scientologists. Are the majority of the people that you are going to see on the street in the middle of the day,

Scientologists? they're mostly homeless people. So one of the answers to your questions is... Yeah, but they're dressed nice. Well, then they're probably a Scientologist. Okay. Or that... Well, but here's the reason why the answer can also be no.

There's some large employers that work in those downtown towers that employ a lot of non-scientologists. So the Bank of America building and the SunTrust building has a company like, for example, no before. Is a tech company. My brother-in-law works for that company. Okay, that's a Scientology run. That's a science. Yeah. Stu Schauerman is the owner.

He's, you know, he's one of the largest contributors to Scientology. So, but that happens to be an example of one Scientology company that, um, doesn't force Scientology on its staff the way postcard mania, for example,

does, right? Postcard manny is a big postcard marketing company. You've probably heard of them. I've never heard of them for real. But I've heard a lot about no before. And it's because it's a huge company. And he, well,

because I talked to my brother-in-law who was a, he's a pretty good, like, like big-time guy. there, but he's not Scientologist, and he tells me about some of the shit, and it's pretty crazy. I wouldn't say it. Like, they definitely treat people a lot different who aren't Scientologists. 100%. You're not going to become a senior executive in that company without being a Scientologist. But if you're a non-Scientologist and you're working there, you're not exactly going to have Scientology forced on you either. Right. They walk that, they do a pretty good job of walking

that fine line, whereas other companies don't. But No, before has like a thousand staff. Yeah. So you've seen how empty the streets of Clearwater are on any given afternoon. I mean, like they're fucking empty, right? Okay. So if you've got a hundred people walking down the street, I mean, that would be like a stampede in downtown Clearwater. Well, it's 50-50, whether those are Scientologists or just non-Scientologist

employees of, you know before. Right. Do you know what I mean? Yes. Yeah. So the other way I wanted to answer that question is there might be a lot of Scientologists who live in Clearwater, but you don't see them on the street. reads because they're either working, which means they're inside, meaning they're working at their

day jobs, or they're on course, which means they're in the buildings. Like, you don't see them. Scientologists sort of as a matter of almost as a matter of culture don't spend a lot of time just hobnobbing, you know, window shopping, getting a drink at five o'clock. Yeah. Especially not next to flag. You don't want to be a Scientologist caught at the lucky, the lucky anchor bar right there on the corner you'd be like what the you get a report written on you oh really this guy should be on courses and they're having a beer

what's wrong with this guy is totally off purpose what kind of impact have you had with your YouTube channel especially being based in Clearwater so I'll answer that question by telling you what my goal is my goal is to be putting out the kind of content that someone who's in Scientology but is starting to question things

can stumble upon and won't be turned off. Okay? Because remember when I told you I spent two years living in Hollywood by myself? Like not having nothing to a Scientology? I stumbled upon the internet in those two years. And I went to the websites that were talking shit about Scientology. And what I saw was so offensive to me and so derogatory and so insulting and so mocking and so whatever that. that it had no effect on me whatsoever.

I wasn't reading anything that reflected my own experience. And so I was like, oh, it really is just a bunch of people spreading lies on the internet. But a Scientologist who watches my channel does not have that reaction. They go, one, this guy fucking knows what he's talking about. Two, he's really fair, actually. Right? And three, they go, and he's kind of fucking funny. So I'm going to keep watching this shit.

You are very funny. I fucking love watching your videos. They're so amazing. And they're so entertaining, too. Like the variety of subjects you have. It's amazing that you're able to come up with so many different topics every single day. I have a long list. I keep it on my phone.

Every time I think of something, I put it on my list. It is wild. So have you had people reach out to you from Scientology? What has that been like? Well, this is the other part of the answer of what my goal is. So I'm the vice president of the Aftermath Foundation. we help people who are escaping from Scientology. So it's one of the reasons why,

even if I don't have anything interesting to talk about, I will think of something just to do a video because every video, I don't necessarily promote the Aftermath Foundation in every one of my videos, but I do in my opening titles. My opening titles, I know people are like, this is Vice President, Aftermath Foundation,

AftermathFoundation.org. It's in the beginning of every fucking video. And then sometimes I'll actually plug the Aftermath Foundation and I'll show our little Mike Rinder Bobbleheads. So the fact that I'm putting out content that will not repel a Scientologist and I'm promoting the Aftermath Foundation, that gives me a reason to keep doing content. I want people to know that if they want to leave Scientology, there's a organization dedicated to giving them any help they could possibly need. And so this goes to answer the question you just asked. There are so many people that have reached out to the Aftermath Foundation who say that that's how they found out about it.

was the YouTube videos. No way. 100%. And they tell me exactly what I was hoping. They're like, everything you said in your videos, I was like, that shit's true. And that really is so rewarding. And it's why I don't call Scientologist names. I mean, I've gotten to the point now where I've been out of it for long enough that sometimes it is hard to talk about some of it without laughing.

But that's just honest. It's goddamn funny when you start trying to describe some of this shit like Zinu and the, alien psychiatrist run memory wipe stations on Venus. That shit is objectively funny. That is funny shit. But even if you're a Scientologist and you see me talking about it and you see me laughing about it, you're going to realize it's funny too. Right.

It's not offensive that I'm laughing about it. When you say it out loud, because you're not used to hearing somebody say it out loud. You're just used to, that's something Scientologist think, but you don't hear someone in the real world say it out loud. Sometimes that's all it takes to go, fuck, that is some crazy sounding shit. Right? Yes. So when you say it's been an impact on the YouTube channel,

my impact that I'm going for is putting out content that would resonate with an actual Scientologist and continually promoting the Aftermath Foundation and trolling the shit out of David Miscavich. A lot of what I do is like, because I know he watches the shit. And even if there's a video he doesn't watch, someone in the Office of Special Affairs is watching

every video I put out anything Chris Shelton puts out anything Mike Rinder, Tony Ortega, Leah Remedy. There are Searag members whose job it is to monitor all this shit. So that's why I'll make fun of David Miscavage's height every time I get. Because I want that Seerog

member who's doing his job and isn't questioning. I want a Searg member who isn't even on the fence yet to be like this fucker is funny. I like I like this guy. I want him to see it's okay in the real world. You know, leaving Scientology doesn't turn you into this like, I don't know, weird, weird monster.

You know, so I have a few different purposes for the channel. And I feel like I'm accomplishing all of those purposes. Have you ever heard someone reach out to you directly with it that was a current member of Scientology? We have helped people on the inside spend months planning their escape. Really? We have helped people on, we have helped C-org members hire an actual attorney to represent. present them before they even left the Seorch. The story, the most phenomenal stories that we have to tell have not been told yet.

Because we have to, some of these stories can't be told until certain legal, you know, because when people leave, like some of these people have very valid criminal complaints. Some of these people have very valid civil complaints. The Aftermath Foundation itself does not involve ourselves in any way in any of these legal actions. But some of these stories can't be told until certain legal actions are settled. So there's people that are currently in Scientology who you are working with trying to get them to escape. Helping them.

Helping them. Helping them to do it in a way that will ruin their life the least. Because remember, there's an entire lives that are going to be destroyed at least as they have known it. The new version of their life will be much better. The job, the goal, the purpose of the foundation is to make that transition as smooth as possible and have the outcome be as close to what they desire it to me. What is in your experience the biggest hurdle for these people? Losing everyone you've ever known.

Because everybody that they know that's currently in their life is a part of Scientology and they have to disconnect from them. Yeah. And people, these people, some of these people in the C organization are just employees of Scientology. They don't have any friends outside of Scientology. Nobody. Some people have been there 30, 40 years. don't have bank accounts, don't have driver's licenses, don't know how to drive.

In some cases, that's my... In some cases. And their family members are CERD members. And what do you tell them? What do you... Oh, we don't convince these people. We don't convince anyone. No, no, I don't...

I'm not saying you're trying to convince them, but when obviously that's a huge fucking thing. Like, leaving it, you know nobody. Like, do they, I'm sure they explain this to you. Like, what do you, what do you, how do you communicate to them or how do you, what do you say? Because you experienced that, right? They have to already be... your wife. They have to be so far along that path in their own mind to reach out to us in the first place. Right. So they have to, because a true believer would be terrified to even message us.

So they have to have already sort of come to terms. It already has to be so bad already for them to be like, they've already thought it through. Yeah, I think I'm willing to do this. And we sort of, we sort of go, well, let's make sure you really know what you're talking about. Because we're not going to, like, we're not going to push you along this path, but we will help you every step of the way. So we'll go, we'll get the full rundown. Tell us all your family members, who's what, who's what, where, where do you want to go? What do you want to do? You know, why, whatever. We make sure it really is that key thing of like, we are not going to in any way, shape or form try to help you make your mind up about this because you're the one who's going to have to

live with the consequences. But we want you to know that if you do make this decision for yourself, we're going to do literally anything necessary in order to help you make the transition. And it's been phenomenally successful. Every single week we're helping someone who's leaving Scientology.

What kind of things does Scientology do to sabotage the process? Once they find out if they even get a whiff that were involved, they leave it alone. Really? Well, look, Leah, I mean, you have Mike Rinder who's on our board.

Well, Mike Rinder was the co-host of the, well, you know, you interviewed him. He was the co-host of the Scientology and the Aftermath show. Right. Any person, here's what Muscovich is over there thinking. Any person who's leaving the C organization with our help is potentially the next reality TV show you're going to be. So you're going to say, the last thing he needs is us to have tons of evidence of everything they're doing to keep people there against their will. So once they get any whiff that we're involved, they're like, Like, cut bait and get the hell out of there.

Leave those people alone. Which is amazing because that's an additional value that we bring to the equation. And it's why I'll mention that in my videos. So that people know, oh, shit. So if I decide to leave and ask these guys for help, not only will I get the help, but it will prevent me from getting all the harassment I would normally get otherwise. No one's going to be chasing me down and dragging me back. When I was talking to Ron Miscavage, it was the saddest thing about talking to him was I asked him.

I said, do you think there's that little boy that you raised in David before he got taken away by Scientology? I said, do you think that he's anywhere in there anymore? And he said, no. Yeah. That was so sad to me. I mean, Scientology just becomes your personality. I mean, and I don't know, like, you know, even David Miscavich. Like, I don't know whose personality, Ms. Gavich emulated in order to become who he is.

Do you know what I mean? Like, I can think of examples in my life where I've had a strong personality near me. And I can think of specific examples of how we start to act like that person. Take little things. Exactly. I can't even tell you who it is Miscavich was emulated in order to become this horrible version of himself. Because it wasn't El Ron Hubbard. And that's not to mean that Elvon Hubbard didn't have a lot of these negative personality traits.

I'm saying that because Miscavich didn't spend a lot of time. with Alvron Hubbard. Mike Rinder spent more time with Elvon Hubbard than David Miskavich ever did. There's something, and this is where you kind of go, nature, nurture, like the fact that I have so much in common with my dad, even though we've spent almost no time together. So how much of David Miskavich's personality is, you know, pre-baked in his DNA? And how much of it was allowed to thrive because of the culture of Scientology, where it really is, the vicious do rise to the top, you know, especially in the C-org.

Yeah. So, like, I don't even know that we can blame Elrond Hubbard for David Miscavich. And it's funny because, you know, I'm pretty familiar with all of the personalities and the characters that existed during that time. And it was kind of like Miskavich was always sort of a little bit of a tyrant even from the beginning. Yeah. It's almost like, have you listened to Mike Rinder's book or read it a billion years yet? I have not.

You would love it. But even Miskavich's bosses were kind of afraid of him. That's a weird thing to consider, right? Yeah. So in some respects, he wasn't emulating anybody than maybe whatever he had created in his mind of what he needed to be in order to succeed in that environment. And maybe he took, maybe he created that in his mind from what. what he was reading of El Ron Hubbard. But it really is something he created.

Like he created some version of himself that he thought would succeed in the C-organization and in rising up and manifested that. Because there really is no one else in the C. or maybe one or two people in the C-Rig hierarchy who former C-RG members will tell you was just a horrible fucking person. You know?

And it says something, the fact that that is what was able to rise to the top. Have you ever thought about the possibility of ever having being able to interview him in your lifetime? No. No. No. If tomorrow magically he said, I'm going to come in and do a, I'm going to do a podcast with you. What would you? Oh, I'd say, of course. What would you say to him? And how would you approach him? Oh, I would have some amazing questions for him. I mean, even, even what we just spoke about would have been a fantastic, would be a fantastic conversation. Who is it that you were emulating. Who is it that you, you know, who, who, who, like, he was so young when he got

into Scientology. How did he even form a concept of what, what it would take to succeed? Without question, it came from LRAH policies. But it would be interesting to hear him talk about how much of his idea of the right way to do things, um, came from El Ron Hubbard versus maybe came from other people or just, maybe he's like, oh, I was, I was always born to lead. I was born this way. You know, how much of it came from seeing how his father behaved when he was little? Right. It's not like his father was an absent figure in his life.

Right. Right. So how much of those personality traits maybe were baked in before they even got into Scientology? Do you know, like, I mean, Ron Miscavitch, he's not with us anymore. Ron Miscavich senior. Right. You know, he has openly spoken about being very physically violent with his wife when miscavich was young.

You know, you don't hear stories of miscavich hitting women. He has his women who work for him hit women. But he does hit men. Right. And it's not like that's unheard of in this the organization, but it's not common either. That's such an odd psychological thing to me.

When you hear people like Mike Rinder explain this little man beating the shit out of me, yet I'm afraid to retaliate. Like at what point does your animal instinct to kick in to override that sort of hierarchy what fuckery that's going on. Yeah. Yeah. It's so weird.

It's so fucking weird. I mean, that just goes to show how powerful the belief system is and how how much you can just blindly believe in this shit when you think this little, when this fucking guy is beating the shit out of you and you won't do anything to stop him. Yeah. Or that, I mean, obviously could be the retaliation of everyone else standing around him that also is, you know,

a believer. it has more to do with the fact of truly believing that having the privilege of being allowed to get Scientology auditing and thinking that you can only do that in the Church of Scientology and thinking that the process of Scientology auditing is the only way it is ever possible for you to break the cycle of endless amnesia. If you truly believe that, it's not a matter of retaliation. It's not a matter of physical retaliation. It's a matter of if I hit this guy back,

I'm going to be expelled from Scientology. If I'm expelled from Scientology, I won't be allowed to get auditing and do the bridge. If I can't get auditing and do the bridge, I'll never get unplugged from the Matrix. Because if you're at the lower levels and your senior hits you, you can hit them back. You're not going to get in trouble,

but you're not going to get expelled from Scientology. Right? So they don't have that, they don't hold that exit. existential thing over your head. But that's the reason why nobody would retaliate against Ms. Cavage. It's because you go, oh, then I'll be expelled from Scientology. Now, if you happen to be a Searge member who for whatever reason, you stopped to believe in the bullshit and you were ready to just get out of there anyway, oh yeah, you could just slug him. And I think

Ms. Cavich's fear that that might happen someday is one of the reason he keeps getting rid of people. He thinks there's spies in his midst. Like, he's very, he'd become a very paranoid. individual. Yeah, how could you not? And the only way he can be protected is if he's surrounded by people who still truly believe the fundamental story of Scientology.

But if you didn't care whether you got kicked out of Scientology tomorrow, you could just go up and beat the shit out of him. You probably wouldn't even call the police. Because that would be extremely embarrassing. That would be playing the victim. Yeah, you'd have to explain what he did, he'd have to explain what he did to pull it in. Yeah.

So honestly, like, really, that is a threat that Miskavish lives with. If there's someone in his environment who does not give a shit, whether they get expelled, he's actually in a lot of danger, which is why he's sort of become a recluse. Right. Wow. That's why his wife's

not around. It's why all these other managers aren't around. At least that factors into the equation. So what do you think the near future holds for Scientology? Do you think that how likely is it? Do you think they lose their tax exempt status?

And you mentioned it would be like you believe it's going to be within the next three years. And do you think, what do you think happens after David Miscarvards? So if he kicks the bucket, what happens then? I think, well, do you want to answer that part directly or the early part? Answer the tax exempt part first. Do you think that will actually make it buckle? It will greatly speed the decline of Scientology. We've already seen the decline in terms of.

membership, we have not seen a decline in terms of assets. As long as they have taxes and status, their assets will not go down. They have almost no operating costs. They have no staff costs. They have no property tax. They have no income tax. They have no tax. Their operating costs are very, very low. So I think the decline in Scientology in terms of membership will continue unabated no matter what. We won't see them taking a hit on assets until they lose a tax exam status. I do not believe Scientology has enough operating cash flow to cover the costs of paying property taxes. They just don't. They've purchased so much goddamn tax-free property. So much fucking property. It's insane. That they have enough reserves to pay those bills for probably a lot of years,

but they don't have enough cash flow to cover it. So that's what I'm saying. You take away the tax exempt status all of a sudden, not only is the membership declining, all of a sudden their dollars are declining as well. Now, how long could they hold on for? I don't know, who knows? At that point, who cares. They're in life-saving mode at that point. Right. Now, on the other thing on the litigation side, so I would expect to see criminal charges brought within the next, I'm just being sort of conservative three to five years. For me, 90% confidence we see criminal charges in three to four years. Okay. Now, once those charges are brought, it's anyone's guess how long Scientology can drag that out. That's why I said it took five years just for Danny Masterson's shit to come to court.

Right. And at this point, remember, Scientology is now fighting for its life again. So no holds barred, pull out all the stops. So I don't know. Could they drag that on for 10 years, 15? I don't know. So what I can't speak to is the timeline, sorry, the timeline of the process of how long it takes to prosecute those things. And then also, just because you get the criminal prosecution, it's not like that's an automatic slam dunk. Now the IRS automatically starts doing something.

I just, there's a very high, I have a very high confidence level that criminal prosecutions and reviewing and revoking the tax exempt status will be correlated if not. There'll be correlation there if not causation. So I just think that ball's rolling. To some extent, I sort of go, it doesn't matter how fast the ball rolls. The ball's rolling and it will keep rolling. So it's one of the things like, it's one of the reasons why I just think one of the purposes of my YouTube channel is just to keep trolling Ms. Gavich.

I just keep putting it out there. It's coming. We're one day closer. Today's one day closer. I don't know what the days, but we're one day closer. And I truly believe that. If I didn't believe it, I wouldn't take any joy in saying it. It's amazing, man.

And so the tax exempt status, so he answered the tax exempt status answered the membership's been declining for her since like. Yeah, what happens if he dies? Oh, I think we actually see a kinder, gentler version of Scientology. That's my opinion. Because like I said, Scientology, you already have to be like such a strong believer. or I should say the brand of belief

that you get in Scientology because it has this matrix like quality to it like the matrix is a really good analogy so in the matrix you get unplugged when you're in the matrix you're living this great life

but it's false right right you get unplugged well life sucks you're eating this snot for food but you're free but it's a shitty existence

okay right but they believe enough in the value of unplugging people from the matrix that they dedicate their entire lives to it. Okay. So, okay, what I was saying there is, the brand of belief that you have within Scientology

is fundamentally so strong that if you just treated people a little less terribly, you would never lose anyone. I mean, Scientology loses people. You talk to people like me and Mike Rinder and all the other people that had websites there. You talked about their stories. they were treated horribly, where they almost had no choice but to leave.

It wouldn't take a lot to change that. And if Miskavich wasn't whatever is wrong in his head, like he has the power. People say you can never change any policy in Scientology. Miscavich has changed an awful lot of things in Scientology. He can change whatever he wants. He just has to pull up something, I found this thing.

Elvon Hubbard said this is really how he wanted it. That's all he does. He can change whatever the hell he wants to change. if he didn't have something loose in his head, he could make a kinder, gentler version of Scientology that wasn't so hell-bent on destroying families. There's good faith arguments to be made on both sides of it,

on why that could never happen and why that could. And honestly, I understand both arguments. I firmly believe that if Ms. Gavich wanted to make a slightly kinder, gentler version of Scientology, he could. And I think whoever replaces Ms. Gavich, I think there's a chance that that happens.

But again, it, but it doesn't, all that will do is make the experience of being a Scientologist less horrible. It's not going to change the trajectory of Scientology. Because these financial crimes that Scientology has committed are very real. Yeah. The credit card thing is bananas. It is. That is fucking crazy.

I bet you do the same thing with real estate. They probably take out mortgages in those people's names too. They want the money. Because remember, it's tax-free money. Scientology doesn't buy property with mortgages. It's all cash. Scientology does not have any debt. They own all their buildings that, right?

They buy all their buildings with cash. Everything is cash. Everything. They do not have debt. Scientology does not have debt. They could take out mortgages and refinance. I mean, pull out more cash, maybe.

Is there some sort of backdoor way they could do that? You're in real estate? So they pay for it with cash, but if they were going to refinance the property, then they wouldn't have bought it with cash in the first place. I mean, it's six and one, half a dozen of the other. Okay. Yeah, I see you're saying.

And also they don't, they don't want the hassle. Yeah. It's a big pain in the ass. You want to be able to walk in with, you know, a cash offer and close immediately, not like subject to financing. And then it also prevents all the financial, it creates. They'd rather not have all that, the paper trail. Right.

Of like whose names on this. So you and Mike Rinder, you guys flip houses? No, we just did one. You just did one. Are you still in real estate at all or no? So I got a real estate license because I want to open a real estate broker. But I don't earn my money. I don't make a living on real estate. Oh, okay. So, I mean, given my whole, like my career trajectory since leaving Scientology is kind of an interesting

conversation on its own. And, and the height of that was me doing a bunch of hedge fund research for some very famous hedge fund managers on Wall Street. Oh, really? Yeah. You could pull up Aaron Smith, Levin Forbes, and you'll see an article that was written on that. Did you pay for this? I basically saved up I was making Manhattan money for a bunch of years living in my Clearwater house Oh yeah? Working out of my Clearwater house

Wow That's actually how I met Mike He came to work for me in my company That's how I first went Yeah And I mean I'm essentially retired I do what I want

We do real estate I genuinely like real estate I don't make my life I don't Real estate's fun I I basically, I invest. Yeah.

Like I wasn't in there where the hammer doing a real estate flight, but I was paying for the job. My partner was doing the job. Right, right, right, right. Yeah. And so, and now I'm doing so much YouTube.

I'm loving doing YouTube. YouTube is fun. Okay, this is not Forbes. No, that's not it. Forbes. Come on, Austin. Forbes. Well, yeah,

I ran for Clewater City Council last year. Last year? Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. What made you want to do that? I wanted to prove to the world that Scientology does

not run Clearwater and there aren't even enough Scientologists to ever get a Scientologist onto the City Council. Would you ever be the mayor of Clearwater? I wouldn't want to be. Mayor Hibbert is not running for re-election. Oh no. Here's the problem. Clearwater's political establishment has been hopelessly corrupted by Scientology. So even though there aren't enough Scientologists to ever get one of their own members on the City Council, they don't really need one of their own members because someone like Frank Hibbert's a big enough pussy. He does the job anyway. Right. Right. Um, It was one of the hardest things I've ever done was six months of campaigning. I personally knocked on over 5,000 doors.

I raised over $70,000. Jesus. And I almost won. Who beat you? Lena Tashara. She beat me by less votes than there are Scientologists and every Scientologist voted for her. Wow. So for the first time ever, for the first time ever, Scientologists normally don't vote.

But for this election, because I was running. baby they were voting that time and it was a midterm election where the voter turnout was very very low there go right at the top there oh fucking Forbes goddamn paywall oh I don't have an account either but oh do you not have an ad blocker or oh disable the ad blocker but you can you probably have an ad blocker built into your chrome right we don't have ad blocker do we yeah there you go yeah just um disable it for that one website. Oh, okay. Anyway. Anyways. I've been very fortunate in that me leaving, Scientology was never able to financially crunch me. Like the moment I left Scientology,

I started making five times a little money than I was making when I was in. That's amazing. I'm sure it goes like that for most people who leave. No. Because they're making 50 cents a week. Oh, no, no, no, no. Remember, there was a time after I left the Seorg. I was still a public, I was like a public Scientologist for a handful of years because me and my wife had a baby. Yeah. So I started working for this guy who had, was in the hedge fund world. And I worked for five years and I ran its hedge fund real estate.

Hedge fund research business. In that five years, even though I had no high school diploma, didn't even know how the hell the stock market worked before I started working for this guy. In five years, I was able to learn enough,

do a good enough and establish enough connections that once he had to fire me because I was being expelled from Scientology, he was a Scientologist. I had enough connections in the industry

that they helped me get set up in my own business. Oh, okay. Like, in three or four weeks, I have my first client. That's awesome. Yeah. And is this the article you're talking about? Yeah.

Okay, cool. William, how do you say his last name? Bill, Bill Ackman. Bill Ackman. Okay. This is just an example of a lot of the work that gets done in the hedge fund world is not work that's supposed to be made public because it's research and it's not like the best way to do research isn't letting everyone know that you're doing research.

But this is one of the only things that's been publicly published about. So I just mentioned it as an example. Bill Ackman is one of the most famous billionaires on Wall Street. Yeah, I think I've heard of him. I don't know much about it, though. It's a whole herbal life thing. The whole Wall Street thing just gets so confusing to me. I understand real estate.

I don't understand fucking stocks and crypto. I understand a little bit just as like the amount I need to understand it. Yeah. I understand stocks. I know enough not to get involved. I understand. I understand like general. I understand stocks.

Like I understand. But like how people can dedicate so much time to fucking follow. and buying low and selling high, all these different stocks chasing them and trying to time the stock market, that gets fucking, that turns into a headache for me. Well, yeah, I mean, historically speaking, it's simply impossible to time the stock market

and outperform and outperform just normal index funds. Right, exactly. But when you're someone like Bill Ackman, who's, you know, when I was working, when I was working for his fund, like he contracted with my business to the research room. He was managing $20 billion.

And not only do they get a performance fee, they take an administrative fee. So it's 2% of 20 billion. Is that 40 million? Is that 2% of, 2% of, that's just the annual fee for managing the money. Let's see. Of 20 billion. That's a lot.

Whatever two per is, I grew up in a cult, I'm not good at math. Maybe 20 million. Is that sound right? That's just the annual fee. That's fucking crazy. And then you take 20% of the profit. You take 20% of the upside. So is that 400 million or 40 million?

I can't tell. That's 400 million, I think. Oh, yeah. That's his annual fee. There's a comma go. Oh my God, that's hilarious. So, you know, when you're traveling in that, in that space, it's like, well, that's why they spend all their time trying to pick stocks. It's very lucrative.

Even if you're not succeeding, that's his fee. Yeah. That's his fee for showing up. That's fucking insane. So anyway, it's a fascinating world. And it's also a world, the more you understand it, the more you realize it's all bullshit. Yeah, it really is all bullshit. And once I was able to see how much bullshit was involved in that industry, I, I,

I haven't been able to dedicate even one minute of time trying to dig into crypto. Because I'm like, it's just bullshit on top of bullshit. Oh my God. And it doesn't, it doesn't mean Bitcoin won't be worth a million dollars in 10 years. I'm not, you never know because it's bullshit. No, but real estate is a lot of fun. Yeah. Especially, I mean, I guess around here, it's crazy.

Anything you're doing that you're not like having to do for your next meal can be fun. Like I imagine if you're in the real estate business, but you're grinding and it's, and you, you know, your emotional. state is really tied to the, you know, the fluctuations of the industry. I imagine it gets to a point where it's not fun. Right. But if you're just doing it because it's fun, then it's a lot of fun. Yeah, it can be very stressful if you're chasing something. Like, you're chasing like 1031 trying to evade tax, trying to avoid paying taxes and doing it like on a humongous scale. Like when you're, when you have like to the point where you have

fucking staff involved in flipping hotels. Yeah. And then you get and then you start getting over leveraged and now you have a lot at risk and you can lose it all. And it's like, yeah, but if you're just doing all cat. It's a fun hobby. But if you're just doing all. deals and it's you know your your livelihood doesn't depend on it and you can pick and choose what you want to do and then you're like you're getting all of the fun with none of the downside and all the upside and it's easy to understand i think what makes it more appealing is it's tangible yeah it's like you're in this place you own this plot of land with this fucking piece of construction on it artwork whatever you want to call it like it's just it's something different something intrinsic to it that

makes it more fun, I think. Yeah. So, like, I want to open up a brokerage because it occurred to me that it's like, real estate. Okay. Can we, you want to talk about real estate for a minute? Sure. So I started doing these house lifts with my buddy. And at first we started using a realtor.

And I was like, the realtor always wants credit when the house sells immediately. And at first I'm like, wow, this realtor is doing a great job. Awesome. But then it's a different story when the house doesn't sell right away. Now it's something wrong with the house here and this is wrong and this is wrong. and I'm thinking to myself, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So you're saying the house isn't selling because something's wrong with the house. Doesn't that mean that the only reason the house sold is like, like you want all of the credit

when it goes right, but none of the blame when it goes wrong. Right. This is a scam. You'll see where I'm going with this. This is a scam, right? So we switch another realtor. Same story. They always want to talk about, oh, I did a puck.

We market the property here. We market the property there. Anyway, after doing enough properties, I realized, wait, properties really sell. themselves, realtors don't sell properties. This is a fucking scam. So then I started not using realtors. And I just started doing,

I would find a broker who for 100, 200 bucks would let me put the property on the MLS. And I was the property owner, so I'm not under any state regular. I can sell my own property. And so I started selling my own properties. And I was like, oh, the real estate industry really is a scam.

It really is. Real estate brokers are gatekeepers for the MLS. The MLS populates Zillow and all the other websites. The real estate industry continues to exist because you have to have a broker's license to access the MLS. And the MLS populates all the websites. So it didn't occur to me for a long time. I was like, I had this bad opinion of real tours.

Not because there's anything wrong with them, but because I was like, oh, it's kind of a scam. You want $20,000 commission for one week of work, but I just paid this guy $100 to put my thing on the MLS, and I did the exact same thing. Okay. I was like, this is a scam. So then one day I woke up and I was like, but wait a second, it's a scam that's not going anywhere. No.

The brokers will always be the gatekeepers to the MLS. End of story. And so then even though it never occurred to me, oh, I want to be a realtor. I never occurred to me because I didn't have a high opinion of what the realtors were doing. But I woke up one morning and I was like, fuck being a realtor. I want to be a broker. That's where it's at. But then I found out that in order to get a broker's license, you have.

have to have a realtor's license for two years. And I was like, oh shit, I should have started. I should have, so I got a realtor's license. And that's why sometimes I will promote dream realty and a good buddy of mine who's a former Scientologist owns Dream Realty. And he's like, hey, hang your shingle with me. He's like, if you help me grow the business, I'll give you a piece of it. And if you just want to, you know, open up your own when you can do that as well.

And I was like, sweet. So I promote Dream Realty on my channel more because I'm like, what the hell else am I going do with my channel. Right. I saw the funniest meme on Instagram the other day. It said, 90% of the girls on Instagram that have Realtor in their bio are 30 heartbeats away from starting an only fan. Oh, and here's the other thing. Because the real estate industry is about to completely crash, probably, the people who actually rely on it for their, you know, their next meal, they're going to wash out of the industry and have to go somewhere else. But people who don't, like, I don't earn a living from real estate.

I'm doing it because I want to have it there. I want to, you build a brokerage. You can build that for the rest of your life and have it be something that makes money, but I don't rely on it. So I'm not going to wash out of the industry when the tide goes out. Right. Do you see what I mean? Yeah.

So for people who can stick with it, there's so much more upside when things come back. Yeah, I saw something to an article recently about there's more. more and more, like there's an abundance of real estate agents right now for some reason, especially in Florida for some reason. It's insane. And so many of them have made like less than $10,000 this year. Yeah. I've gotten, I've probably done five deals just from mentioning Dream Realty on my channel for like three weeks,

eight months ago. Like I haven't mentioned Dream Realty on my channel in many, many, many, many months. Well, because it got to the point where I was like, yeah, I don't really need to. It feels cheesy. doing it right yeah but now I but then but then Atlas VPN we shout I was like hey you want to do a sponsorship I was like fuck yeah and then Ridge Wallet reached out you want to do a sponsor I'm like rich wallace like oh my favorite sponsor and um but I will eventually get back to promoting promoting um dream realty just honestly just honestly for fun oh but that's what I'm saying

I mentioned it on my channel for like maybe a one month period I mentioned it for everything I uploaded like for maybe four weeks like eight months ago but because those videos are there, you know, people can watch a video you uploaded nine months ago. Oh, yeah, of course. I still get leads. I still get leads to those videos. Yeah. It's amazing. I guess having a platform actually has some value. So is your audience on YouTube are, how much of, are they just people that are fascinated by Scientology in general? Or what would you say like the main audience? Where do they come from? Judging by the comments, it's a lot of it is they're fascinated by Scientology. I mean, but I would say, but I'd say it's not a majority. A lot of it, but not a majority.

Some of it is they have a similar involvement. They have some experience that they consider similar, like whether they're in a cult. You know, some people are part of some really far right-wing Christian organizations that they feel are cults. Right. A lot of people, or even honestly, sometimes just bad relationships where they, it was sort of a cult. What kind of right-wing organizations? Oh, no, I'm not even, I'm thinking of like, like, okay, so my friend Chris Shelton, he's done videos. some, like there's some organization called Quiverful. It's like some Christian. You can always find some crazy, when I say far right, what I really mean is extremist. I don't mean politically right. Oh, okay. Um, extremist Christian cults. I couldn't even give you the names. I'm just saying,

like, you know, where, um, well, I mean, quiver, quiverful is one real example. Okay. I've seen, I've seen Chris Elton specifically interview someone from the quiverful organization or whatever. Okay. So I'm saying some people are fascinating with Scientology. Some people have something in their history that it wasn't related to Scientology, but the way I talk about Scientology, it's almost like if you watch Nexium, if a Scientologist watches Nexium, they're going to go, I don't know anything about nexium, but boy, this sure reminds me

me of psychology. Right. So a lot of people have that reaction when they watch my Scientology. Oh, okay. I don't know anything about Scientology, but boy, this reminds me of this other thing I would have been part of it. And some people are like, I don't give a damn about any of this and I don't know why YouTube served this out to me, but you're hilarious. Yeah. And I just want to keep watching your shit. The biggest thing I took out of it

is out of understanding, like, like seeing the connection between all these big cults, how similar it is to people's fucking political ideologies nowadays in America with left and right. Politics has gotten very cold. Especially since Trump, it's become super culty. Not just with people that follow, like we're hardcore Trump supporters,

but people that were anti-Trump. It's almost just as bad if not worse. Totally. It's insane. And there's like this binary between left and right and you have to fall in order with each of these things and you can't fucking talk about and talk about or agree with anything outside of that fucking bubble. It's so, fucking similar. It is similar. And it goes back to what I said before. Like when you look at all these

examples, it doesn't leave you with a very high opinion of the human experiment, human organism. And in politics, it's gotten so, I mean, culty is the right word. But like, I have a rule on my channel. I don't talk about politics. Not because I don't love talking about politics. I do. But it doesn't, you could say something with the best of intentions and think you're being so supremely fair and right down the middle and just making a joke and you're you're gonna piss off so many people is that why you don't want to talk about it because oh yeah you want to piss people off that's right i go you know what that's not why people came to my channel why should i start turning people away like i really like i'm gonna interview steve hasson sometimes soon right i mentioned he wrote the combating cult mind control right

but he also wrote a book called something like the cult of trump and i'm a little nervous about having him on because i know he's gonna fucking talk about that shit and i would love to talk about that shit but not in front of my audience So not and I don't understand why are you afraid of pissing people off on the internet though? The internet is full of people that are pissed off and like to be pissed off and gravitate towards things that piss them off. No, you're right. But if you grow a channel and a brand doing that, well, then that's who your audience is. They've come for that.

I've grown my channel talking about Scientology. If I now do a 180 and I start talking about politics, no matter where I go with it, people are going to go, well, that's not why we fucking came here. Even if you have a balanced perspective on things, you think they would still feel. think that? You think it's balanced. I think it's balanced. I made a joke about, I made a joke about chiropractors this week. I've been taking shit all week for it. You know what I said? Well, chiropracters are scam artists. I said, doctor, yeah, I didn't think it would be so fucking controversial to make a joke about chiropractors. Right? I said, I said, Dr. Eric Berg is a doctor the way Elron Hubbard is the world's greatest humanitarian. Yes. I said, in other words,

he's a chiropractor. And then I- Don't get me wrong. I believe that about chiropractor. But chiropractors have helped me out. Totally. I've had a fucking... Scientology has helped people too. My mom was married to a chiropractor, so I can shit on them. He never did anything for me.

Isn't it so funny, though, about chiropractors, how they are, like, a legitimate... You could get a fucking prescription from a chiropractor and get, like, all kinds of crazy medical devices. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. I bought a sleep number bed. And you can get... If you go and buy a sleep number bed, I'm plugging sleep number.

They don't pay me, but they have great beds. And if you go and buy a bed from them... and you get a prescription, you get your chiropractor to sign a little piece of paper, they will give you like 15 or 20% off of fucking bed. Because you have a prescription from a chiropractor. Oh my God, I had no idea.

Which is the reason I fucking went to a chiropractor in the first place. Well, my back was kind of fucked up, so I wanted to get a new mattress. I tried all the new mattresses. And then I went to the chiropractor, and he's the one who told me about this. You know, I can sign this if you get a fucking sleep number. I don't know if he was being a shill for sleep number.

But he's like, if you get a sleep number, They're the best. That's what I use. It was probably just a discount code. It was probably just a promo discount code. Use promo code. Doctor, whatever. Oh, my God. So here's the thing.

My mom was married to a chiropractor. I always feel better after getting an adjustment. I can't tell you it ever did anything for me long term and never made my headaches go away. You know what does make my headaches go away? Advil. That shit's terrible for you too. I know. I know.

I know. But look, I followed up my joke about chiropractic with what I thought was a perfectly fair statement. I said, what's wrong with Dr. Berg being a. chiropractor is not that he's a chiropractor. It's that his viewers think he's a medical doctor. That's the fairest statement in the world. I've been taking shit in the comments all week because of it. And that's not, well, that's not his fault. No, I know. I've been saying he's like, there's a lot of people that watch my channel who like what I do, but they're chiropractors.

I'm like, well, did I have to make a joke about chiropractors? No. Did I do it anyway? Yes. Look, look, you asked a, you asked a fair question. How are you going to concern yourself about pissing people off on the internet? You're right. I shouldn't, but there are certain creators who have created from the beginning with that approach, and therefore they don't lose anything by continuing with that approach. I simply have not taken that approach. And I have actually been very candid in my videos where I say, hey, look, I don't make any political comments one way or the other because I know that's not what you came for me for. And whenever I say that in a video, it goes, there are a lot of comments.

That's one of the things I love about your channel. you don't take pot shots because how many people are there how many people are there there are such great creators out there who I love what they do I love what they do I love what they do and then they'll make some fucking joke

and you're like that that that realized it's insulting something you are and believe like what for example well I will see I don't want to give an example

that are political in nature not even on this show well come on man my audience will be watching okay let me think of an example so you're saying Okay, okay. Here's an example. Because it's not even a personal one.

The late night shows have all gone to hell because they are all left-wing shills now. Yes. They're not comedians anymore. Right. Why do we watch the late-night shows? Entertainment and comedy. Well, now they've gone political

and the shows fucking suck. I can't Colbert is unwatchable. Jimmy Kimmel's unwatchable. I mean, the only reason Fallon was watchable for a while is because he stays away from politics. I'm sort of talking about the same thing. People didn't come, like if I make a joke about the right or the left,

people are going to go oh well that's not oh can you make fun about both of them at the same time um you you'd think that you could you'd think that you could and the truth is maybe maybe i could because honestly what i'm talking about is really just something that that exists in my own head it's not it's not like i've it's not like i've tried this and and it failed and that's why i don't do it anymore i've decided you know what it is it's the fact that i have friends on both ends of the political spectrum. And I know how virulently they hate the other end of the spectrum. Oh, no. And that's real, that's real life. Right. So you have to know, you just, I just extrapolate it out. And I'm like, you know what? My audience is probably the same way. And if I start, and if I start making jokes,

eventually I'm going to pick my lane and I'm going to stick in it. Well, but now, but now I'm doing the same thing the late night shows did. I'm doing what I originally did, but now I'm being political. Look, I would love to have it. Yeah, but it's so relevant to, what your life story is and to what your purpose is. Is the human psyche when it comes to cult of manipulation and being gullible and manipulatable and it's so relevant to our country and the political divide in our country. People are stuck in these mindsets. It's so relevant to you. When I figure out how to talk about these things on my channel in a way that I'm comfortable

with, I will have solved a major problem for myself. Because I love talking. about politics. I love talking about it. I even, I have more fun, even talking to people. I don't agree with. It's not fun just talking to what you agree with. That's boring as shit. Yes. Find the holes in your own way of thinking. But I already, I already tried to, I tried to break out of my niche this week and I tried to interview someone about freemasonry. Jesus Christ, that went down the tubes. Really? Well, first of all, I didn't know that when. Two, they're called the Gallo Sisters. They're really two hilarious sisters. They have a small YouTube channel called the Gallas sister. Are they around here? No, no. They're

Minnesota. Okay. So you did like a Skype thing? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And, well, so I didn't even know that a woman can't be a Freemason until we started the interview. Because, oh, they interviewed me about Scientology on their channel. And they were like, hey, if you want to talk about Freemasonry, I'm like, fuck yeah, I want to talk about free masonry. Like, I don't know anything about it. It sort of seems culty to me. Mm-hmm. So we start the interview and then they basically like, yeah, well, a woman can't be a Freemason. And immediately I'm like, what are we going to talk about that? Right. So there's sister organizations or whatever for women. But the problem is I kept asking them about I almost, I didn't realize that not only could they not be Freemasons, but because they weren't, they actually weren't qualified to answer the questions I was asking. But I didn't realize that and I just kept asking the same questions,

hoping they were going to eventually answer them. And then I was looking at the chat and they're like, he's interviewing non-free masons about Freemasonry. Like, this is ridiculous. And then I got emails from a bunch of Freemasons and the, you know, the third degrees and the 32nd degrees and the 33rd degrees. So now I got a bunch of people that I can interview. But it was just interesting because it was the first time I ever specifically did anything on my channel that was non-scientology.

And it's one right down the tubes. Yeah, that's going to happen. People want you to keep people want to keep you in your own lane. You know, even if you, even if you're personally interested in. That's the thing that that always puzzles me with people on YouTube is that they will just do whatever the commenters dictate to them. Like, please do this. Please don't do that. Like a lot of people will only do what the comments want them to do, which, you know, maybe there's nothing wrong with that.

Maybe that's what fuels you. Maybe that's what gives you your, gives you happiness or whatever the reason is you're doing all this stuff. But some people just do it to make their audience happy. And some people just do it because they really enjoy doing, doing it and putting out, putting it out there for people to see. And they feel like they're educating other people on things that they know or that they're passionate about. or making fucking documentaries that are cool. Like fucking like going clear is a perfect example of it. Like that guy's created so many fucking riveting documents So many.

Across so many different subject matters. That have nothing to do with each other. That have nothing to do with each other. And that's what makes that guy so entertaining to me. If you know, if he only stuck to Scientology, how fucking boring would it get? Alex Gibney. Alex Gibney.

Yeah. Fucking amazing writer. So when you started this podcast, what was like the creative thrust? Was it I want to talk about a subject or I want to talk to anyone? No, when I started this podcast, so I did, I started out in like the film industry. So I started out like working on television shows and working on movies. I actually was one of the camera operators on Dolphin Tail and Clearwater.

Oh, is that right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. And so I started out in that big industry. And then I started to get sick of it. It was everyone was like a carnie, they were all carnies with dental plans, basically. I didn't want to live that way. So I started shooting and producing like my own documentaries and TV pilots and pitching them to

TV networks and eventually got sick of that transitioned into shooting my own little stuff, my own little like mini documentaries and putting them on YouTube and eventually transitioned from that into doing the podcast. And the way I treat the podcast is just I treat them as like weekly documentaries minus the B roll in the music. So minus all the editing and the B roll in the music. Just like I treat these as just their own little weird documentaries. Like originally I just started talking to people that were into weird subcultures or weird industries or, you know, I made a documentary about a couple of fishermen on Madeira Beach, these guys that were, there were deck hands on Cooper boats, like long line boats that would go out.

I don't know if you're familiar, but Madeira Beach is like the capital of the world when it comes to the amount of grouper caught. Really? More grouper comes into John's Pass than anywhere in the world. I just know every restaurant in this entire county has group or sandwiches. Yep. And the way the, the way the laws are set up, there's these IF, this whole like IFQ quota system where like the good old boy of guys who have been here fishing forever, they got just, they took,

the government took like an X amount of shares quota and they gave them to X amount of fishermen. So these fishermen are now like these kingpins and they can just hire people below them who hire people below them to go out in these boats and they pay. pay them next to nothing. They go offshore for like two or three weeks at a time. And these guys are essentially just drug addicts. They just find drug addicts like the living behind 7-Eleven.

They say, go on the boat, go catch some fish. They come back and they just buy fucking heroin. And they run out of heroin and they're desperate for work. So they go back to the docks and they're like, please let me go out fishing again. They let them do that. They manipulate the whole fishing industry.

So these OG group, they basically have grandfathered in their share of the group of Notice. Exactly. Really? It's fascinating. Wow. So that was a little mini documentary I did online, which really pissed off a lot of people at Madeira Beach.

And that was kind of like one of the original things that like set off my YouTube channel. And then it just like the whole podcasting wave started happening. And I was interested in it. I wanted to try it. I'd always been behind the camera like talking to people and interviewing people and filming B-roll and shit, making cool looking videos with music. So I wanted to try out this, you know, actually talking to people and trying to make it interesting with just. no editing, just two cameras back and forth. And that's how it started.

I don't have any niche. There's no niche. Approaching it from a documentary. Well, look at Alex Gibney. You could almost go like, he doesn't have a niche. It's literally, what's a great story? So I can see how the documentarian thing would sort of naturally progress into, well. Yeah, it's cool.

It's me from, it's just like a personal group. Like, it's like my own little personal growth thing. I'm getting better at communicating with people, learning more about these crazy subjects. Like, you know, next week I'll have a guy here that studies. fucking ancient pyramids and how the Giza pyramids were a power plant for ancient civilization. There's no subject. You have amazing guests.

I appreciate that, man. How did you get Andrew Bustamante? I found him out of nowhere. So I had, there's one guy who was on this show. One of the first podcast guests we ever had was a guy who was actually a mortgage fraudster. And his, he was writing a book when he was in prison. He was writing books for a bunch of the people that he met that commit all of these crazy white collar crimes

like con artists and stuff like that. He was writing a book based on a guy in Orlando who bought a fleet of fighter jets to take over the Congo. This is real. And one of the guys who was investigating him was a CIA guy and he somehow got in contact with him on the internet and he met him for a drink in downtown St. Pete to talk about to do an interview for his book.

and this guy Matt, who was the mortgage fraudster that I had on my podcast, he's like, hey, there's this guy. He's like really interesting. He's a ex-CIA guy. He lives in St. Pete. He might be cool for your show. And he was the first interview I ever did. It was the first interview he ever did publicly was on this podcast. Next thing I know, Lex Friedman hits him up. He's been on Lex Friedman since then. He's been on. Andrew lives here in St. Pete? Yeah. Oh, no, no. He just moved to, I think, Jacksonville. But he's a localish guy. He's always down here. You interviewed him before he went on Lex.

Oh, yeah. Because Lex is the first time I saw him and I was like, this is fucking amazing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's been on my show like three times before Lex reached out to him. Oh, I can't believe that. It's amazing.

It's a running joke in the YouTube comments of this podcast. People will say like when there's a good episode, they'll be like, how long until Lex gets on. This is the minor leagues for Lex. There's been like four or five guests I've had that had never been on a podcast before that Lex reached out to. Wow. And Andrew's such high quality.

not only in the stories that he has to tell, but his ability to tell them. Yeah, he's super smart, super interesting guy. He's seen a lot of shit. I've never seen anybody from the intelligence community answer questions and conduct interviews as effectively as he does. And in a way that you cannot look away.

You cannot stop listening. Like, it's really incredible. Yeah. And you mentioned as far as like getting better at this and everything, isn't it amazing? Like when you start talking to people and you're doing a lot, right? And then you watch some other podcasts and whatever.

And it's so obvious the wrong ways to do it, the bad things to do. You have a podcast to all they want to do. Like, at the end of the day, the best thing you can do is just listen. Yeah. And then when you start listening to podcasts with a podcast, you constantly wants to interject. It's so hard to listen to. Yes.

I mean, do you find that the more you do it, the harder is to listen to people who are doing it wrong? No, I don't. I mean, I don't really listen. to a ton of podcasts. But, I mean, I don't know. I don't think I'd do it that well. I'm not really that good at it.

It's hard for me to criticize anybody. I don't often listen to podcasts. I think like, oh my God, this guy sucks. I can do way better than him. Most of the podcasts, whenever I do listen to him, I'm like, wow, I can take some notes from this guy. That's my experience. Well, I mean, I watch a shitload of documentaries. So that's where I get my inspiration for podcasts mostly.

I got to tell you, Lex Friedman is probably one of the guys I've, I've started watching more than anyone else because Oh yeah, he's like the number, he's like the number two podcast for sure in the world. Like he is right there behind show Rogan. He is because he's on YouTube and Joe's not on YouTube, he's definitely like the number one on YouTube. I don't think there's any question about that.

His ability to get all those high level guests, pretty amazing. Yeah. And his beautiful ASMR quality voice in his microphones. Do you think he'll get to interview Vladimir Putin one of these days? Probably. I think you will. Dude, thank you so much.

much for doing this. I really appreciate it. Where can people find out more about the organization, the foundation, and then tell people how to find you on YouTube and all that stuff? So the foundation is the aftermath foundation.org. You can also find us on Facebook, just the Aftermath Foundation. The YouTube channel is Growing Up in Scientology. Aaron Smith-Levin, A-A-Rong. It's my thing. And yeah, that's pretty much it. Cool, man. I really appreciate I link everything below. Thanks again. It's been a lot of fun. Thanks. Later, everybody.