RedHanded - Episode 229 - Scientology - Part 2: How to Make Celebrity Friends and Influence People

Episode Date: January 20, 2022

This week Hannah and Suruthi finish their two-part attempt to unravel the mysteries of Scientology (and get themselves fair-gamed) by discussing Scientology's most important questions like: "what is the current structure of The Church of Scientology?", "where does Tom Cruise fit in?" and most importantly "where on Xenu's green earth is dead-eyed Dave's wife Shelly Miscavige?" Become a patron: Patreon Order a copy of the book here (US & Canada): Order on Wellesley Books Order on Amazon.com Order a copy of the book here (UK, Ireland, Europe, NZ, Aus): Order on Amazon.co.uk Order on Foyles Follow us on social media: Instagram Twitter Visit our website: Website Contact us: Contact Sources: Wright, Lawrence. Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief . Silvertail Books. Kindle Edition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emtjD_s6SHA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHpoAm0i61Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1qL1M4P5Rc https://file.wikileaks.org/file/rj-36.mp3 https://www.reddit.com/r/scientology/comments/rtpjvr/scientology_the_life_of_a_child_in_scientology/ https://tonyortega.org https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x12cdw1 https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5bwcw6 https://people.com/tv/laura-prepon-on-motherhood-and-leaving-scientology/ https://www.whoismikerinder.com https://www.leahreminiaftermath.com/articles/leah-reminis-family-expose-leahs-lies.html https://www.aaaa.org/timeline-event/brooke-shields-sparks-controversy-calvin-klein-jeans/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed, which is sounding pretty good. And we'll from now on. Yeah, we've had a right mare with our office. The less said about it, the better. We're not going to take it anymore. No, we aren't. So we are in a real-life studio

for probably only the third time in our career. Yeah, genuinely. Yeah, basically we moved into a co-working space. We were like, this is the new chapter in Red Handed's book of events. And then we were like, the entire office is made of glass and everybody is really fucking noisy. And you can't really be annoyed about it because it's a co-working space. Sure. So we found a new co-working space that we shall be moving to imminently. Yeah, yeah.

That has, dear listeners, a podcast studio. A real life podcast studio. A real-life podcast studio. I can't bear it. My heart can't take it. With a lockable door. Oh my God. The co-working space that we moved into, we moved into it in lockdown. And obviously, as more and more people have moved in, it's just unbearably loud.

It's just too much. And we were like, you know what? We're past the workaround stage. I think this is it. We moved in and we, you know, if you are a patron and you've seen under the duvet when it's been the video format, see, we tried to, you know, aerosol glue some foam squares to the wall. Yeah, we really, we gave it our best shot and it didn't work. No, we can't solve the problem.

We're moving on. And we're moving on with you for part two of our series on Scientology, which will probably get us into some trouble. We're going to try our best. If it does, I feel like we'll have made it. I said it last week and I'll say it again. If we get a letter from the Church of Scientology, I will frame it. Oh, I would expect nothing less. I actually think, you know, sometimes when we've covered like Saudi Arabia, we're going to cover China and Russia in upcoming episodes very soon. Are we going to get in trouble? I feel like the day we do is the day I know that we have really, really made it as a podcast. The only podcast episode that has ever got kickback from a person actually involved was

several years ago, actually now. Mr. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mr. Threatening us With The IRS. Okay. Well, HMRC, we pay our taxes. Yeah, I will happily send you a PDF of our tax agenda. Go check it out if you're interested. I'll leave a link in the episode description.

If you aren't bored enough of your own fucking taxes, go and have a look at ours. But anyway, enough about tax. Actually, lots about tax in this week's episode. It's a very tax-themed episode, yeah. Do you know at one point in my life I was going to be a corporate tax person? I know. It's not a look. It's not a vibe.

Who am I? Who am I? I don't know. Who were you then? I don't know. Who was I? Still not entirely sure. Maybe I need auditing.

Maybe I accidentally audited myself into becoming a podcaster. Quite possibly. Who knows? So last week in Scientology Part 1, we left you with the death of L. Ron Hubbard, or as new kid on the block David Miscavige would have you believe, L. Ron Hubbard's ascension into the next realm of research, leaving his inconvenient earthly body behind.

There are times when I have spent so long staring at a Google Doc for an episode that I do think I have ascended into the next realm of research. Yeah, you've gone exterior. I have. It's all happening. So that was last week. This week, we're talking about what Scientology is like today. The history lesson is over. And we're going to talk about how Scientology controls its tier two celebrities. And most importantly, we will be asking the question, where is Shelley Miscavige? I hate to say this, but I do enjoy saying the name. Miscavige.

Miscavige. Yeah, it's pretty good. It's a good name. I wonder where it's from in the world. Do you think it's like an anglicized Polish maybe? It is because like, this is off on a tangent already, but like know a lot of people who like, obviously were immigrants. But you know, when they came to Ellis Island, a lot of them sort of were just like, that sounds way too fucking...

Where you're from. Yeah, change that to this, this new one. Johnny Appleseed. Yeah, exactly. A lot of Irish people got the O's knocked off the front of their name. Sure, sure. So maybe, maybe that's what happened to the Miscavige's. I'll look it up. So let's remind ourselves what an absolute beast it is that we are dealing with here.

In the United States alone, the tax-exempt Church of Scientology has over $400 million worth of property assets. In the Caribbean, they even have a massive ship that's called the Free Winds. And none other than A-list crazy celebrity Tom Cruise has had his birthday party on it. Tom Cruise is nuts. Yes, but we only found that out relatively recently. Like he was a superstar, like the most famous man on the planet. He's met the Dalai Lama like he's has so much access and we only think he's bananas now because of Scientology. Can I say though we're gonna dig into it a lot in this episode but Tom Cruise is genuinely to me terrifying like so it like

grade A sinister. Is it because he has that one tooth that's right in the middle of his face? Oh, I never noticed. Oh my God. Look at Tom Cruise's smile now. One of his, not inside, whatever those teeth are called, your front two teeth, one of his is directly in the middle of his face.

It is. Someone's even like, yeah, it's a thing. When you Google Tom Cruise teeth, it's like they've drawn a line down the middle of his face. I think when you have the line drawn, I can notice it. Otherwise, I can't. The sinister

part of him is he genuinely feels like the character out of like American Psycho. Yeah. Yeah. Really, truly. And I know, you know, Christian Bale did a great job playing that character, but it should have been Tom Cruise. But we'll on to um all of my fears surrounding tom cruise in this week's episode but back to scientology because they also own all of the copyrights and trademarks to all of hubbard's canon and if you can remember cast your mind

back to last week no one has written as many books as l ron Hubbard. So that means that they have all of the trademarks and copyright to over a thousand books relating to the foundations of Scientology, essentially. Not even that. Every piece of science fiction he ever wrote. This is true, yeah. All of the made-up words he copyrighted. All of it. All of it. All of it. They're even rumoured to have nuclear blast resistant caverns. And in New Mexico, they also have an airstrip in the shape of two interlocking circles because you've got to keep it edgy.

It has to be recognisable. A lot of shit looks the same from up there. This is true. And why do they have this airstrip? Why does it look so recognisable? Well, possibly because, you know, just in case one day, very dead L. Ron Hubbard decides that he needs to come back, he has a place to land from his mysterious space mission.

Yeah, that he can easily recognise as his from the air. So what actually happened after L. Ron Hubbard left this Earth one way or the other? Well, technically speaking, he left Pat and Annie Broker, his closest aides who were with him at the time of his death, in charge. And as we'll go on to see, it didn't stay that way for very long. Even though there was absolutely no mention of David Miscavige in Hubbard's final declaration. That's just a detail. It wasn't going to stop dead-eyed Dave. After Hubbard sprang into the astral plane, missionaries were sent to Scientology centres around the globe to spread the word. And that word included a message from Pat Broker.

And this message was that Hubbard had already added OT levels 9 and 10 to the Scientology path to salvation. Pat even held up a sheet of paper with a bunch of handwritten numbers on it saying that it was OT 9. And he claimed that this had come from Hubbard himself. Whether it did or not doesn't actually matter. It doesn't matter whether Hubbard hand-wrote these numbers or not, because what Pat Broker's doing is making himself the new channel of truth. He's the only one that has it. So he's the only one who's got the answers to the higher levels,

which is, of course, what everyone wants. They've all been stuck on OT8 for years, and that makes him very powerful. And Miscavige did not like that one bit. Pat Broker, on the other hand, was unsurprisingly reveling in his newfound fame, power and might. He even ordered himself a shiny new gold uniform and designed a flag to be flown at whatever Scientology residence he happened to be sleeping at that night. Like the Queen? Yes. I also feel like maybe this is me being super paranoid, but I wouldn't want to flag up showing off where I was

sleeping every night. That's how you're going to get fucking murdered. It's just like a big tanner being like, I'm here. I'm asleep. I'm defenseless. No, no, no. Don't do that. Put the flag somewhere else. False flag. Literally. Quite literally a false flag. Though I can get on board with the shiny gold uniform. I do think that it was similar to the other Sea Org uniforms, which are like formal navy, but his had, I believe, solid gold epaulets. So he's like Sea Org, but Colonel Gaddafi style. Everyone got that picture in their head? Excellent. Let's move on. Because while we're on the subject of Scientology residences, let's define what that means.

Scientology describes these residences as comfortable seminaries or convents, which in and of itself seems like an oxymoron. I feel like the word seminary or convent sounds very uncomfortable. And basically, they say that these residences are where people can be safe, they can study, they can do auditing, and they can make merry. Except you're not allowed to drink the day before you do an audit, have an audit. And because everyone was basically auditing every single day, that kind of makes it seem like you don't have any time to make merry at all.

You know, I think I said this last week. I love Leah Remini. I love everything she says. She is my patron saint. She said, if you're like at a wedding, you can have one drink. But if you're auditing the next day, no. I see. And you're auditing every day. So these residences owned by Scientology are absolutely everywhere. For example, there's one in East Grimstead. It's like a big estate. John Sweeney goes there in his documentary when he's like, can I have some access, please? And they're like, are you going to say the word cult? And he's like, yep. And they're like, nope. So yeah, there's one in East Grimstead. If you're near, don't go check it out. Do a drive by.

Maybe. There's like a little like insignia on the gate. I think it might even be where L. Ron Hubbard lived and he bought it from the Maharaja, I think. Wow. Illustrious pass then to that one. But if you're in California, these residences are a lot more hard to avoid whether you want to do a drive-by or not look at them at all because there are bloody loads of them in California. Unsurprisingly, home of the cult. State of the cult. Cult state. Or as we've called it before, God's own graveyard. God's own graveyard.

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It's also where they make all of their propaganda films. And you can find these propaganda films on YouTube full of absolutely dead-eyed people talking about how great Miscavige is. I've watched a lot of them. And there's one that is fronted by Miss Cabbage himself, which is unusual because as we'll go on to discover, he doesn't generally do very well on camera. And it is, he says in it something like, if you've heard anything about Scientology,

not from Scientology, it's not true. And it's just the weirdest argument ever. And he is terrifying. Got very into bodybuilding apparently. So apparently he's like tonk as shit. And he is terrifying. Got very into bodybuilding, apparently. So apparently he's like Tonka shit, like under his... And 5'3". 5'3", dead behind the eyes and a muscle machine. Wow.

Mm-hmm. Maybe that's why him and Tom Cruise get on so well, short man syndrome. Yeah, man. 5'3", like... That's short. I'm just shy of 5'3". Yeah. And I can confirm, ladies and gentlemen, she is tiny.

Yeah. That's... But not Tonk. Not yet. There's time. Do a training montage. So Golden Era Productions has also started their own network of shows on YouTube designed to show the inner workings of the sect.

But, as you can imagine, they are not particularly illuminating. No, it's very, like, they're very slickly produced. I mean, this is the Hollywood cult. And it's very like, you can come and use our recording studios and look at this engineer who's been a Scientologist for years and look at this architect who's doing all this amazing stuff. He's a Scientologist. Oh my God, maybe we should join Scientology. Like, I'm putting my foot down. No Scientology. Do my God, maybe we should join Scientology. Like, I'm putting my foot down. No Scientology.

Do you know what it is? It's like what the guy who started WeWork wanted it to be. Yeah. And if you haven't yet watched the documentary, I've forgotten what it's called. It's like called How to Lose $39 Billion Overnight or something like that. Fascinating.

Fascinating stuff. And I kind of feel like genuinely that's what he wanted it to be and he was just less successful. Well, maybe. Cracked it wide it wide open honestly watch the documentary it's really I haven't watched it but I have listened to the Wondery series okay no that is also really good the reason that I would also recommend the documentary is because they do lots of kind of like David Miscavige the guy whose name I've completely forgotten is really bad on camera so they keep having to film him and he'll go in front of camera and he's trying to like be really rabble rousing and inspirational.

And then he keeps doing like cut, start again, start again. And you can see the mask kind of slip when the camera's turned off. And it's really jarring. Yeah, I bet. Jarring. So Goldbase, where all of these YouTube videos are made, and I can really kind of see the image of the person in the meeting who was like we're gonna do youtube and then they're all like oh my god of course so they're

making all these youtube videos on gold base and gold base itself is in bumfuck nowhere california north of san jacinto and in the louis theroux documentary which is called like my scientology movie whatever love louis it's not his best work they just pull up the car outside of Gold Base and then get like shouted at by this woman for literally no reason she was like this is a private road and Louis is like no it's not so I mean give it a watch it will give you an idea of just how like shuttered Scientology is Gold Base in particular and that's actually just how they like it because a feature of Gold Base is a house called Bonnie, which is kept in tip-top condition just in case Hubbard ever makes a triumphant return. It's very much a Jesus is coming, look busy situation. And to be asked to

stay at Bonny View is one of the utmost privileges for a Scientologist. And if you ain't been to the Oscars, it ain't gonna be you. Pat and his wife Annie were at Gold Base most of the time. It's the HQ, so that makes sense, in the early days of their rule. And Pat may have been feeling himself, but the rest of the Sea Org were not. Pat was advised to lay low, but he physically could not do it, which rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way. And it didn't help that he just wasn't a very good leader. He wasn't charismatic.

He was bumbling and inarticulate. Bit of a Boris Johnson vibe, I think. But in a, I think Boris Johnson's is a facade to make you trust him. I think Pat genuinely is just not that smart. Yeah. Which is probably why Hubbard kept him so close because he was never a real threat. He was never going to usurp him. Annie, on the other hand, people generally liked her. They held her in a little bit higher esteem than they did Pat. But that was not going to save Pat from the snapping jaws of David Miscavige. The Church of Scientology had big problems and Pat just wasn't up to the task. The biggest problem was a financial one.

The organisation had lost its hallowed tax exemption in 1967 because they were assessed to be a commercial enterprise and not a religion. On top of that, Hubbard, in his infinite wisdom, hadn't paid a penny of tax since 1973, which meant that the Church of Scientology was $1 billion, that's billion with a B, in tax arrears. And they only had $125 million in reserves. So some very quick math will teach you that they are, in fact, in deep shit.

And so, of course, that spells only one thing for most organisations. Bankruptcy. But we aren't dealing with just any old organisation today. And so Scientology took another route. They decided to wage war with the IRS instead, with Miscavige at the helm. In 1987, Miscavige became the chairman of the board. The only thing keeping Pat Broca in the picture was that only he had the new OT levels. Also, he said. Searching for these mystical texts, Miscavige seized all of Pat's documents, arguing that he needed them for the tax exemption case. Essentially, his argument was, we're never going to get

religion status if there are things about the religion that I don't know. I'm not going to be able to make the case to the IRS that we are a religion if there's a secret that I don't have. That's how he argues it. But he never finds OT9 and OT10, probably because Patton made them up. Miscavige did find in all of his document rifling that there was a further $1.8 million within the Scientology ledger that couldn't be accounted for. Which, when you're under investigation by Inland Revenue is less than ideal. The pressure was just too much for Patty. He had IRS on one side, David Miscavige on the other, and he was like, fuck this, I'm out. He blew. That's the Scientology term for leaving.

And he fled the country, actually, and he was followed everywhere by Miscavige's goons. Annie, his wife, stayed on at Sea Org, but she was sent to a re-education camp for years. Eventually, she was invited back to Grace at Gold Base, but many suspect that the reason Miscavige let Annie come back was because if Pat resurfaced, she could handle him. As far as we know, Pat never came back, he never reappeared, and Annie died of lung cancer in 2011. So with the brokers now out of his way, David Miscavige's position as head of the church was secured. Miscavige then launched a tirade of lawsuits against the IRS.

And in case it isn't clear what the Church of Scientology want from the IRS, is of course certified religion status because religions don't pay tax. That's all it is. I truly believe that if it wasn't for the tax dodge, they wouldn't give a shit about being a religion. No, no, no, no, no, no. I think it's much more akin, again, to come back to the WeWork comparison, I think it's much more akin to being like, almost like this weird lifestyle

organisation where you're networking with these people. It's no riff-raff but the riff-raff are there because they've got to be the base of the pyramid. It's kind of like a weird MLM Ponzi scheme mixed with a networking club, mixed with something like the Freemasons. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty spot on. And like, you're absolutely right.

They wouldn't, I don't think, care about the religion side if it wasn't for the tax. Except I guess they go on about the spirituality side, but then they're more science, quote unquote science. Yeah, I think they push the spirituality stuff because they want that sweet, sweet tax dodge. I think that's why they lean so heavily on that. But do you think the spirituality side and the engrams and the trauma and the blah, blah, blah auditing, that's what brings the proles in? I mean, sure, but that's what Tony Robbins says. He's not religion.

Yeah, that's true. That's true. It's like, yeah, it's like souped up self-help. Spot on. And so it was during this campaign of trying to move Scientology from being seen as a commercial enterprise into a religion that David Miscavige came up with the Scientology cross that can be seen on all of their buildings. And it is also when the Sea Org started to wear more religion-y clothes. They wear like priest dog collars for a bit. Like it's really like optically we are a religion. Yeah, yeah. Because the Scientology cross is like essentially it's just a crucifix with some extra spikes on it. So they're like, what do people recognise as a religious symbol?

Okay, a crucifix, but spike it. The tax man was not the only enemy Scientology was fighting. The 80s were a publicity nightmare for Miscavige and his followers. So Miscavige hired PR firm Hill and Knowlton, who have represented military dictators and arms dealers. They're also the bastards who sold the Gulf War to the American people. Hill and Knowlton do not fuck about. But even still, come 1991, with the Church of Scientology, they had their work cut out for them. Time magazine had run a cover story called Scientology, The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power.

And this story referred to L. Ron Hubbard as, quote, part storyteller, part flimflam man. The internet says that flim is like an old Nordic Scandinavian word that means like mockery. But my best friend is Swedish. I asked her and she was like, I've never heard that word in my life. So, no idea. I think it's probably just that it kind of just sounds like what it is.

Flimflam man. Flimflam man. Yeah, true. If you know, please do get in touch. This Time article was the first source that we know of where doubts were cast over John Travolta's sexuality. And it was also the first place that it was implied that Scientology was holding Travolta essentially hostage under threat of releasing his homosexual exploits to the press.

That's a rumour that everyone has heard. Everyone has heard that John Travolta is actually gay and Scientology have got him by the throat because they're threatening to tell everyone that he's actually been gay this whole time and he'll never work again i don't know obviously i don't know john travolta personally he's quite old now you'd think you know but leah remini says that the reason that people like tom cruise and john travolta stay in the church is not because they have shit on them. It's because their lives are fucking great and they get everything they want. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is a little bit of a sidetrack.

But while we're on the subject of John Travolta, have you ever seen the terrible movie Battlefield Earth? No. No, I do not recommend. But Battlefield Earth is basically a, I guess I have to call it a sci-fi film, right? We have to call it a sci-fi film. Begrudgingly. Begrudgingly. But basically, there are, I don't even know if rumours is the right word. I feel like it's quite an open secret. Battlefield Earth is basically based on some of the writings of L. Ron Hubbard. They obviously, Scientology can fund it. They can push it through. John Travolta stars in it. A lot of people watch it.

It's essentially meant to be kind of like propaganda. Okay. Like Dean Cain, who used to be Superman, doing those like anti-abortion super Christian films. Yeah, exactly. But they don't directly reference Scientology in it, but it's essentially meant to be written on the law of Scientology. Right. Also, a lot of people say the same thing about Will Smith's movie that came out a few years ago. What was it called?

Oh God, it was the one with Jaden Smith in it as well. Oh, I know what you mean. Earth, After Earth. After Earth. After Earth, which I've also seen trashed in the reviewers and by my favourite YouTube movie reviewers who called it Afterbirth.

That's hysterical. It's terrible. Don't watch it. But again, more alleged rumours that it's kind of like Scientology propaganda. Right. OK. I mean, they've got the money. They've got the studios. They've got the stars. They've got the stars. They've got the sound stages. They've got literally more cameras than you can shake a stick at.

Exactly. What they don't have is an understanding of the way the world works. So in response to this Time magazine article, David Miscavige is obviously furious and he decides that he's going to take the stand, right? So in response to this article, David Miscavige went on nightline to defend his faith. He just made it much, much worse.

In the months before his live slot on the 14th of February, 1992, Miscavige practiced four hours a day. So he's got his like cronies around him and he makes them ask him really difficult questions and he practically does it four hours a day for months. And when the time came, a 15 minute report was shown before Miscavige's interview. And this report is what we've all come to associate with Scientology, very standard stuff, detailing all of the stalking they do, the tire slashing, the phone tapping, the family destroying, all of the antics that Scientology has been doing for years.

Not a great prelude for him. No, but very, very good TV production. 100% and very necessary. But I'm guessing he wasn't expecting that when he's doing his four-hour rehearsals every single day. I don't know what he was expecting. And I think maybe we can be generous and say that's what threw him off. But we also know he's just not very good in front of camera.

Yeah. However, he felt David Miscavige remained calm during his interview. And he told the interviewer and the cameras, because he does like the looking at the camera situation, that all of the people who had been featured in the report that they had just played before he came on were members of the hate group, the Cult Awareness Network. Yeah, sure. And if you think that's awkward and cringeworthy

and toe-curling and stomach-churning enough, he goes on to say something much worse. Because he goes on to say, this worse. Because he goes on to say, this hate group, the Cult Awareness Network, it's the same as the KKK would be with the blacks. In this situation, just in case you missed the analogy, Scientology is the blacks. It's a fundamentally flawed argument because,

I mean, it's an outrageous comparison for a start. But the KKK hate black people because they are black people. So he's essentially saying the cult awareness network hate me because I'm a cult. Like it makes no sense. I mean, it makes perfect sense, but it completely undermines what he's trying to say. Yeah, like it's a poor debating tactic from him. He's really shot himself in the foot. You don't need us to pick apart why that's a terrible comparison.

So let's move on. He also went on to say that the only people that were getting harassed was him and the church. Like, in the world? So they're saying, because they're talking about all the people that they stalk and the families that they're destroying. Ah, I see. And he's like, no, I'm the real victim.

I see, I see. All of these people are liars. I'm the one that's being crucified. Got it, got it. real victim. I see. I see. All of these people are liars. I'm the one. We're the victim. Crucified. Yeah. Got it. Got it. And when asked why Scientology have to pour so much money into their faith, Miss Gavage answered, the Scientology is the biggest social reform group in the world. So if people stay with Scientology long enough, they will become so successful and have so much money themselves that giving back to the church will be of little consequence to them. So it's an investment.

It's an investment. He's comparing it to like going to a super prestigious university almost. Yeah. Or like a public speaking course. It's like you're investing in your future career because you'll be good at this thing. But the this thing they're saying they're going to make you good at is life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're like, obviously our alumni give us loads of money because they're so successful and they have loads of money. It's a win-win. Because we made them successful. Exactly. He also added that the writers of the Time article, the one that we referenced earlier, calling them a greedy fucking cult, he said that these writers had been paid off by the makers of the drug Prozac because Scientology had lost them so many customers and so much money. Yeah.

It's a hit job. It's a Prozac hit job. Yeah, exactly. Scientologists, because of Hubbard and blah, blah, blah, it's a big, they actually have an exhibit on Sunset that's called psychiatry, like cult of death or something and their argument is that they're just keeping people in chemical prisons and not solving the underlying problem which of course you can solve with auditing so Prozac if you don't know I can't imagine how you don't know but if you don't know Prozac is a like a trade name for fluoxetine, which is an SSRI, which is like, I would say probably the most prescribed SSRI. It's an antidepressant, very, very common. A lot of people take it.

So what he's saying is that Prozac hate him so much because he has closed their gap in the market because no one's depressed anymore. It was a shit show. It was an absolute disaster. David Miscavige never went on TV again. He has made little appearances on YouTube, but nothing, nothing like Nightline. But that episode of Nightline actually won an Emmy and Miscavige had a copy made to meet Mark Marty Rathbun. He was amongst the highest ranking Scientologists during the 80s and the 90s. His official title was Inspector General, like he's doing the fucking Spanish Inquisition or some shit. And he was in charge of all of the trademarks and the copyrights, which made him an integral part of the war against the IRS and all of the lawsuits that Scientology filed endlessly. And I'm sure that they still do. Marty's just not involved anymore. Fun fact about Rathburn is that his granddad was

the illustrator who drew Archimimer, the Quaker Oatsman and the Coca-Cola Father Christmas. Oh, that's fun. That is fun, isn't it? Less fun is that his mum and his brother had significant mental health problems. I think his mum actually drove herself into San Francisco Bay in like a suicide. It was like really, really awful. And his brother was in and out of psychiatric hospitals. And he felt that his brother was just being sort of like chemically held in this straitjacket and no one was actually helping him. So he goes off traveling to learn about Eastern mysticism and how to help his brother. And then he comes across Scientology. And it was a bit of a marriage made

in heaven for him because it was all of this like mysticism and science and also we hate psychiatry too. So Marty joined the Sea Org in 1978 because he wanted to become a great auditor because he wanted to help his brother. But he ended up working in LA with Miscavige. Today, Rathbun is actually a vocal critic of Scientology and speaks very openly about his role in the war against the taxman. He's confirmed that the aim was never to win anything, only to harass and discourage. Which is what they do with everything. Their aim is never to win. It's stop you trying. That's what they do with everything. Journalists, tax people, people who leave. They want to make your life so miserable that you'll be like, it's not worth it.

But that is almost the fundamental tactic of anybody who is just simply trying to dominate. But they don't have, and they know they don't have, a solid winnable argument. So they're like, I'm just going to make you hate yourself. I'm just going to make you not even try. And I'm going to make you terrified to try. And I'm going to make you not even try and i'm going to make you terrified to try and i'm going to make an example of you so his tactic rathburn was never to defend only to attack so they're never defending their sort of stance it's just to attack anybody who opposes them and apparently rathburn took his lead from hubbard himself who wrote the following quote start feeding lurid blood sex crime actual Quote, I know that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but you get the vibe.

You get the vibe of what he's saying. And this idea makes perfect sense to a Scientologist, even if it doesn't make any sense to you. Anyone attacking the doctrine was a bad person, low on the tone scale that we talked about last week. And so it followed that they just must have done some bad things. If they were good people, then they would be Scientologists. And Marty ran with this idea to the end of the earth. It's pretty ingenious, actually. It feels very, very tried, tested, true, trodden. Like this idea of just removing all critical thinking,

putting people into groups of bad people, good people, black and white. They have a different opinion. They disagree with you. Therefore, they are bad people. They are fundamentally immoral people. And then you can say, do think whatever you want about them. It's classic. It's as old as humanity itself. And anybody who thinks they've evolved past that,

I would argue that the current culture wars is fundamentally rooted in this basis. But mudslinging and skeleton-filled closet exploring would only take Scientology so far because you need positivity as well, or you're not going to attract anyone. This is true. This is true. You can't be all doom and gloom because if you are all doom and gloom, you will attract people, but you'll attract very nihilistic people who aren't necessarily possibly going to be the most motivated people on the planet in terms of making money. Oh, yeah. And they were struggling to make money because after Nightline and the Time article it was actually considered pretty embarrassing to be a Scientologist. They needed to turn that car around and that my friends is where Tom Cruise comes in. Oh god.

This is where it really takes a turn but it's also the part where you feel like they're really really leaning into the genius quote-unquote of it. I actually have learned quite a lot about Tom Cruise. Same. I'm going to say I know, and this is by choice, next to nothing about celebrities. And so this has been a real eye opener reading this script. I love those tweets. Like everything I've learned about the relationship between Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly, I learned against my will. I feel like I accidentally learned things against my will just by going on social media.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want to know. I don't want to know. I don't want to know. Please stop showing me. Well, I'm sorry because I'm going to have to tell you about Tom Cruise. This I want to know. Okay. Because it is pertinent to the case.

Mr. Cruise, as he's known by me, was actually raised a Catholic. And he actually did a year in seminary, which is where it's like priest school. Seven years in seminary is what you have to do to be a priest. Seven years? Oh, yeah. It's like being a vet. You could become a fucking doctor in that time or a vet or an architect. Yeah.

Well, the Catholic Church would argue that being a priest is like being a doctor for the soul. But seminary, he decided it wasn't for him yet. And he took himself off to Hollywood to become a star. His name isn't Thomas Cruise. His name is Thomas Mappether IV. Yes, it is. Yes, it is, I'm afraid. Oh, God. Oh, man. Americans, stop with the thirds and the fourths, man. Just give your children their own names. It didn't take Tom very long in Hollywood after he changed his name from Mappether IV to land his first role in a film with Calvin Klein

favourite Brooke Shields. That film was called Endless Love. Though I do have to say, quickly picking up on the names of celebrities, I've said this before, I don't know if it was on Under the Duvet and not on a main feed. My favourite one is still that guy who is the lead character who plays the sheriff in... The Walking Dead. The Walking Dead. And he's British and he's obviously playing an American character in that. His name is like Clutterbatch, his surname, and he changed it to Lincoln to make it in Hollywood.

I mean, he did. He did. It worked. Well done. My favourite one is that Hugh Grant's middle name is Mungo, so he's Hugh Mungo Grant. It's baby Hugh Mungo. I mean, only posh people can get away with shit like that.

Hugh Mungo Grant. They knew what posh people can get away with shit like that. They knew what they were doing, right? I mean, you weren't like accidentally give your child the middle name Mungo and the first name Hugh. Oh God. Hugh Mungo Grunt. Anyway, Tom, Mr. Cruise, was introduced to Scientology before the Nightline extravaganza, before everything was embarrassing. He was introduced to it in 1986 by his first wife, Mimi Rogers, just after he'd wrapped on Top Gun. If you don't know, that was the biggest film on the planet. Like he was a superstar. You did not get bigger than Tom Cruise in 86. In his early days with Scientology affiliation, he was very vocal about the church, claiming that auditing had cured his dyslexia.

But him and his wife were secretly always seen as a potential trouble source by the church. Because Mimi Rogers' parents were what's called squirrels. Squirrels is an L. Ron Hubbard term, therefore a Scientology term, for people who turn their back on the church but continue to practice Scientology doctrine, ideology and crucially auditing. And they are kind of the worst of the worst, the lowest of the low. And because Mimi's parents were them, they always had one eye on her. In 1989, Tom Cruise met David Miscavige at Gold Base and he just decided he was over Mimi. He'd finished, done because he just so happened to see Nicole Kidman in a film and decided he wanted a piece of that.

So that meant Scientology wanted Mimi out because of her parents and Tom wanted her out because he didn't want her anymore. And they managed between them to get her out. And the way they did this, they do this a lot with couples that they want to break up. They brought Cruz and Rogers into a room and they're sitting opposite each other doing this like confrontational auditing session where they have to confess

their sins to their partner in front of other people. We don't know what was said, but they get divorced. I feel like that would be the natural conclusion to that situation. Yeah. Just awful, awful, awful, awful. Mimi later told Playboy that Cruise was seriously considering becoming a monk. And he felt that he needed to remain celibate to maintain, and this is a quote, my friends, this is some American psycho shit, the purity of his instrument. Okay. It's bad stuff.

It's real bad. Yeah. So with Mimi out of the way, doing interviews with Playboy, Cruise cracked on with Nicole Kidman and Scientology gave them a fairy tale existence. They were quite literally given whatever they wanted. The Sea Org even planted a field of wildflowers so Kidman and Cruise could run through it together and frolic.

Great for the biodiversity of the area, but what's happening? In return for these wildflowers, the mansions, the parties, the cars, the motorbikes, Cruz blasted that he was a Scientologist at every opportunity and he quickly climbed all the way up that bridge and was at OT3, the Wall of Fire, in no time. Kidman never made it past OT2 which is quite unusual usually people are just like gagging to get to ot3 especially because she's got the husband who actually i don't know if they're married but whatever they're you know she's got the partner she's got the money

she's well into it so it is interesting that she stays at ot2 yeah so she just sort of plateaus on ot2 for a while. And within the church, it was suspected by the high rankers that that was because Nicole Kidman's father is a prominent psychiatrist. So therefore, an SP is a suppressive person

and he probably stopped her from climbing the bridge. Or maybe she was just busy. I feel like she's probably starting to see through it. I mean, I can't remember when they shot Eyes Wide Shut, but it's during this period of time where Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman shoot Eyes Wide Shut. So they are away doing their jobs sometimes.

So this takes us up to the mid-90s and a victory for Miscavige. In October 1993, Miscavige announced to 10,000 of his disciples in a sports arena in LA that, quote, the war is over. The future is ours. And he's kind of not wrong. No, he's not. Because very famously after the mid-90s, Scientology continued to grow and get richer. Yes, we are out of the mid-90s and they're still around. Uh-huh. So what's he talking about? What is he saying when he's talking about the war being over? Well, the IRS and the Church of Scientology had come to an agreement, which was this. The tax gods let the $1 billion in owed tax arrears go. How they managed that is absolutely beyond me.

It's because money is a social construct. Is it because the economy is not real? Yeah. Did you not know that you can just write down on a piece of paper money and then you can get stuff with it? Good. Good. She's literally simmering with rage.

Oh my God. Oh, social construct, you all. Stop. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows,

uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich,

be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing.

From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. So basically, yeah, the IRS let the billion dollars in owe taxes go,

and the church paid $12.5 million instead, which you don't have to be a genius at maths to know that is quite considerably less than a billion. It's not the same. No, it's definitely not equal to. But sometimes things can be two things. But not this time. But not equal to. But sometimes things can be two things. But not this time. But not this case. So they paid the $12.5 million instead

and abandoned all of their lawsuits against the IRS. And the real cherry on the whole tax evasion Sunday was that the Inland Revenue Service signed that the Church of Scientology and all of its 150 entities in the United States to full tax exemption. And this also covered all future branches that they would choose to open. It's literally like the Inland Revenue saying,

you know that thing that you really like? Would you like infinite money? Would you like infinite money that nobody can ever take away from you for the rest of eternity? Is that what you would like? Because there you go. I do not know how they managed to do this i know they're constantly suing them there's lawsuits etc but it's the inland fucking revenue it's not like they've got a reputation to uphold you know what i mean like it's an institution that is immovable it doesn't matter it's not like they can be affected by PR. They have government coffers to be able to continue to fight lawsuits. What is the reason that they allow Scientology to have tax exempt status is really bizarre to me. Unless the reason was that the government intervened because Scientology is kicking up a fuss saying that, you know, their religious freedoms are being encroached upon or whatever well i think that's it i think the the fundamental problem that the irs kept like banging their head against is like define religion define cult what is the difference and there is no in any written down anywhere and

there's no stone tablet upon which is like this is what a cult is and this is what religion is because the fact is they are a very similar things, you know, and we as a Western society have decided what we think a cult is. And it usually is that the leader is alive. Yeah. And I guess it's also, you know, if we take it a step further and talking about cult formation, it's like absolute control of all information, absolute control of everything. You can't live outside of that, which I would argue that as much as I have disdain for religion or a lack of interest in religion insofar as being involved in one I would say you can obviously be a Christian a Muslim a Jew a Hindu and still look at other news sources and be able to live in the in the real world you know very few mainstream religious denominations are going to control you

to that extent but yeah I get when you get into a legal sense, it will become much more tricky rather than a social or cultural sense. It's very difficult to prove legally. And that's why the IRS got themselves in a big old knot. And obviously, America's big thing is religious freedom. Yep. Except from when it comes to the Satanic Temple. So just months after this, the war is over announcement, Marty Rathburn blew. They're just blowing all over the place.

There's a lot of people blowing. Yeah. He had been in the trenches with the taxman for years. And Miscavige had treated him like a piece of human shit. Rathburn only put up with it, he says, because he really believed in the cause. For him, he was doing it for Hubbard, right? And he's like, I he says, because he really believed in the cause. For him, he was doing it for Hubbard, right? And he's like, I can take it because I'm doing the right thing. Because he really believes in it, right? Because he had saved his brother.

Like, he really, really believes in it. And that's the thing about Scientology. A lot of people really, really believe in it. Yeah. I feel like, and this is coming back to the whole pyramid scheme shape. I feel like the non-celebrities really believe in it. I don't believe that the celebrities believe in it. I feel like, and maybe this is me giving them too much credit. I'm not saying it's because they're so smart. I feel like they're like, this is a great networking opportunity and it's a great power consolidation organization. I want to sit next to Will Smith, please. Exactly. But Marty had had enough. He'd done his job. He'd got the tax exemption. That was his

task. He completed it. And he said to himself, I'm not going to be this guy's bitch for the rest of my life. And that is a direct quote. So he broke his billion year contract and he left. Miscavige rang him to apologize and talk about all the pressure he was under, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And Rathbun agreed to meet with Miscavige at a Marriott in New Orleans. The glamour. Rathbun was asked to return, which if he accepted, he would be given an award, which I don't know what the term is, but it's like a made up L. Ron Hubbard word for like valuable team member or like productive member of the service, whatever. Come back. Come back and we'll make you employee of the month. Yeah, quite literally that. And I think there was only ever one other person who

was given this award and it was given to her after her death. It's a Scientology big deal. And also Rathbun was told that if he came back, accepted this award, that he would be fast-tracked to OT3. And that was an offer that Marty Rathbun, true believer in the magic of Dianetics, could not refuse. He was aboard the free winds for two years, getting to OT3. And when he returned to Gold Base, enlightened with the story of Zeno in the Galactic Federation, Miscavige told Rathbun that the two years that he had been gone were the best of his life. He's like, I'm so much more productive without you.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, I don't have you holding me back. Like, I've discovered that you're the biggest SP in the world, etc. So Miscavige declared Marty Rathbun an SP publicly, and so Rathbun, formerly Top Brass, was sent to Clearwater, Florida, immediately after he had got to OT3, and he was sent to Clearwater as a trainee to start all over again. Oh my god. That's how you break a person.

Yeah. Yeah. You're right. That's exactly it. So that wasn't the only thing going on in Clearwater. On the 5th of December 1995, Lisa McPherson, a Scientologist undergoing training at the Fort Harrison Hotel, died. So if you remember from last week, the Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida is where Hubbard set up shop after it became very obvious that he couldn't live at sea anymore because he's like in ill health and it just wasn't feasible. So he buys the Fort Harrison Hotel, sets it up. You'll hear Scientologists talk about Clearwater all the time. It's where you go to either study super hard or you go there to be punished. I will say before we get into the Lisa McPherson story, I know she is not the only person who has died

at the Fort Harrison. She is the most widely discussed and that's why we're featuring her. But nine other people have died under mysterious circumstances at Fort Harrison. So in the weeks prior to her death, Lisa McPherson was clearly in need of help. She drove her car into the back of a boat and when the paramedics arrived, she took all of her clothes off and wandered naked down the street. That's not a healthy, happy person, I would argue. No, no. It's not a very, happy person, I would argue. No, no. It's not a very clear sign that everything is tickety-boo.

So Lisa was taken to a nearby hospital. Hours later, she was taken by 10 Scientologists to room 174 of the Fort Harrison Hotel. So obviously she's taken to the hospital because the paramedics are there. The Scientologist is like, ah, ah, ah, come get her. Take her back to Fort Harrison Hotel. Don't need these nasty doctors. Nope.

And it was in this room that she was guarded night and day. And guarded makes it sound like she was being protected from somebody. You need to think about it. She was kept in there locked up. Oh, yeah. And watched night and day. They were keeping her away from anyone who might report it. Yeah, yeah.

So Lisa had been declared clear by Miscavige himself. And clear people, as you can probably remember from last week's episode, are supposed to have no mental health issues whatsoever. Let alone a full on public breakdown. So Scientology had some quite significant

explaining to do. It doesn't look very good. It looks like the worst thing that could possibly happen. Yeah. Because Miscavige himself says that Lisa is clear and then she's taking all her clothes off and running around naked in the street. Yeah.

It's publicly extremely humiliating. So after Lisa was declared clear, she had been put through an introspection rundown at the Fort Harrison Hotel and it ruined her. Introspection rundown at the Fort Harrison Hotel. And it ruined her. Introspection rundown, if you remember from last week, it's based on when Hubbard would literally keep people in the hottest parts of the Apollo on the ship and, like, they couldn't speak to anyone.

They're fed, like, out of a bucket, blah, blah, blah. So it's supposed to be this, like, you know those really obnoxious people who go on silent retreats? Yeah, no thanks. It's like that, but enforced upon you. And she did not take it well. No, I think not taking it well is a very mild way to explain what happened. Because during her introspection rundown, Lisa stopped eating. She began bashing her head repeatedly against the

wall. And she spoke in gibberish most of the time. There were several unsuccessful attempts to force feed Lisa, but eventually she slipped into a coma and died. And when she died, she was driven past five nearby hospitals because the Sea Org wanted to take her to a doctor affiliated with the Church of Scientology. It's like now how the Mormons, for example, if there is child sexual abuse going on, you get given a hotline number to call. If you say you're a mother, you suspect that your child has been sexually abused by somebody within the church. You go and report it to an elder. They give you a hotline number to call. You call that hotline number. It goes to a lawyer who is a Mormon, who is affiliated with the church.

It's so, it's so obvious. Yeah. And it's like the Hasidic Jewish communities who have their own police and their own ambulances and are just completely separate. I don't really know what they thought this Scientology doctor was going to do. He wasn't going to bring her back from the dead. This is the thing. Yeah. You have to remember that they take her to him once she's dead. Which quite famously is too late. Lisa's body gets taken off to a medical examiner. And that medical examiner said the body of Lisa McPherson was the worst case of dehydration that they had ever seen.

She had not taken on any liquids at just five years, and totally avoidable. Marty Rathbone was brought out of exile to clean up the mess. The Sea Org told the police that they had no idea what had happened, there was nothing special or different about Lisa McPherson's stay at the Fort Harrison. But in reality, there were detailed logs about Lisa and her erratic behaviour that were all destroyed on the command of Marty Rathbun. The state of Florida filed criminal charges against Scientology, but nothing came of it. This particular problem cost Scientology $30 million to erase.

And the guy who was doing all of the public talking and taking all the flack after Miscavige took a step out of the limelight was Scientology's executive director of its Office of Special Affairs, a man named Mike Rinder. Nowadays, you can see and hear Mike alongside Leah Remini in their TV series and now podcast series, Scientology and the Aftermath. Like his former colleague Marty Rathburn, Mike Rinder is now an outspoken critic of Scientology. I think one of the most striking things about Mike Rinder is when he's in Scientology, he is like haggard, gaunt, like just looks so unhealthy. And then when he leaves, he puts on all of this weight and he just looks like a normal person i'm not saying like oh he really let himself go like he genuinely looks healthy and it is such a like let me see if i can find you a picture of the before and after because

it's really quite something so that's that's what he looks like when he's in like gray not well this is him now he looks like a completely different person totally different person he looks like a ghost in the first picture yeah yeah you can tell that like a this is a now. He looks like a completely different person. Totally different person. He looks like a ghost in the first picture. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can tell that like, A, this is a man under an enormous amount of stress and is just not well. Yeah, I mean, if you are the public face of issues occurring at Scientology, you're going to end up with quite ghost-like aesthetic.

Yeah, and he certainly did. Rinder, and this is quite something, actually became a Scientologist at just five years old. He had even spent years aboard the Apollo with Hubbard. He was the most devout person you could ever hope to meet. He went to bat for the church publicly and often. But the MacPherson affair was too much for him to handle. According to Rinder and a few other witnesses, his punishment for not making it all magically go away overnight, you know, after they locked up a woman who was clearly in the midst of a

mental health crisis, who dies because she doesn't have access to any health care or any medical support, because he isn't able to just instantly solve this problem, he was beaten up by dead-eyed Dave and slammed into a tree on Goldbase. Management. Wow. Yeah. Wow. There's so many stories of Miscavige beating people up, you just can't include them all. But I think what's so significant about that one is Mike Rinder is the public face of Scientology and Miscavige has no problem giving it a black eye. It's shocking because you obviously hear all the time about like these sort of more advanced cults, right? The ones that

aren't still like living on a secret commune somewhere. Like these guys are out in the open. The physical abuse is one of the more shocking things. Everything else is to be expected. This is truly, truly shocking. And Mike Rinder's penance didn't stop there with the whole being beaten up and thrown into a tree. He was required to write a public letter declaring himself to be an SP. And then he was sent to the hole.

Just putting this in here for arse-cover covering reasons, the Church of Scientology denies everything you're about to hear. One of the things I love about Leah Remini, and yes, this is a Leah Remini stand podcast from now on, is in interviews, she's like, what pisses me off is when the press are like, oh, alleges Remini or Leah Remini accuses. She's like, I'm not alleging anything. It's fucking true. But you know, I'm not Leah Remini, which I she's like, I'm not alleging anything, it's fucking true. But, you know, I'm not Leah Remini. Wish I was. If anyone wants to make, like, a patron saint pendant with Leah Remini on it, I will wear it until I die.

So just bear that in mind. But they deny all of this. And you would if this was said about you. The hole, according to Rinder and many other ex-members of the Sea Org, is two double-wide trailers connected together on gold base. Inside the hole there are tables and there are chairs, and not much else. There's no electricity, and there's no air conditioning,

and let's remind ourselves that Gold Base is in the desert. Those who are sent to the hole are fed reheated slop and showered, with a hose, in groups. And these are high-ranking people. It's not like grunts that get sent to the hole. It's officers. And there have been as many as 50 people living in two double-wide trailers at once. On one occasion, high-ranking officers, including Mike Rinder,

were sent to the hole to rearrange the org board, which is essentially Scientology jargon for a cabinet reshuffle. All of the officers were told they were not going to be allowed to leave the hole until they had rearranged the management of the Sea Org to Miss Cabbage's satisfaction. Rinder was in there for two years. In this double wide? Yep. Which I know in the past we've not known what that means.

But we now know. We now know. Because it's a growth mentality and we learn. Two years. Two years. Rinda was in there for two years. And he was called by Miss Cabbage and his buddies, the king of the pie faces. I included this to give you a window into how ridiculously juvenile some of it is. So if you're in the hole, you're a pie face, apparently. And Rinder, being the highest ranking, was the king of the pie faces.

But he was also just an SP, so don't worry about him. So everyone joins in because they don't want to be a pie face. Yeah. Schoolyard stuff, man. Like real playground shit. Yeah, yeah. Speaking of playground shit, we're about to descend even lower than that into playgroup shit.

Because the most famous and haunting example of psychological torture that went on in the hole was a game of musical chairs. Miscavige, followed by his silent enforcer, Marty Rathbun, descended on his officers and would demand that they all play the children's game to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody on a loop. It's a good song, but I don't want to listen to it for hours on end. No, and I don't want to be an adult who's locked in a trailer, being fed slop, having to play musical chairs.

Well, tough shit, because that's what you're getting for your birthday. Oh no. So the Sea Org executives would punch and push each other to get to the lessening number of chairs. Clothes and chairs were apparently ripped apart because the players were told that the losers of the game would be

reassigned to undesirable posts in different countries and that they would be separated from their children and their spouses. So short of death and continued torture, the stakes are pretty high. Extremely high, yeah. This game went on until 4am and a woman called Lisa Schroer came out on top. But it didn't really matter though, because the next morning, nothing happened at all. No one

was sent overseas and no one was ripped from the arms of their partner. How humiliated would you be if you were Lisa and you were like, I punched people in the face for this. Yeah. And it wasn't real. But that's almost the power trip, isn't it? Because you'd be like, why don't they just send somebody somewhere? Because next time they're going to not believe that something bad is going to happen. I think the reason is the humiliation and the feeling of, look at what that person was willing to do in order to fuck you all over. You can't trust her. You can't trust each other. Yeah, true, true.

You can only follow what we tell you. Divide and conquer. Because if they had actually sent people off, then it would have justified Lisa's behaviour. So life after musical chairs returned to normal. Normal for Gold Base, that is. Which included security fences, armed guards, snipers, spikes and security cameras. Oh, and another rather grim, I can't say fact, but a statement, figure that comes out of Gold Base is that apparently 60 to 80% of women on gold base had abortions.

Which, if that is your choice, fucking great. That's not what we're saying here. That's not what we're saying and that's not what we think is happening. No. So again, we've got to say allegedly, allegedly, allegedly, this is what happened. It basically sounds like these abortions were forced abortions like we talked about. Again, allegedly. So as you can imagine, it is quite hard to leave gold base, to leave Scientology, to get out of this situation that you've unfortunately found yourself embroiled in.

And many executives have lived exclusively on the base for decades. If you want to leave Scientology on the outside of gold base, bad things can happen too. Let's talk about what's termed as the disconnect. This has happened to so many people that picking one story to tell as an example feels a little bit reductive. So just so you know, this is what the pattern is and it has happened literally thousands of times. So let's say your whole family is in Scientology and you decide to leave. Your entire family, be it your mum, your dad, your cousins, or even your own children, will be told by the Church of Scientology that you are an SP and they are instructed to cut all contact with you.

Your family will be told that any contact with you at all is harmful to their spiritual and physical health. And in some cases, your family will even write you letters to tell you what a horrible piece of shit you are and that they never want to hear from you again. One example of this, again, Leah Remini, can I stop? Nope. Leah Remini said she was at a party at, I think Chelsea Handler's house, but I can't remember. And Laura Prepon's there before she leaves Scientology. And Laura Prepon quite literally ran away from Leah Remini because she really, really believed that if she was anywhere near her, she would get ill. Yeah.

Moral tarnishing by association. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Again, very common tactics. But it's not even moral. It is moral, but it's like. Spiritual and physical. They're like, you will get pneumonia.

You will become physically ill. Wow. you will become physically ill. So this behaviour, this kind of mentality, is the stepping stone to the famous Fair Game initiative that we touched on last week when we learned about Paulette Cooper and Operation Freakout. The Fair Game law actually predated the persecution of Paulette Cooper because remember we said she was kind of the first person we thought had been

sort of very publicly fair-gamed. But it does go back before Paulette. It was written by Hubbard in 1965 as an explanation on how to deal with SPs. Hubbard wrote, quote, A truly suppressive person or group has no rights of any kind. Such enemies may be tricked, lied to, or destroyed.

It does seem as though fair game is reserved for those that are either famous in the first place, those who were very high ranking, or those from outside of the church with high profiles that critique Scientology. So it's kind of not the sort of the tool used for the prole within Scientology. No, I think the key thing is the redistribution of scarce resources. So fair gaming, they love doing it, but it is a lot of work. So if you're going to get fair gamed, you have to have a high profile about you.

They're not going to do it if nobody knows who you are. Absolutely. And again, it's to make an example of you. And it only works if you've got a high enough profile to be made an example. Otherwise, I'd be like, why are they making an example of Fred Smith? Like, who's this guy? So a perfect example of someone who was fair-gamed is, of course, our old friend Mike Rinder, who has a whole hate website entitled whoismikegrinder.com.

Yep. You can go and look at it. I've actually linked it in the show notes. This is their first thing that they do. If you piss Scientology off and you are a high enough profile person, you will have one of those websites up about you in hours. So yeah, of course, this website is maintained by the Church of Scientology. And the first thing on this website is a video of Mike's son, who still lives in Clearwater, Florida. If that doesn't explain it enough for you, if you live in Clearwater, you are a Scientologist. Why else would you live there?

And in this video, Mike's son can be seen telling the cameras about how his dad was never there for him, even when he was diagnosed with cancer. Which I would argue, I mean, mean obviously they're just flinging anything they can find but maybe your dad wasn't there for you because he was so busy cleaning up miss cabbage's shit for so many years like how weird to be like oh all of the work he did for the church is the reason he's a bad person i mean it's all complete this is the thing about these whole two entire episodes we've got to the point where we're just using terminology and saying things like operation freak out and going clear and blah, blah, blah.

As if it's all perfectly normal. Because we have to roleplay in there crazy to be able to even discuss any of this. And that is perhaps one of the most unsettling things. The rest of the website continues to, of course, character assassinate Mike Rinder, calling him things like a savage wife beater. That's basically the rest of the website. Sure. I have nothing to say about it. Sure.

They didn't stop with the fair gaming there, obviously. Because guess who else got fair-gamed? Dead-eyed David Miscavige's very own father, Ron Miscavige. And if you are interested, I think we mentioned this in last week's episode, Ron Miscavige does a whole interview with Joe Rogan that you can go and listen to, you can go watch, in which he claimed that Scientology rented a house opposite his and fitted it with cameras so that they could keep tabs on him. Do I think Ron Miscavige is the most reliable man in the world? No. Do I believe everything he says? No. Just make your own mind up. I'm not going to character assassinate him

on the show, but like go listen to it. Make your own mind up. Odd man. But is it a fascinating insight into the world of Scientology and from the father of dead-eyed Dave Miscavige? Yes. Absolutely. So Marty Rathburn has experienced similar treatment to what Ron described with an added twist called squirrel busters. marty rathburn is in a particular kind of trouble because he's in my scientology movie with louis through and he audits louis to explain how the e-meter works and because he's blown like he's out that makes him a squirrel right of course so squirrel busters will show up wherever marty rathburn is wearing t-shirts and hats that say squirrel buster on them and they'll just harass him and his wife. Oh my god because I like we said earlier they own all the

trademarks they own all of the IP behind all of these things so they're like you can't use this outside of being an actual member of the Church of Scientology. It's like cheaters. It's exactly like cheaters yeah. They just turn up and follow you around. It's exactly like that. You will see it in any documentary about Scientology. You will see this behavior over and over and over again. To understand the tactics that Scientology used to hound someone, as I just said, you can look at the documentaries. But my personal favorite is National Treasure John Sweeney,

his BBC Panorama documentary Scientology and Me, which is the first one. There are two that he did, but the first one is Chef's Kiss. That is the first ever foray I took into the world of Scientology. When I watched that documentary. And I think I watched it when it came out. I was like at school. Yeah, same.

And I was like, what the fuck is going on? And John Sweeney is no fucking joke. He's reported from Afghanistan and Bosnia. But it was Mike Rinder's right hand man, Tommy Davis, that made him lose his cool. And I actually think it's one of my top three favorite television moments of all time. Yeah, because I think there was this like thread going around on Twitter where it was like the top 15, like most iconic British TV moments. And I think that I have to agree. I think John Sweeney's meltdown

in the Panorama documentary. Nicky on Big Brother. Who is she? Who is she? Yeah. You know, R.I.P. And finally, it would be the episode of Come Dine With Me

with a guy. What a sad life you must have, Jane. If you don't know what we're talking about, you're probably not British or our age. Look, guys, there was a time before Netflix where the only thing you could watch on your laptop in your university halls was Come Dine With Me on 4OD. That was the only thing you could do. I finished 4OD in my first year of uni. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, it was Come Dine With Me marathons broken up by golden balls.

Yes. We are old enough to remember when Netflix came in the post, children. So watch your mouth. Toby Davis is an interesting guy. He wears dark glasses, got dark hair. He's clearly modelled himself on Tom Cruise. And he's a second generation Scientologist. So like Elizabeth Moss, his mum was in Naked Attraction. Naked Attraction, as in the Channel 4 dating show?

No. Okay, thank God. Well, I read that and I was like, what? Do you know why? Because I didn't mean to write Naked Attraction. Fatal Attraction. I meant to write Fatal Attraction. I was very tired when I wrote this bit.

Oh God. And if you don't know what Naked Attraction is, another 4OD gem, go check that out. So the most famous John Sweeney meltdown bit i'm not going to read to you because i love john sweeney and i don't want to make fun of him but essentially it's him shouting being like you were not there at the beginning of that interview and then his voice just completely drops and he's like do you understand it's so good it's so good just go watch it it's on daily motion i've linked it also in the scientology of me documentary what tommy davis does he just turns up wherever john sweeney is just like magically descends from the sky with his own camera crew so there's like cameras facing cameras filming each other

and sweeney goes up to tom davis to tommy davis and he's like some people would say that scientology is a dangerous cult and then just like goes on goes off on like another tangent and this is what tommy says he gives the following speech and he says now listen to me for a second you have no right to say what is and what isn't a religion the constitution of the united states of america guarantees one's right to practice and believe freely in this country and the definition of religion is very clear and it's not defined by john sweeney for you to repeatedly refer to my faith in those terms is so derogatory and so offensive and so bigoted. And the reason you kept repeating it is because you want a reaction like you're getting right now. Well, buddy, you got it right here, right now. I'm angry. Real angry.

Oh, I know. Take me home, John Sweeney. Oh my God, I can't cope with this level of confrontation, even just read out. So that is person to person, that interaction, that is John Sweeney v. Tommy Davies. But now let's have a look at the harm that Scientology causes on a macro level. To make it to OT3 will cost you, dear listener, around $400,000, which is about probably £330,000, £340,000 sterling. And that does not include all of the books and materials that you'll need for the courses that you have to attend. And for that same reason, it's why the lowest level Scientologists never make it to OT. So they don't get to the wall of fire, which is why they practice, you know, pretty quietly. Keep the riffraff out.

Exactly. On top of that pretty hefty, eye-watering lump sum of money, auditing will cost you about $5,000 to $8,000 for a 12-hour intensive course. Off auditing alone, the Scientology Centre in Clearwater makes about $100,000 per year. For reference, members of the Sea Org earn about $30 a week. Yeah, so they're not getting it. No. Thought we'd forgotten about Tom Cruise? Well, we haven't. We last left him running

through a field of wildflowers with Nicole Kidman. If you have any knowledge of memes, you will know that their marriage did not last. But you may not know that in January 2001, Cruz made a call to Marty Rathbun, asking him for help, because him and Nicole were over. The reasons for their divorce have never been made public, but I think we can make an educator guess that it was probably something to do with the purity of Tom's instrument. With Nicole gone, Cruz threw himself headfirst into Scientology. He was given his own Scientology nanny, John Sweeney bullying, shouty, sunglass wearing, Tommy Davis. Although Cruise and Kidman originally shared custody of their children, the fact that Tommy Davis kept telling the kids that

their mother was a sociopath quickly meant that they decided they wanted to live with Tom Cruise full-time and they wanted to live with Tom Cruise full-time and they wanted to go to Scientology school. Cruise also spent more and more time with Miss Cabbage and this is what he said about him, quote, I have never met a more competent, a more intelligent, a more compassionate being

outside of what I have experienced from LRH, L. Ron Hubbard, and I've met the leaders of leaders. I've met them all. You're just an actor. That's what, obviously, hero worship, celebrity worship, I can't say anything about

because I've spent this whole episode sucking the remedy stick. But like, I'll say it. Yeah, I think it is that dangerous world in which we live, isn't it? Where we somehow think that people who are rich and famous are somehow superior in some way.

Whether it is intellectually, morally, just spiritually within their being, they are somehow superior in some way. Whether it is intellectually, morally, just spiritually within their being, they are something superior. You're right. That is the most important sentence we possibly said in these two episodes. He's just an actor. He's just an actor.

He's just a fucking actor. But mate, I know I've banged on about this already, but Tom Cruise gives me some serious fucking serial killer vibes. There's no doubt about it. If he wasn't an actor or a monk, he would be a murderer. He might be a murderer now. I think those things can be all together in one person. Sometimes things can be two things. Yes, sometimes it can be three things. So in the post Kidman era, Cruise dated a lot and he tried to

get all of those ladies into Scientology. Again, let's do a very quick celeb gossip rundown. You remember the time when Tom Cruise was dating Penelope Cruz? Well, he tried to get her into Scientology, but being a very committed Buddhist, she said no. Yeah, I like Penels. She's like, nah, no thanks. And Sofia Vergara also told him to jog on. She wasn't having any of the Scientology muscles. Also love her.

There you go. She's like, no thanks. So, and this is when it gets really fucking, this is when I'm talking like gets real serial killer fucking shit. Tom Cruise sent Tommy Davis and Shelley Miscavige on a mission to find him, to find him a new third wife.

What? I heard about this happening at the time. Like in my posh girls school in deepest, darkest England, I heard about this happening at the time. Like in my posh girls school in deepest, darkest England, I heard about this happening. I did not, but I'm fascinated. I'm fucking fascinated because Tommy Davis and Mrs. Miscavige held literal auditions for the next Mrs. Cruise after Tom had such trouble converting his string of starlets into the Order. I'm guessing that took quite its toll on Tom Cruise because he obviously thinks he's Mr. Charisma, he's Mr. Golden, and he can't convert these women into Scientology. I know. That must have been a real kick in the dick for him.

And they're just actors. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A real kick in his pure instrument. So with Shelley Miscavige and Tommy Davis actually even struggling themselves, they decided that the next Mrs. Cruz should already be a Scientologist. What you're about to hear is fucking tragic. It truly is. They ruined her life. Yeah, it's tragic in the sense that they ruined this woman's life, but it's also tragic in how fucking pathetic it is.

Because Davis and Miscavige, Mrs. Miscavige, It's tragic in the sense that they ruin this woman's life, but it's also tragic in how fucking pathetic it is. Because Davis and Miscavige, Mrs. Miscavige, landed on aspiring actress Nazanin Boniadi, who was just 25 years old at the time. Just to put that into context, Tom Cruise was 42. Nazanin was Iranian. She'd been brought up in London. She was extremely well educated. And of course, she was also a hottie. Smoke show. Like, just the most beautiful woman. And it also helped that she was an OT5. Mm hmm. So she's been through the wall of fire already and she's just stuck around for it. So she's golden.

She is. So in November 2004, Nazanin was told that she'd been selected for a super secret program. So secret, in fact, that she couldn't even tell her mum. And her mum's a Scientologist. That was another tick on her list was that her family were in. Yeah, yeah. Nazanin, being an aspiring human rights activist, assumed that she was being fast-tracked into some sort of humanitarian Scientology ambassador outreach program. Whatever.

But things got weird pretty quickly because Nazanin was told that she needed to break up with her long-term boyfriend. She initially refused because she didn't see what being single had to do with her altitude for ambassadorship. So Tommy Davis and his crew pulled the same shit that they had pulled with Cruise's first wife Mimi Rogers. They brought Nazanin and her partner into a face-to-face audit in which her partner admitted to having cheated on Nazanin multiple times. And the worst thing was that Nazanin was made to feel guilty about the whole situation because she had audited her boyfriend previously and she had missed all of the infidelities. And so, as you can imagine, that situation swiftly put an end to that relationship.

Next up, Nazanin was given $20,000 to spend on a new wardrobe. And then totally by accident on purpose, she was taken to New York where she happened to run into Tom Cruise. This is like some fucking Tudor court bullshit. That's exactly what it is. So Nazanin was taken ice skating and then to a sushi restaurant by the superstar. And that just so happened to be what she had told Tommy Davis her ideal date would be. The sushi's fine. The ice skating sounds like hell. Ice skating with Tom Cruise?

Yeah, no, I'd rather die. So after this ice skating sushi extravaganza, which was obviously completely set up by Tommy Davis, the pair hung out together on the set of War of the Worlds, another absolutely dogshit film. And then came the inevitable non-disclosure agreement. Tommy Davis told Nazanin three things. Firstly, her humanitarian mission was off the cards. Secondly, she needed to focus solely on her relationship with Tom Cruise. And thirdly, that if she hurt Mr. Top Gun,

Tommy Davis would personally destroy her. Jesus Christ. It's like when your best friend gets a boyfriend and you're like, if you even think about hurting her, I will ruin your life. But Tommy Davis means it. In no time at all, Nazanin was cohabiting with Mr. Cruz. The new couple went on holiday with the Miscaviges and Nazanin wasn't feeling particularly well,

so she wasn't as peppy as Miscavige wanted her to be. And because of that, I think it was a one comment she made, the trip was deemed a total disaster. Cruz was furious and he said to Nazanin, you don't get it. It goes like this. First, there's LRH. Then there's COB, Chairman of the Board, David Miscavige. Then there's me. If he hasn't already killed someone, it's very soon on the cards, I think. Yeah, allegedly. Just two weeks after this nightmare holiday, Nazanin was moved out of Cruz's home. He didn't even say goodbye. The last thing she sees of him is he's in the gym as she's been escorted out of this house that she's living in.

He doesn't even look at her. This is just unbelievable. But he did pay for her to get to OT7 to help her with her grief, he said. It was very nice of him. How big of you, Mr. Cruise. In February 2005, Nazanin was sent to Clearwater, where she was reported for treason for speaking badly about Tom Cruise. All she was doing was talking to her friends about how heartbroken she was, and that was a treasonous offence.

As her penance, she was made to clean public toilets with a toothbrush. She was banned from the Celebrity Centre and told never to speak to Tom Cruise again. My heart bleeds for this woman. Like, that is torture. Look, I don't want to sound callous. I don't want to sound callous. But when I hear about shit like this going down with Scientology and with other religions in and of itself,

I'm like, you do realise you don't have to be there. But I get it. She's embroiled in it. Her family are in it. She can't. But I'm like, you're cleaning toilets with a toothbrush and basically being like hounded. I'm like, you could go live in the normal world

and that not happen to you. But I understand the brainwashing. But they also follow you though. That's true. That's true. You are trapped in it. But I'm like, what? What?

Yeah. Anyway. So obviously Project Nazanin had failed. Tommy Davis and Shelley Miscavige were therefore back at square one. And they decided to try and look outside of the church this time for a more amenable target than the likes of someone like Penelope Cruz. So looking for a patsy. Someone they can just pull in, who will be more flexible,

who will go along with things, who will be a bit more, dare I say, submissive and subservient to their cause. Allegedly, this rota of interviews that they then conducted included the likes of Kate Bosworth, Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan, Scarlett Johansson, and of course, Katie Holmes. Now, if you've ever read Hello Magazine, you'll know who made the cut. Katie Holmes apparently had always had a crush on Tom Cruise. She saw him in Risky Business when she was four years old, and that apparently stayed with her. I feel like marrying your sexual awakening is never good news. I'm also just like, what's wrong with all these people

that they're being interviewed to become the next Mrs. fucking Tom Cruise? And they're like, yeah, that's something I want to do. Because they're like, I want to be a star. Oh my God. I don't want anything in the world enough to be Mrs. Tom Cruise. I also realize no one is asking me to be. There is nothing in the world that I want enough to be interviewed to be Mrs. Tom Cruise. And this is why I don't have that much sympathy for them because you just want to be famous. You just want to be really fucking famous. That's not a noble pursuit in my mind. So like you putting yourself in the situation because that's what you wanted. It's not nice what happens to you, but I just don't care. Sorry. So the pair met in real life. We're talking about Tom Cruise and his new would-be wife, Katie Holmes, for the first time in April 2005. Katie told Jay Leno that it was love at first sight for her. And then famously, of course, Tom Cruise went on Oprah and seemingly destroyed a sofa and acted like a total fucking lunatic.

If you haven't seen it, we're not going to describe it for you here because it cannot be described in words. If you haven't seen it, just watch it. It is bonkers. It is one of the most cringeworthy things that I've ever had the misfortune of accidentally seeing. It's horrendous. It is so clearly a man with no concept of what real life is. No, no, no. And when he's doing it, because it's obviously a very exuberant thing that he's doing, he still looks dead behind the eyes, though. It's like when that smile doesn't quite reach your eyes. Yeah. It's uncanny.

So in November 2006, Katie Holmes wed Tom Cruise in a castle just outside Rome. David Miscavige was the best man and the guest list was suitably star-spangled. Amongst those stars there gathered was Saint Leah Remini. Still very much a Scientologist at the time, Hawkeye Leah realised that the First Lady of her faith, Shelley Miscavige, was not there. And this is especially odd because Scientology has very strict rules about not leaving your partner in the lurch.

When Leah asked Tommy Davis where Shelley was, he told her, quote, you don't have the fucking rank to ask about that. This guy's so gross. I hate him. Yeah, yeah. Not a huge Tommy Davis fan. I think he's left now, but I'm not sure. So I've also heard in interviews Leah Remini talking about David Miscavige when she says, you know, where's your wife? And he's like, do you know what I do all day leah i fuck up assholes like you oh my god all words to that effect so they're being intimidating they're shouting her down

and the thing about scientology is that they actively encourage you to snitch on other members of the church and the idea is that no one is above the reporting oh yes the classic so if you see a fellow scientologist doing something they shouldn't like heroin or And the idea is that no one is above the reporting. Oh, yes. The classic. So if you see a fellow Scientologist doing something they shouldn't, like heroin or jumping on a sofa on national television, making an absolute joke out of your religion, you write a report on that person. It doesn't matter what their rank is. So Leah wrote a report on dead-eyed Dave.

She also wrote a report on Tom when he went on Oprah. It's also quite weird, though, all of the report writing. I mean, sure. But like, it's, I think the thing is the difference for me between obviously my most salient point of reference is the Catholic church, because that's what I grew up in. It's not that different because you confess, right? The difference between Scientology and the Catholic church with the confession and the reporting and the snitching on each other, blah, blah, blah, is the Catholic church, no record is kept. It's just in the priest's brain the record keeping is the problem for me i mean it's all a problem for me it's all a problem for me and i'm like well done leah for getting out but i'm like even all this report writing it's all just so weird i cannot i have no frame of reference i

cannot get my head into it but here we are so le Leah writes a report on dead-eyed Dave, which obviously goes down like a sack of shit. And Leah's sent to Clearwater to repent and rescind her reports. And that was the beginning of the end for Leah Remini. Soon she left Scientology for good, at great cost to herself. So why wasn't Shelley Miscavige at the wedding in Rome? Let's take a look. In 2004, when the hole was opened on Gold Base, David Miscavige at the wedding in Rome? Let's take a look. In 2004, when the hole was opened on Gold Base, David Miscavige was spending a lot of time with his communicator, Lou Henley-Smith. And according to journalist Tony Ortega, Shelley was suspicious that they might be having an affair. That summer, Shelley and David Miscavige got into a very public fight aboard the Free Winds. Again,

not very clear of them, is it? Miscavige publicly degraded his wife at Tom Cruise's birthday party. In 2005, Miscavige left Gold Base, leaving his wife Shelley behind. While he was gone, she filled in an org board. And when Miscavige returned, he was furious and left straight away. Shelley attempted to follow him. A week later, Shelley puts Miscavige's stuff into storage. Then the next day, Shelley vanished. Many assume that she's been sent to the hole. Others say that she's been taken to another base

on the east of Los Angeles that Ortega calls Twin Peaks. God, they really have no originality whatsoever. And she was seen only once in public after this. In 2007, she was escorted to her father's funeral and then she has never been seen again. In 2013, Leah Remini filed a missing persons report with the LAPD who told the press that the report was unfounded.

They claimed that a detective had visited Shelley, who was alive and well, and certainly not being held against her will. In 2016, an anonymous tipper-offerer claimed to have seen a dishevelled-looking Shelley along with two handlers in a town near the Twin Peaks base. Remini made further attempts to gain documentation on Shelley's location from the LAPD, and her requests were denied. There was no investigation into the sighting of Shelley. And do you know why that is?

Do you know who funds the LAPD? Is it Scientology? Is it Scientology? What? Yeah, they make enormous donations. Every time they open, like, a new branch, the LAPD, like, clap. Actually, even when Church Scientology opened in the UK, someone from the Met Police gave an opening speech when they opened the church like they've got the police like round their fingers like for

sure that's unbelievable Tony Ortega the journalist I'm a big fan of him he has probably the most famous blog on Scientology it's called the underground bunker really well written and very clear timelines of stuff like the Lisa McPherson affair and also Shelley Miscavige go missing and every year Tony Ortega publishes an article entitled Does Shelley Miscavige Know It's Christmas? Which is pretty funny. That's very good. And if Shelley is still alive, which we don't know, she will be 61 on the 18th of January 2022. So this year, next week even, it's her birthday. She hasn't been seen since she was 44.

Fucking hell. You don't need me to tell you that dead-eyed David Miscavige is an incredibly abusive man. We heard what he did to Mike Rinder. I think it's not a far stretch to say that this is playing out through a massive, what is now widely accepted institution, organisation, cult, domestic abuse. Oh, I don't doubt it. She hasn't been seen for fucking almost 20 years. This is it. This is it.

The thing is, so Leah Remini says, if Shelley is alive, if she is alive and well, which she may well not be, she is being held against her will in some sort of Stockholm Syndrome situation on the Twin Peaks space. Either way, it is extremely likely that nobody is ever going to see Shelley Miscavige again. And the LAPD seem completely fine with that. This is the thing. It's complicated, isn't it? I mean, not from like a moral aspect. No, it's pretty straightforward. Pretty straightforward, morally speaking. But like, if the LAPD, let's say, giving them

the benefit of the doubt that they have gone and they have investigated and they have been presented with a Shelley Miscavige, and Shelley Miscavige is like, Nazanin, what's her face when she's cleaning the toilets with the toothbrush still not leaving? Yes, I'm fine. I'm happy. I'm here. I'm not going outside because I'm doing penance because we are a religion. Technically, she's an adult woman. They can't do much to intervene and remove her from that situation if she says she wants to be there. No, they can't. And this is the thing. That's why cult, cult, cult, cult, cult. So that's the Shelley Miscavige situation. But we have one more scandal for you before we leave you this week. And that is one concerning a man named Paul Haggis. If you don't know who Paul Haggis is, you absolutely should. He is the

Oscar-winning screenwriter of Million Dollar Baby and Crash. And he was also a Scientologist for absolutely decades. And very aware we haven't mentioned Paul, Paul, my friend. We haven't mentioned Paul Haggis yet. Going clear, the book is very centred around Paul's personal journey with Scientology. And the reason I haven't included it thus far is that I always worry about like the authors of the books being like, oh, if you're just going to summarize my work, you can get fucked. The Paul Haggis story, apart from this part of it, I have left out. If you want to find out about it, please go and read Going Clear. I really can't recommend it enough. So if by this point into our two episode series on Scientology,

you don't already think them to be a despicable organization. Maybe this will convince you because Scientology's stance on homosexuality has never been a secret. To be gay puts you at a 1.2 on the tone scale. So basically, homosexuality is seen as a PTS, so a potential trouble source. Basically, it's seen as something that needs to be audited. So here we have a very offensive, derogatory, backward, moronic view on homosexuality, that it is a mental illness to be cured. That is what Scientology is saying. And in 1954, Hubbard wrote, quote, homosexuality is about as serious as sneezes, and members of the Sea Org have been fired for their sexuality. This was a problem for Paul Haggis. His daughter is gay, and he was troubled to learn that she had been shunned within Scientology because of this. So in 2009, after years on the inside, Haggis, very prominent in the church at the time,

wrote the following letter to shouty, sweary, disgusting Tommy Davis. And this is what the letter said. As you know, for 10 months now, I have been writing to ask you to make a public statement denouncing the actions of the Church of Scientology of San Diego, their public sponsorship of Proposition 8, which succeeded in taking away the civil rights of gay and lesbian citizens of California, rights that were granted them by the Supreme Court of our state,

is a stain on the integrity of our organization and a stain on us personally. Our public association with that hate-filled legislation shames us. You and I both know that there has been a hidden anti-gay sentiment in the church for a long time. I have been shocked on too many occasions to hear Scientologists making derogatory remarks about gay people, and then quote LRH in their defence. Silence is consent, Tommy. I refuse to consent. And with that, Paul Haggis resigned his membership at the Church of Scientology and signed off. A group of Scientologists descended on Paul Haggis' house soon after he'd sent this letter and they tried to convince him to return. It didn't work. So there you have it. Scientology, a self-referential semantic

labyrinth that cons people out of money, vanishes wives and ruins lives. But there are people who really, truly believe in it. And the worship of L. Ron Hubbard might seem unsavoury if you think of him as just a madman. But did Jesus really raise Lazarus from the dead? Did Muhammad really ascend into heaven on the back of a winged horse? And if they didn't, would Islam or Christianity exist? The point is that every founder of every religion, major or minor, is perceived by their followers to be something more than human. And where Scientology differs is they want to be seen as the scientific path to enlightenment. Marty Rathbun categorizes

those who leave Scientology into three groups. Those like Paul Haggis who turn their back on every teaching and never look back. Those who believe in the doctrine but not in dead-eyed Dave's tyranny. And finally, those who are struggling to balance what they have gained with what thousands of others have lost. So is Scientology dangerous, harmful, terrifying and covert? Absolutely. Should it be stopped? Yes. Is the only way to stop them by revoking their tax exemption,

leaving them on a surefire path to bankruptcy? A hundred percent. If they had nothing to hide, if they were doing nothing wrong, then why would they savage those like John Sweeney who request access to their inner workings? That's what separates Scientology from quote-unquote accepted major religions. No one is stalked for leaving the Catholic Church. If they have nothing to hide, why won't they show us? That's the key thing. No one is shunned for asking questions about Buddhism. That is the major difference, I think, between cult and religion is that a religion will not vilify you for asking

questions. It's like a very puritanical pasto religion that is yet to evolve, but it won't evolve because that's not the aim. So the question that many people ask is, is Scientology a legitimate religion or is it a cult? I think we've made ourselves pretty clear which one we think it is, but I also think it really doesn't fucking matter because just because something is a religion doesn't mean they should be shielded from anything when they're doing fucked up shit. Like I don't think religion, I mean, I don't think any religion should have tax exemption either. Like that's how you solve world hunger, tax the Vatican. Just because something is a religion does not excuse it from moral scrutiny. And I think that's something we really need to get on top of.

Yeah, I mean, it's 2022 and we still would give undeserved reverence to religion. It's a choice. It's a way of life that you have chosen. It deserves to be on equal footing with anything that deserves to be questioned. And that lack of questioning and the lack of critical thinking is how people get sucked into things like Scientology. So there you have it. Scientology. We've done it. If we disappear off the face of the earth, dead-eyed Dave did it. Please get in touch. Make me a Leah Remini statue for my desk. And we'll see you next week for something else entirely. What are we doing? Peter Manuel. Peter Manuel, we are. We are heading back to the UK, back to a serial killer. Why the hell not? It'll be a nice change of pace after two weeks with

our minds melting in the world of Scientology. I finished this script a couple of days ago and then I just looked it through and I was like, what do I do now? Hold your breath for that one and if you would like some more delicious Red Handed then you can head on over to patreon.com slash redhanded where we've got tons and tons and tons of bonus content for you. And if you just want some more of us, and

you want it for free, well, you can do that if you head on over to Spotify now and check out our brand new Spotify exclusive podcast called Sinister Society. Lots of culty goodness for you over there. We actually had to get their express permission to be able to cover Scientology on Red Handed. It's a really good laugh. We have a great time recording it. So please head on over to Spotify and check that out. And now everyone's favourite part of the show. Thank you ever so much to our Patreon supporters. We've got Brandy Smith, Megan Reinker something, Crystal Garcia, James Tran, Marielle's Rieda, Nicholas Turner, Ashley Hall, Jeanette Tameo, Justin Franco, Lindsay I or L, maybe Chelsea Phillips, Lizzie P,

Emily Galway, Maeve Corrigan, Franz Vandermark, Jessica Cottenham, Kerry Francis, Stephanie, Rachel, Rebecca G, Liz Stewart, Gabby Thorpe, The Inky Hand, Faith Evertson, Megan Haag, Lashia King,

Tricia McCauley, Kat Bronte Farquhar, Cassandra Morton-Prentice, Abby Taylor, Sam Harris, Ivy Chastain, Sarah Pahich, Shaz Bagrat, Jasmine Davis, Jenny Rowe, Mary Martin, Kay Powell, Jessica Young, Charbel, Cathy DeWall, Sophia Fisher, Sarah Leonard, Kate Finlay, Lauren S, Christina, Hannah, Heather Lawson, Sumaya, Leonite, Rebecca Lee, F. Jatton, Danielle Speck, Amber Nasser, Plain Jane Doe, Alexis Assam, Parker, Elma Brine, Lauren Robinson, Cassandra, Jonathan Caesar, Katie Laaten Cove, Lucien, Amanda Brown, Sarah Collins Roberts, Laura Douthit, Amy Hayward, Emma Mahaffey, Katie Atelteixia, Raleigh Campbell, Ariel Game, Carolina Simpian, Sorry. Kyra Samankis Mary F Chang Sam Haber Alexa Langham Kaylee Wilson and Chelsea Kekuna

Well done Kalakul Very good run There we go guys And that noise you just heard was the studio telling us to fuck off so we will be somewhere else when you hear us next time

we don't know where We'll see you then Goodbye Bye don't know where. We'll see you then. Goodbye. Bye. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher

Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey

to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance,

but it instantly moved me, and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app,

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