The Joe Rogan Experience - #835 - Louis Theroux

Episode Date: August 22, 2016

Louis Theroux is best known for his documentaries in the television series "Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends" and "When Louis Met...", as well as his Louis Theroux's BBC Two specials.

shy yeah we feel professional with headsets on and we're live welcome back louis oh thank you thanks nice to be back uh i was saying before the podcast started that you sent me down a scientology rabbit hole last night my friend i've been down those before but last night knowing that you were going to be on and looking forward to it eagerly i uh i watched a lot of stuff forward to it eagerly i uh i watched a lot of stuff uh and you know i spent three years down that rabbit hole and uh it's a weird one it's a weird one were you on the internet were you just clicking around yeah just there's a lot on youtube but there's various uh very very well resourced websites there's one called clam bake i've been to that one. Yeah. And then there's all the Tony Ortega stuff. I mean, there's just, there's just whole worlds. And actually, I mean, I know there's a lot to talk about, but perhaps the biggest obstacle to making a documentary

about Scientology is the overabundance of material, you know, because there's just so many ways to come in on it. And you can just chase intriguing leads. And then months go by. And you're no nearer to filming anything. I had a lot of thoughts on this. And one of the thoughts when I was really trying to unpack it all. Is that I feel like one of the reasons why a lot of these people defend Scientology. I think there's several reasons.

One, because it's their team. And once you become a part of a team. It something that you identify with it becomes very important to you and then you want to I do you want to defend that so I think there's that but also I think some people take some benefit in what L Ron Hubbard created because if you have you read going clear yes when I read going, I watched the documentary and then I read the book. And one of the things that was more fascinating about the book was the fact that he was essentially trying to diagnose and treat himself. And he was essentially a really nutty guy.

He was very damaged. Yeah. He had a lot going on. He had a lot going on and he was a guy who was trying to sort of sort it out himself and in the process brought a lot of people in and then created this thing. And some people, they get some benefit from this thing. Because like I was watching like some of these people that are upset with you, like that woman, there's a trailer where this woman was upset at you because you were in I haven't seen the documentary yet it comes out in America in January but you were on a road you had a permit for and she was telling you you're on private land and that's right I'm looking at this woman I'm like this is it seems like a reasonable intelligent assertive confident woman that would probably if

she didn't get into Scientology she would have been successful in the corporate world right i'm sure but here she is her corporation is written by a nutty science fiction writer who wrote more fiction than any human that's ever walked the face of the planet he he made up more shit he wrote down more things that never happened than anyone who's ever lived. And they don't have a very high portion of, you know, I'm trying to put it politely, but just bogus, fallacious, clearly nonsensical material, right? And Scientology is the same as all of those. I think there's a lot of people who've derived a lot of benefit from Scientology. I think people probably, there's people whose lives have been saved by it. Kirstie Alley will say at any opportunity that it was scientology that got her off drugs but i think a lot you have to sort of take the

whole package and uh as far as hubbard goes he was an only child he was a fantasist a lonely guy who uh was also a narcissist and i think as a writer i mean you can't one of the things intriguing things about scientology is created by a sci-fi writer, right? There's not, most other religions are created by sort of desert mystics or warriors or introspective people. But a modern day sci-fi writer who's writing things about aliens taking over foreign galaxies, that's really, that accounts for a lot of its very bizarre inflection. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Well, not only that, I don't think he wrote a second draft ever.

No. He didn't have time. He was just churning it out. I think a lot of the stuff that they say he wrote, he didn't write, because he was married three times, and at least one of his wives took credit for writing some of his stuff. I think even some stuff of Scientology may be written by his second wife, who he subsequently disavowed, said he was never married to. But the guy was, he lied about so many things.

He was also abusive to his wife, wives, I think, plural. So physically, he was abusive to them. He was very, very troubled and suicidal. One of the most intriguing things in Going Clear is reading this list of uh i think they call them affirmations which when he was in after the second world war he was wracked with self-doubt he thought he was a failure he was embarrassed about his sexual urges urges his compulsive masturbation and so on and so forth and he wrote down a list of things do you remember this section of it where it says, you do not feel compelled to masturbate 24 times a day. It's not literally, you are, you were not a disgrace to the military.

You were, you acquitted your service in the Navy very creditably. It was all these sort of lies he was telling himself to reassure himself that he was actually to feel okay about himself. It's a very humanizing document because you just see all his neurotic inclinations laid bare that then subsequently informed his lifelong attempt to, as you say, sort of therapeutically heal himself. self sort of damaged thoughts, these thoughts where they don't like their past, they don't like who they are, they don't like the pattern that they're on. And they seek to try to change that and improve upon their position, improve upon their understanding and their acceptance of themselves. And I think that's where Scientology does benefit a lot of people. And so it is tricky, like many things in this life, it's not that black and white. I mean, is it black and white that it's a cult and that there's a lot of damaging aspects of that?

Yes, absolutely. It's pretty clear when you see the people that have tried to leave it and, you know, and tell the truth about their experiences in it and what, how they've been harassed and hounded and yeah, that's all pretty black and white. But I think we can, in some ways, we can sympathize with some of the people that are in it. Big time. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, but the other thing to say is because you started by asking there are concentric rings of commitment to Scientology. And in the inner circle, it is extremely demanding and I would argue abusive and cult-like. On the outer circles, as you get further from the center, I think it can be relatively benign. And especially if you're a VIP or a

celebrity in which you're exposed only to the best sorts of treatment, you're given kind of platinum card treatment. You go to the celebrity center, they roll out the red carpet for you. And I think those people feel immensely indebted to Scientology. I think that explains a lot about Tom Cruise, that he's only ever been treated like a prince when he's been in Scientology. So he feels so grateful for everything that they've done for him. Yeah, I think his experience, when he talks about them, if he's being honest, I mean, if everyone had that experience, Scientology would be amazing.

You know, when you see him when they had the happy birthday thing for him and he's dancing and everybody's cheering like imagine if you just people treated you like that all the time oh my goodness auditioning actors like female actors to see if they were going to be your girlfriend did you read that whole i mean imagine if they rounded up uh the most attractive young female actors in hollywood uh to see whether they would go on a date with you. That would make life very simple if you weren't married as I am. Would it though? Would it?

God, I don't know, man. I mean, it's just dealing with a bunch of nutty people that are willing to go through that process. Yeah, and actually because it would be like almost King Midas thing where you wouldn't trust any of your instincts. You would feel as though people were

erecting potemkin villages everywhere you went do you know what i mean yes nothing would feel quite real right that's a good point also like imagine your wife today if you found out that your wife today was one of the people that had auditioned to be tom cruise's wife i mean if you don't make the cut you're damaged goods for the rest of your life that's interesting you're a nutty broad who is willing to go and sign up to become tom cruise's new wife well to be fair they didn't know that was the job they were going in for right to be fair yeah that's true so so we're just being they just thought they were up for some gig i mean do you know what i mean maybe a sitcom or something essentially they were yeah and then there's also all of the – this is a difficult thing to skirt around, but the Scientology treatment of homosexuals where they sort of shield them from the press or hide their activity and sort of – do you know what a beard is? I do.

Yeah. They hire beards. I mean, that's a great point. And I think actually that's another one that, you know, I guess we as a society have evolved a lot over the last 50 years. To some extent, Hubbard was a creature of his times and his attitudes towards homosexuality. The trouble is because they're saying it's a religion, that's been enshrined as scripture. And so there is L. Ron Hubbard's scripture that dictates that homosexuals, gays are perverts. They're 1.1 on the tone scale, which is the same as journalists, oddly enough, but it's very, very low.

Basically, you are a kind of broken, deceitful, devious character. Journalists are 1.1 on the tone scale? Same as perverts. But actually, I think quite explicitly, I mean, I could go down, and that explains a lot about why it's so hard to make a documentary in practical terms, why they don't cooperate with documentaries. They just see you as a pervert, you know, someone who's dedicated to the abasement of humanity, in essence, someone who's holding humanity back from being what it should be. That's just incredible that he's managed to define journalists under that category. The very people that we rely upon

to investigate the truth and express that truth and disseminate that truth to the general public, those people are perverts. And that's scripture as well. You know what I mean? So it's not like you can argue against it. I mean, one of the big things they're up against is most kind of malfunctioning regimes, whether it's a corporate entity or something else, you say this isn't working, let's try something else.

what happened in Scientology, this was explained to me by one of our sources in the film, a guy called Marty Rathbun, who was very high up in Scientology. He said something could be working extremely badly inside Scientology, but if it came out of Hubbard, then you couldn't really change it. Hubbard apparently once said, oh, the best way to wash windows is using vinegar. You know, don't use Windex, use vinegar. And because of that, whenever they washed windows in the Sea Org, in the inner sanctums of Scientology, they had to use vinegar because Hubbard said that was how you were supposed to do it. And nothing can be changed. It's a bit like Mormons.

I mean, now Mormons, I don't know how they got around it. They say, like, you don't have to be polygamous. But it's like turning an aircraft carrier around. If it comes from, basically, if it's gospel, then how do you reform? You know, God's changed his mind is basically what you have to say. Well, that is the real problem with religion, because we all recognize that no one person has ultimate truth. And especially when you're just going through this life, trying to figure out yourself, trying to figure out what is this all about, this strange spinning ball that's

floating in the sky, and we're hurling through infinity, and what is this all about, this strange spinning ball that's floating in the sky and we're hurling through infinity and what is the purpose of this existence? And there's a lot of open-ended questions that never have any answers. So when someone comes along and they have this rigid ideology where things are very clearly defined, you must ask, who is defining these things? Who is this person that is beyond reproach? And when that person is a yellow toothed weirdo that's dressed like a captain with some medals that he put himself on his own jacket. And he's a science fiction author who wrote more bullshit than any human

being has ever and wrote bad books. I mean, he's a bad writer. I haven't read any of his books. I've tried to read Dianetics several times. It's almost unreadable in my view. Have you tried to read Dianetics? Yes, I bought Dianetics once a late night before the internet. There was a late night infomercial. I've always been a person who's really into self-help and psychology. Yeah, me too. Because I've always tried to figure out like what is it about you

know why why do people sabotage themselves why do i get lazy why do i not fulfill some of my goals and so i really got into like anthony robbins and i got into a lot of psychology books and self-help books and one night i was at home and i was watching this commercial for dianetics so i said all right i'm gonna call this and i, and I guess I gave my credit card number or whatever it was. This is while you were an actor at this point. I was a working actor. Quite successful.

Yeah, I was doing okay. If they saw you coming, they would have absolutely, that would have made their year. Well, I never went in. I never went there. But I did, in the future, I did do the E-meter thing, but that was way later. So this is like 1994, when I just first came to Hollywood.

I was alone in my apartment in North Hollywood, probably lonely, trying to figure things out. Just got here. I want to buy this fucking thing. Those people sent me pamphlets and paperwork and invitations to seminars and this thing and that thing for a decade. I mean, it just never ended. It was like weekly, monthly, constant. They're very, very relentless in their pursuit. And if you looked at what their pamphlets were saying, it was all really reasonable, enticing stuff.

It was all about improving yourself. It was all about fulfilling your goals, eliminating negative thoughts, eliminating other people's negative thoughts that are influencing the way you view your life, eliminating the effect of past experiences that were negative and that may have defined you in some way. Yeah, all of that. But that's basically Freud, basically. Yeah. It's Freud with a lie detector. You're hooked up to a lie detector.

That, in essence, is auditing. The problem is when you read Dianetics, you realize how loopy it is, in my view. And in fact, because sometimes, and I praise this sort of skeptical-minded approach where people say, well, what's your problem with Scientology? You know, all religions are kooky. But the fact is, Exhibit A is just read Dianetics.

If you read the Bible, it's got loony stuff in it, but it's got passages of transcendent poetry and just parables that you can meditate on and beautifully written in the translated English. You read Dianetics, and it's just childish stuff about literally things about, oh, a lot of your problems may be because when you are in utero as a fetus, your father tried to abort you. Your father tried to abort the fetus. And you can still remember that. And that's holding you back. And at that time, a record was playing.

And every time you hear that record, it sort of this sort of pavlov mixed with really weird um totally unscientific ideas and and then it expands to past lives so it's traumas or bad memories from previous lifetimes and at that point i'm just like i'm not on this ship well i wasn't on it before but you know even more yeah it's it's hard to be honest i think but that's what we were saying earlier about rigid ideologies. Rigid ideologies are always problematic because there's so many open-ended questions when it comes to being a human being on Earth. And that is a problem with religions. And one of the things that religions do by creating these rigid ideologies is they make things so that you don't have to question stuff.

And that gives some people comfort. If you know that these are the rules and you don't have to think about why homosexuality is bad or why, you know, you know, fill in the blank, whatever the, whatever the issue is. When someone defines something like that for you, it makes it so you have less questions and you have comfort in these truths, you know, air quotes. Um, but that's not good for anybody. It's bad for everyone involved because they're not, there are some things that I think we've all learned, uh, be nice to people and it feels better to them. It feels better to you. You have a healthier existence when you have harmony with your neighbors and when you can create a good community of people that are being harmonious together and friendly together it's a really nice

place to live those are pretty that's a pretty much a universal truth you know there's a bunch of those that exist but even those can be debated and discussed and you know you find you know various approaches to the end goal of happiness. Whenever you have someone who wrote down a bunch of wacky shit like this, and then you have seemingly intelligent people defending it, like that woman that we were discussing, and that woman was, she did not seem stupid at all. No, I'm sure she, I was reliably reliably informed because in the same in the film,

we go off and meet her ex-husband, who's now no longer in Scientology. And he describes her as a very sensitive, caring person. A lot of the assertiveness she shows, I think she probably acquired through Scientology and a lot of Scientology training in terms of what it imparts to people is a quality of being direct, being assertive, being confident, being in charge and being okay with sort of dominating the situations that you're in. It's one of the reasons that I think it appeals a lot to actors because it works, I think, for people who have any sort of insecurity or who are going into situations of uncertainty. And it allows you to almost reprogram your circuits in some way and be okay about using assertive body language and speech. And it also imparts the sense that you have all the truths necessary to save humanity from itself, not just humanity on Earth, but throughout time and space. humanity from itself, not just humanity on Earth, but throughout time and space. And it is your obligation to ensure that those truths are saved for posterity and communicated as widely as possible in a totally unadulterated fashion. Because any adulteration of the message means that not only do they not work, they become toxic and dangerous.

work, they become toxic and dangerous. It seems to me that there's a bunch of things going on and that there's some aspects of it that maybe could be beneficial, that they could extract from that. I'm sure. Almost like these people that have abandoned Scientology can start Scientology Light. Well, they do. They are doing that. Are they? Yeah.

But one of the funny things is once you have Scientology light, it's called the Indy movement, independent Scientology. And it's often an analogy is made with Martin Luther and Protestantism. You know, when, you know, people said, you know, there's nothing in the Bible about the papacy, really. There's nothing about selling indulgences and having palaces in Rome and the Vatican. So actually, really, there's just stuff in the Bible about, you know, following Jesus and reading the Bible. So shouldn't that be what we're doing? And so they go off, you have Protestantism. The trouble with the independent movement is, it turns out that if you remove the rather predatory money-raising side and the sort of

fundamentalist controlling side, you get something a bit wishy-washy that's more or less indistinguishable from many other self-help creeds. It sort of loses its potency. It's almost that the authoritarian dimension of Scientology and the way in which it demands total obedience from its followers is intrinsic to its ability to have an effect. That's fascinating. People do in some way gravitate towards discipline. And you see that in the military, like the benefit of, so yes, sir, no, sir. And one of the things I talk about in the film is, I mean, we talked as well about the appeal of Scientology. Why do people defend it? So it works for some people. I think there's an obvious thing of the thin end of the wedge. You know, you get in knee deep and then you think, well, I've come in this far. So even though I've got doubts, I'll go a little further. And then you sort of reach a tipping point of commitment where it becomes almost embarrassing to back out. You're sort of $100,000 or more in. You're 10 years in. Your family is annoyed with you.

A lot of them you don't see. It's very hard to walk away from that commitment. So there's all these powerful, compelling reasons for why. But the other part of it is, and this is the part that I as an outsider appreciate and I own up to in the film, is that there's something grandiose. It's a bit like Trump, right? You see these gilded casinos.

You see these towering, shiny buildings. You know, they're kind of over the top and grotesque, but they're also sort of majestic and imperial. and imperial and if you ever watch scientology footage there's some of it's on youtube and you see how they they are very good at a certain kind of um over the top aesthetic do you know what i mean almost a kind of reef lenny riefenstahl-esque um with lights and flaming braziers and thousands of people surging upward in unison and it it has an effect you sort of think wow these guys know how to run a show yeah if you go into any org have you been into an they call them orgs right organization okay so near where i'm staying in los feliz there's one it's on hillhurst i think and you go in and it feels like you're kind of in a religious library sort of um sort of designed

by jay peterman you know like the catalog company and it has sort of old by Jay Peterman, you know, like the catalogue company and it has sort of old globes and kind of distressed wooden furniture and wicker chairs and it feels like it's got a slightly colonial golden age of exploration feel, do you know what I mean? And it feels very

sort of swept up in this narrative of we're in a place where there's adventure and a sense of order. And actually, there's a sort of seductive quality to it. Yeah, there's a seductive quality to a lot of religions. I find a seductive quality to people that are very confident in what they're saying and this ultimate truth that they're espousing. And I went to the Vatican recently. ultimate truth that they're espousing.

And I went to the Vatican recently, and one of the things that was really apparent to me was the sheer scale and the vast size of like St. Peter's. It's not St. Peter's Cathedral. It's not a cathedral.

It's called St. Peter's, isn't it? Yeah, the Basilica. Thank you. The Basilica, which was just, to me, the most amazing thing I think I've ever seen as far as like a human creation. The most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life other than Chichen Itza, other than the Mayan pyramids. I was just stunned by the amount of work and the hundreds of years of work that had gone into creating that. of years of work that had gone into creating that. But when you're there, the overall scale of it is so immense that it makes you feel pure. It makes you feel small. It makes you feel insignificant in the greater picture. And I think that that's a big factor with a lot of religions is to eliminate the power of the individual by making you feel diminished by the sheer scale of what you're seeing and the hall that you're in.

I'm sure. I'm sure that's correct. It's intimidating. Very much so. Yeah. And there's one other thing which I would add in, which is, you know, last year, slightly on the back of doing the Scientology program, I was trying to, I was living in the UK, and I was trying to get a program going about fundamentalist Islam, or not even fundamentalist, actually beyond where it's extreme radical Islam, so called, you know, basically people who support ISIS, of which there are some in the UK, although

they're hard to interview, because it's actually a crime to, to glorify terrorism is what it's called. And so they have to talk very gingerly around the subject. But if you get into a debate about someone who is sincerely committed to ISIS brand of Sunni Islam, right, where they're saying actually, yes, sex slaves are okay. They'll say like slaves isn't quite the right term, but we approve that and blah, blah, blah. And then they say, well, by what authority do you challenge what we believe?

When you start coming at them with some kind of humanistic, secular, liberal sort of view of life, and you try to explain, well, I'm not basing my, I don't have an authority as such. I'm not preaching a religion. I'm just saying it's kind of better to be nice to people. And they say, but based on under what authority? Like you find that you actually don't really have. It's surprisingly difficult when you're thrown back on first principles to make the case for a sort of sensitive secular way of doing things. Does that make sense?

Yes. of doing things. Does that make sense? Yes. One of the appeals of, I think, whether it's Scientology or Islam or extreme Christianity or whatever form that takes, they can say, like, we have all our answers. They're in a book. And God told

us. So who told you? And I'm like, well, no one told me. I'm relying on a two millennia old tradition founded in Greco-Roman times, you know, with various people, you know, interpreters over the years. But actually, you know, I can't really articulate that in 10 words. Do you know what I mean?

Yes. And it's surprisingly hard. So once you're in the prison of a faith-based system, it's very hard to kind of leverage your way out. I didn't do a good job of trying to get them out, basically. Well, it's very difficult when they say that, like, by what authority? And you realize, well, you don't have any, and they think they do. Yeah. And that's where it gets weird.

Yeah, you're like, I don't have a book. Like, whatever we call the other way of doing things, you know. And also, you don't want to say say like, well, in Western tradition, you know, you're trying not to, because whether we like it or not, all our beliefs have some sort of geographic and temporal specificity to them. As much as we might want to say that there are golden rules that exist through time and space, I don't think there really are. These are all kind of constructed. Right, like all of culture. Yeah, like all truths, all culture. And so you're having to say, well, you know, over

the last few hundred years since the Enlightenment, we've found that in general, torture's not a brilliant idea, and capital punishment's not great, and slavery is largely discredited. And they say, well, so this is about the Western Enlightenment, that's your authority?

And I don't want to be kind of basing it on that. So I just, I slightly made a hash of it. After I did the interview, my producer said to me, yeah, I think he kind of owned you in that interview. The guy who's like the ISIS defender, he's in prison now. That was one of the reasons we didn't finish the documentary. Anyway, that's sort of going off on a tangent. What did he go to prison for? For allegedly glorifying terrorism.

You know, did you hear that Twitter yesterday banned 235,000 Twitter handles? No, really? For promoting terrorism. Really? 235,000. That's incredible. I mean, I'd be intrigued to know how they define promoting terrorism. Yeah, I would as well.

Would that all be Islamic? Yes. Well, I would assume because I am not. So it must be that. But I wonder if there was a conservative right-wing blogger who was banned. Milo. Milo Yiannopoulos. That was very sketchy.

I don't agree with what he said, but if you really pay attention to what he said, it was very sketchy that they banned him. I mean, you believe in freedom of speech or you don't, kind of. Yes. And all he did was he made a post on Breitbart about the Ghostbusters movie. And it was very critical. He basically called it a piece of shit. It was a terrible movie. He said it was this ridiculous feminist film and that creating this all-female Ghostbusters cast where all the men are buffoons. Did he not flame the African-American actor?

He flamed everyone. He called them fat and ugly and disgusting. And what he's saying is essentially like, look, I'm bitchy. He's bitchy all the time. He's a very flamboyantly gay guy. He's been in this podcast a couple times. He's hilarious. I find bitchy. He's bitchy all the time. He's a very flamboyantly gay guy. He's been in this podcast a couple times. He's hilarious. I find him funny. I follow him on Twitter. He's, I mean, yeah. You used to.

Yeah, well, there you go. Well, they banned him. But here's what's interesting. He didn't do anything bad on Twitter. When you look at what he said on Twitter, it was like nothing. You know, it was like nothing more than things. You know, it was like nothing more than thing. She had said Leslie Jones had said a bunch of things about him or what other people had said about her. And she wrote something down that was just poor grammar. And he and he wrote my word, barely literate, you know, such a shame schools in America. You know, that's essentially what he wrote. And then he was banned. I mean, that is really mild stuff. I mean, if you I think what there's a problem, first of all, that he's conservative and they don't like that and that he does attack feminists and social justice warriors and progressives and the left, and he goes after them. And that's essentially the whole base of Twitter. Twitter has this, what do they call it again?

What is their council? They have some strange, it's very Orwellian. It's like safety and trust and safety council where things. A watchdog group within Twitter that keeps tabs on it. Well, who decides what is and is not harassment and sort of... It's sort of like placating people who are recreationally outraged by other people's opinions. The trouble is it's a public space

that is basically also a corporate entity, right? So in essence, they can do whatever they want legally, right? Yeah, but it's very ideologically based. It's very left-wing. It's very weird in a lot of ways, which I am in many ways left-wing. So when I read what they're saying, I agree in some ways. But outside of actual real harassment, I just don't think that you should be able to just ban someone because they call someone a bitch or call someone ugly it just it doesn't seem to me yeah i'm not gonna disagree with you i mean i feel as though we're in a weird place we're off on a tangent slightly but you know it was around the time of um charlie ebdo you know which was everyone was marching

for the right to be offensive right and around the same time trolling became a buzzword and it was the idea that we should stop trolling and there's a certain disconnect we're living through as a culture to do with uh wanting to defend the right to be offensive but also come down hard on trolling. And actually at a certain point, you can't have it both ways. Yeah. Well, there was also a lot of people that were defending what had happened in Charlie Hebdo by saying that those cartoons were really racist. They were going so far pro-Islamic to sort of... Well, I'm going to say what I heard was, because I understood this, was some people saying, absolutely, it's a crime, it's hideous,

and people have the right to be offensive. But I'm not going to valorize the message or even hold these people up as free speech martyrs any more than I would do if Tom Metzger or neo-Nazi was killed. He does not thereby become a hero. He becomes a victim of a lynch mob, of a murderous campaign. But I'm not thereby a supporter of his output. Does that make sense? Yeah, I'm sorry. There's a mistake here. I have to text that to Tom Papa, who thinks he's supposed to be here right now. Apparently, he's outside. He's supposed to be here next Monday. Whoops, Tom. Yeah, I think... So Penn, for example, I think it was Penn, the American… Magician?

No, Writers' Union. It's a guild of writers that supports the rights of writers around the world in America. And they said, well, we don't want to give an award. So there was a divide among Penn. Should we give an award to Charlie Hebdo? By giving them an award, are you there by saying, we support you for saying that Mohammed was a piece of shit or whatever they were saying? Or are you, you know, in other words, do you get an award for being killed? There's a little bit of a conflict there.

Yes. In other words, so I don't, I'm sympathetic to people who feel that absolutely it was a crime. It was hideous, you know, Islamofascists killed Charlie Hebdo. But that does not thereby make charlie hebdo's message uh laudable or creditable one yes that's a really good point because what were they doing and what was the point of what they were doing yeah uh were they just trying to be funny was it parody i don't know if it was funny because i i don't speak french and i haven't i haven't really paid any attention to the translations just to me some of it seemed

funny some of it didn't seem that funny. But if Julius Streicher, right? You know, I don't want to compare them directly with this. But, you know, an offensive propagandist for the Nazis. Just to take an example. You know, I shouldn't even go down this road. Because once you bring the Nazis in, it just clouds everything. Yeah, as soon as you say Hitler.

Yeah. It's a kind of thought blocking. It blocks all thought. He's worse than hitler this trump yes yeah um i think um the real bottom line is people were killed for cartoons there's no way to defend that right i think everyone agrees we agree with that but does that make the cartoons good it certainly doesn't no they could be shit cartoons and people were killed for shit cartoons it's wrong to kill people for shit cartoons. But the cartoons are still shit.

Even L. Ron Hubbard would agree with that. Hopefully. I don't know. Well, let's bring it back to Scientology because that's one of the interesting things about Scientology is that anyone who is a quote-unquote opponent of Scientology, they are allowed to violate pretty much all of their principles and just go after you. You are the enemy. Yes. And there's a whole different set of rules for engaging with someone who's an SP.

An SP, suppressive person. Suppressive person, yeah. I like how they do that. That's what they do in the military too, by the way. What's that? IEDs, you know, they abbreviate things. Acronyms. And a lot of stuff that in Scientology is based on Hubbard's naval experience.

He loved, they dress up in naval uniforms and he loved things like little bulletins or anything that felt kind of quasi-military. You know what I mean? Yeah. In a way, it's a mixture of some military kind of naval stuff and then some corporate style stuff. What it isn't is a lot of religious stuff. Like that is the one thing that you don't get a flavor of in terms of the way they dress and drill there's some show business you know you got a little touch of hollywood you got a touch of naval you don't have any sense of it

being kind of spiritual or religious yeah and i'm talking the way they style themselves the language they use they're constantly using abbreviations that are more or less unintelligible to the outsider, which, by the way, is a lot of how allegedly, according to experts on thought reform or cults, so-called, they say that by learning a new language, it's part of what kind of gets you caught up in the thought patterns of an abusive system. Well, that's also military people. If you talk to people who really have a deep understanding of the military or people who love the military, they love to talk in those acronyms. They love to use them because it sort of lets everybody know that you're on the inside. Yes.

It's like when people talk about cars or anything where there's a surface knowledge that most people have. Oh, that is a Ferrari. Oh, that is a Corvette. But then there's deep, deep knowledge. Yes. You start going into the different types of gearing and the axles. And, you know, it's got 411 rear end and this and that.

And you're like, oh, he knows. He has the deep knowledge. He has the deep knowledge of the car. Well, there's the deep knowledge of the military. And a lot of that is sort of expressed through acronyms. Yes, yes. AWOL, FUBAR, and they do all that stuff. So that's a big part of how they operate. As much as Scientology kind of casts the world in us and them terms, which is very characteristic of a lot of systems of thought that are inimical to sort of freedom or free way of thinking, it's us and them.

It's like Bush saying you're either with us or against us. And in Scientology, in a famous statement of Tom Cruise's that he gave in 2004 when he was given a Freedom Medal of Valor at a big Scientology awards ceremony in England, given a Freedom Medal of Valor at a big Scientology awards ceremony in England. He said, you're either playing on the pitch or you're out of the arena. That's the one where they gave him that gold dinner plate. Yeah, they gave him a huge Flavor Flav style gong. So his thing is you're either on the pitch or get out of the arena because there's no half measures. Get in or you're out.

And that whole idea, if you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem. It's a very dangerous, slippery road to go down because you're then by definition saying there's good guys and bad guys. And if you're not on my team, you're a bad guy. Well, let's define what the solution is, Tom. Sit down. Tell us about what are thetans? Explain to me how they threw thetans,

they throw them into a volcano. What happens? Well, you know, I'm going to sound weird now because one of my promises that I made to myself was that I would never gratuitously mock the beliefs of Scientology. And one of the things they find offensive is to reveal some of the secret truths

that are unveiled. You know, okay, I'll take a step back. Unique to Scientology is that it's a mystery religion, meaning that many of its beliefs are unveiled as you advance up the ladder of enlightenment. Okay? So you don't, day one, get told, unlike with Jesus and Christianity, on day one you're told he died on a cross for your sins, believeth in him and you will be saved and go to heaven.

died on a cross for your sins, believeth in him, and you will be saved and go to heaven. There's no kind of catch or later sort of amendment that gets made when you're a year, two years, three years down the line. In Scientology, you learn more as you go up. Some say that this is partly something that it owes to Crowley or Alistair Crowley, I think it's pronounced, and that Hubbard had practiced a form of Satanism when he was living in Pasadena in the 40s right after the second world war and incorporated that aspect of it and it is quite a seductive idea the idea oh i'm going to learn more as i go on a kind of unraveling mystery um so so that is part of scientology and when you get to the ot levels which is once you've gone clear which is sort of half... And OT is operating...

Thetan, yeah. So to begin with, going clear was originally the best thing you could do. And then subsequently, he added more levels and more layers, and you get to the OT, and there's eight published OT levels. And OT3, various secrets are revealed. And allegedly, if an uninitiated OT or an uninitiated person is shown the secrets, it makes them go crazy. But one of the things that, but I, you know, you're not, and every documentary about Scientology rejoices in telling you what the OT stuff is. And I think you were about to touch on it. I promised myself that I wouldn't reveal them because I sort of felt, you know, it's a little cheap when all these documentaries say, you know, this is what you like, $100,000 in or $200,000 or $500,000.

You're going to learn what happens at OT3. And then, you know, they spoil the surprise for everyone. And I also felt like I'd like to be able to say to it, if I ever meet a Scientologist, I mean, I'm sure I've met some, but without knowing it. But, you know, if I ever meet Tom Cruise or Beck, I want to be able to say like, you know what, I didn't ever do anything. I just, I have a right to know my truth and express my truth. I don't want to mock you. I don't want to make fun. You have a right to believe what you want to believe.

And if you think, you know, no more than I'd force a Jewish guy to eat pork or tell a Rastafarian to cut his hair. And so I'm not going to say to an OT, you know, I know what happens to OT3 and it sounds like a bunch of junk. Well, you don't even have to say it's a bunch of junk. But just expressing, I think there's what we know. Okay. What we know about their doctrine. Yes. Or their whatever you want to call it

their their scripture and there's an amazing moment in the documentary the hbo documentary where was it was paul higgs is that what it's haggis haggis he gets to ot3 yeah you're gonna say it fine he gets to ot3 and he starts reading some of the handwritten stuff by l ron hubbard there's a whole palaver. It's an interesting bit in the book, too. Do you remember, like, he's guided into a room, and literally it's almost like they take it out of a safety deposit box and kind of open it up with gloves, kind of white-gloved hands,

and then there's a handwritten kind of piece of parchment inside written in Hubbard's manuscript. And you read it in that room, and then the guy has a has a kind of little routine he follows like the person who brought you in comes in and says has it been read and comprehended or something like that right and then you've read it and you go like uh yes and then ask and it shall be done or something and then they put it back in and take it away yeah well it must be it's a great sense of theater yes like I love it's like being in the masons or i mean yeah all

that secret squirrel stuff is very appealing yeah i forgot about secret squirrel yeah that but i think it's important to talk about what we know about what that is about what is that's fine i mean it's out there it's on the internet i you what that is, about what is. That's fine. I mean, it's out there. You don't want to. It's on the internet. What I would say is what they believe is that man is an immortal spirit. And you are not your body. You are the spirit. And the spirit is a thetan.

That's the term they use for spirit. And your spirit, you, in essence, have lived multiple lifetimes in multiple bodies, going back millennia and going forward millennia. And that's not a unique thought. No, I mean— Unique to them. No, you have that in Buddhism, but unlike in Buddhism, the transmigration of souls does not— resides only in humans, right? I don't think you can become a chipmunk, right?

Which you can in Buddhism, I think. Can you not? I do not know. And I think, you know, depending on how your karma is, that's number one. And number two, which is even more important or just as important, is that you can carry your memories through the lifetimes using Scientology. And the gift that Scientology gives you is the ability to retain your memories and your identity across multiple lifetimes and that's why it's so important to a scientologist to um to recollect his or her past lifetimes because it suggests that you you're sort of you're on you're now on your cosmic destiny and you will carry it forward into your when you when you next incarnate these are all unique ideas i mean they're they're they're interesting but

when you know the source of all of it, and yet they ignore it, and they choose to not pay attention to the other things that he read, or wrote, rather, like Battlefield Earth, that movie with John Travolta. Did you ever see that? I never saw that one. It's wonderful. It's wonderful. It's right up there with, did you ever see Showgirls?

Yes, I have seen Showgirls. Showgirls is like a tour de force of writing a movie while you're high on cocaine. It's Joe Estahar's right there. It's Paul Verhoeven directed it. It's a great combination. It's one of the best unintentional comedies that's ever been made. Well, I'd argue that, because Verhoeven's a brilliant director, right? And Starship Troopers he made and the first Robocop.

He knew, I think he knew what he was doing. I think he has a keen eye for camp and thought this is hilarious. Estahar's maybe not. It could have been. It could have been. I think they were just coked out of their mind and they made a wacky fucking movie and they probably thought it was great. Like, fucking print it. Let's go. Let's go out's let's hit the ivy and i don't know i mean i think they were just out of their mind i mean if you watch that film there's a scene where a what

is her name elizabeth berkeley berkeley yeah and uh the other guy from um i can't remember blue lagoon is that it was from was he from what was that TV show that he was on? The handsome one, Kyle... What the fuck's his name? McLaughlin? Is it? Yeah, Kyle McLaughlin. They're having sex in a pool, and she starts flopping around like a fish.

She literally starts having spasms. If you continue to have sex with her, I feel like that's rape. This is a woman who's having a goddamn seizure, and you're going to keep having sex with her? Have you ever seen this scene? No. It's wonderful. Well, I've seen the movie, so yes, I must have. It's rape. Like, this is a woman who's having a goddamn seizure, and you're going to keep having sex with her? Have you ever seen this scene? No. It's wonderful.

Oh, well, I've seen the movie, so yes, I must have. It's wonderful. She starts, they're having sex, and she starts flailing, like, as if she's having a goddamn stroke. She's in the middle of a heart attack or a seizure. And that choice is the only thing that haunts me about that movie. Like, maybe it was camp. Maybe they were doing that on purpose. I think it was.

But, you know, I read an interview with the director of Battlefield Earth. Is it Battlefield Earth? Yes. And he apparently is a pretty good director. And he's a European, I think, maybe French. And I think he just didn't know what he was walking into. You know? And I think he didn't really know what he was walking into you know and I think he didn't

even he didn't really check out what he was what the gig was well that was a product of John Travolta yeah I think Travolta was back labor of love maybe yes and it's wonderfully bad yeah there's a funny bit in in going clear in the book where they I think cruz sees it and and it's like this is so embarrassing for scientology he's really upset about it well he was upset that they showed that video of him uh you know saluting you know to lrh you know they salute when they got the medal right all that crazy shit yeah that's all it's all over youtube the recruitment was he upset about that being yeah oh they tried to get that taken down. And of course, it spread like wildfire through the internet

because you just can't, you can't take things like that down. No, it's classic. Although a lot of stuff's been, there are a lot of great Scientology videos that have been taken down. Really? Yes.

Like there's a famous one that's very hard to find. It's the orientation video that was shown to new parishioners uh this is back in the 80s and it was done by an infomercial pitch man who was then a scientologist and then um subsequently left you know by the way do you know one of the they don't cast scientologists in scientology uh commercials do you know why why because they blow too often like they leave and then they no longer

want to be in the video or it becomes embarrassing to have someone speak can you imagine if leah remini was in a commercial for scientology they'd never be able to use it again right right so they can't they it's sort of insurance because they want to be able to use the they spend a lot of money on the commercial they don't want to be embarrassed when the scientologist who's the star of the commercial leaves scientology and says that they were brainwashed. That's their actual reason for doing it? That's what I'm told, yeah. How many of them left? Well, I mean, the retention rate. I don't know. They keep the data very close to their chest. So I know that they have, they say millions, I think they say 40 million some vast amount worldwide

I know that in Antonio Ortega's blog I think there's a US census data that perhaps suggests in the US it might be 20 or 30 thousand we should probably get that fact checked but I believe I read that there are more people

who identify as Jedi as their religion than there are Scientologists. I'm a Jedi. I just decided. Is it a long process to become a Jedi or can you just claim it? I think this is a long process, but it's very cheap is the good thing. Oh, well, I've watched all the movies. I think I'm in.

I just, it's amazing to me that this exists uh i understand that it exists i intellectually when i sit back and i look at the the the many many different religions and many many different ideologies that people subscribe to and the the vast amount of people out there that are searching for truth and answer and something to belong to. Even that, even though all those things make sense to me intellectually, I'm still fascinated. I'm still so puzzled that in 2016 with the internet, with all the access to information that we have today, that that still exists. And you look forward and you wonder it will you know is this going to fizzle out but i think what they've done is they've kind of created a marketing juggernaut that is

if not immune to but at least highly resistant to um any attempt to discredit or undermine so i i heard i read a thing that said well it's religion that sells secrets, right? That's its USP. You advance up, you pay more money to get the more secret levels. And the internet is kryptonite to that because the internet is a machine for revealing secrets,

WikiLeaks and whatnot. You can Google anything. So that will be Scientology's Waterloo will be the fact that we now have searchable data. But it shows no signs of coming apart, you know, that the numbers may not be high, but the amounts of revenue coming in are huge from what I can tell. And I get the feeling that, well, you just have to see how, you know, the amount that they're able to spend on advertising, the number of new buildings that go up. So however small it may be, it has a huge punching power. Where are they getting the money from? Interesting point. The first thing is that it's structured almost like McDonald's.

And interestingly, in 1950, the year that Dianetics was published was also the first year that McDonald's was established. That's pointed out by, I don't know if you ever read Janet Reitman's book, Inside Scientology. It came out a year before Larry Wright's book, Going Clear. So it was slightly, its thunder was stolen by Going Clear, but it's also an excellent book and a great primary. If you enjoyed Going Clear, I highly recommend Inside Scientology. And she points this out that in 1950, McDonald's was invented and so was Dianetics. So they basically kind of, it's a franchise system in which they are sort of selling the they own the property of the of the various buildings in which scientology is is sold and then they license the materials but they can't really you know some of the franchisees can lose money but scientology itself can't really lose

money because they're just getting rents from the people who are who are selling the scientology does that make sense the services but doesn't make sense that they get that much revenue from that. I know they're gigantic real estate holders. So they have huge amounts of real estate. The other part of it is that they, because it's a religion, the money is tax deductible or whatever. They don't pay taxes on it, in essence. And so I think that means that it's very hard for them to lose money. It's a huge cushion against financial failure. Well, that was a really disturbing part of the documentary, which showed how they became a tax

exempt religion. The government essentially caved under the threat of massive amounts of lawsuits. Yes. Basically, the Scientologists found a way to pressure individual IRS employees to the point where their lives had become extremely hard. So they settled. What year was that? I want to say, I want to get this right, 92, I would say. 92, maybe 93. It's amazing that that's upheld. I know.

But then again, I mean, the benchmark for having charitable status is not that high. Look at the Clinton Foundation, right? I mean, there are the people scrutinizing what qualifies as a charitable enterprise do not seem to be working, especially, you know, on top of their game. And so, yeah, I think once that's in place, I think the other part of it is, so you pay, one of the routes for finance is you pay for services, you turn up, you spend, I want auditing. So I get an auditing package for $300 and you get, you know, whatever, five sessions. But the other thing is they solicit donations and five or six times a year they have large events. And that's the footage of Tom Cruise is at one of these events. And they're like these huge Hollywood-style award ceremonies

where they pack hundreds of Scientologists into an auditorium. And they both look quite impressive. So to the outsider they look kind of grandiose and impressive. But they are in essence a kind of live infomercial event where everyone who's there is then aggressively regged, which means they're aggressively hit up for donations. Does that make sense? Yeah. all those people who are at the event, before they can leave, someone comes up to them and says, how committed to Scientology are you? We would sincerely appreciate an expression of your support. And they guilt tripped into making a donation, a tax-deductible donation. And I'm sorry, I know I'm rambling, but there's a lot of information.

So they get huge amounts of money for that. And that money then, one of the good things about that is that can never be revoked. Like if you leave, one of the problems they had in the past was if you spend $10,000 on credit and say, I love Scientology, this is going to be amazing. And then you like $1,000 into your services, you're like, this isn't doing anything. I want to leave. And then you ask for your money back, and it's very hard for you to get your money back. Whereas the donations that are made to something called the IAS, Association of Scientologists, you can't get those back once you leave. Anyway, I'll make it very simple for you. There's very rich Scientologists who make

large donations, basically. There's a guy called Bob Duggan who's a multi-billionaire who's donated literally tens of millions. Poor bastard. I mean, and there's a lot of actors who I mean... Well, Leah Remini is one of the... Nancy Conroy. She's one of the most famous detractors, right? Person who's left... Right until she was

like one of its most famous supporters. Yeah. But that's weird because her turnaround was like one of his most famous supporters. Yeah. Yeah. But that's weird because like her turnaround was like that. Yeah. Well, I have a lot of respect for that. I mean, I think there's a lot of – like this guy who was – I was talking about this pitch, the infomercial pitch man who did the orientation video that was taken down from YouTube. He's called Larry Anderson, right? And he – I really wanted to interview him for our film because I just thought the orientation video is so funny.

It's one of this – it's this video where they say – he goes, welcome to Scientology. You know, if at the end of this video you decide this is not for you, that's fine. You're welcome to leave just as you're free to jump off, throw yourself off a bridge or blow your brains out. So it's this very over-the-top kind of thing. It's just ludicrous. But he left Scientology, so they couldn't show it anymore. But he left, like most high-profile defectors, he just didn't want anything more to do with it.

He's just like, I'm done. And very often they cut a deal where they say, fine, Scientology will say, we'll let you do the X, Y, and Z, whether it's get some money back, speak to your friends and family who are still in Scientology, but we don't want you speaking out. And so then the defector will be like, okay, fine, I want a simple life. But Leah Remini, to her credit, has actually, you know, gone out there and absolutely made it a mission to call them out. How far did she get? I don't know where she, I think she was quite far. Most of the actors, I think actors, they're considered people of influence.

And so they get a certain amount of services for free. That's the impression I have. And so I think, and I think they're encouraged to go up the bridge quite quickly. I had a neighbor who's a Scientologist and he wanted to buy a piece of property. And we had a discussion about this, how I found out he was a Scientologist. He said out of nowhere, you know, we start talking about this. He's like, yeah, I'm thinking about buying it, but right now my wife is about to go clear. And I go, this is a long time ago.

I go, what does that mean? And then he starts expressing what it means and that she's no longer going to be influenced by negative thoughts and this is going to cost $50,000. It's probably more now. Probably. This is the 90s. But $50,000 for a ceremony where you're no longer going to be influenced by negative thoughts.

And then you find out, actually, footnote, there's this other thing you have to deal with. And then there's another 15 levels. So, yeah, it's a funny one. Did you talk to Leah Remini? We approached her. I should explain that. We took a specific approach. We knew going into it. I had been gestating this idea for years.

And I'd been fascinated with Scientology going back to the late 80s when I was a student. And then I remember in 90 or 91, I took a tour around the Alron Hover Life Exhibit there on Hollywood Boulevard and had this weird feeling of, if you've ever gone in where you just think, wow, it's like they took a person who was kind of an average sci-fi writer and attempted to make him sound like he was the second coming of Jesus. And so everything is spun and it's just a weird feeling, you know, seeing a whole museum dedicated to someone who seems to have been a relatively unremarkable person do you know what i mean and so they're working extremely hard saying like he was one of the youngest ever eagle scouts to ever qualify in the state of montana and you're like well and i was like my dad was an eagle scout like that's not that big a deal

and um and so then i remember halfway through I thought, well, this was funny for 10 minutes. And then an hour later, when you're on this guided tour, I've had enough. And so I said, I really need to leave. Well, where do you need to go? What's so important that it's more important than you've seen the rest of it? And I suddenly felt under pressure, that uncomfortable feeling of like, oh, wow. And I had to pretend that I needed to be somewhere just to get out of the building. Anyway, so years go by and I think I'd love to make a program about it. And then I could never quite find, I approached them and they said, long story short, we're not

really interested. You know, they took me on a tour of the Celebrity Center. They strung me along for a bit, but it was pretty clear quite quickly that they weren't going to let me in. So a few more years went by and I was approached by a Hollywood producer called Simon Chin who made Man on Wire and Searching for Sugar Man. So he's, you know, he's well credentialed and he's like, you know, you should do something about Scientology. I gave him the spiel about why I hadn't because they won't let me in. And as you know, my way of making documentaries is by invitation. You know, I make an approach and people say yes and they let me in. Oh, you're very polite in your approach. Yes.

And actually, you know, I've done whatever, you know, big game hunting or the Westboro Baptist Church or gurus in India. But it's always I say, like, can we come and film? They say yes and we do it. and they say yes and we do it. So I just couldn't get my head around how you make a film where the people don't want you to make the film as I knew they didn't and have it be still true to what I do in some way.

And I didn't want it to be a kind of just poking them for the sake of it type of thing. Anyway, we decided that there was a way of doing it using reenactments in which we took a sort of meta approach to the reenactments, where the whole process of casting and reenacting how you do Scientology using actors was filmed. In other words, we filmed casting a character to play Tom Cruise, casting an actor to play David Miscavige, and role-playing the different lines and used ex-Scientologists to kind of co-direct.

So they were like, this is how, yeah, this is how you do it. And this is what Scientology is. And this was what it was like when I was in Scientology. And really, part of it was knowing that once we did that in and around Hollywood, that because Hollywood is so central to Scientology, they would get wind of what we were doing and would start coming to us. So there'd be this wraparound of them. And sure enough, they turned up and started filming us. And it turns out they were making a documentary about me making my film about Scientology.

So then it becomes this sort of whole... When is that getting released? January. It's out in the UK in October, but January. No, I mean yours. The one on you oh their one um you know i think it'll come out it's a great question i i'm surprised it's not out yet i think it'll come out probably in january i don't know man and what do you think it'll be about i think it'll be a lot like what they have done to other journalists. They did one to Gibney.

They did one on Larry Wright. They do them on ex-Scientologists if they're of sufficient kind of profile. It'll be a 10 to 15-minute thing. They'll extract any photograph where I look like a dick or I look ugly or ludicrous any ill-advised bit of publicity I ever did where I was promoting a series and I looked goofy they'll say like this

is a serious journalist and then they'll take quotes from interviews out of context to make me sound like either a goofball or a malicious deceiver if you want to really see the DNA of Scientology, I often think, because occasionally I get caught in this mindset of like,

you know, what is so, what is, it's just another religion. It's no better or worse than other religions, really. And then some, you know, sometimes you can slightly lose, you go native slightly or you're on their websites and you're thinking, some of this makes sense. But if you look at how they attack their enemies they're so unlike other religions certainly unlike christianity for the most part so official scientology's pronouncements when they attack ex-members and journalists are so sort of tabloid and childish and so malicious and nasty you really see see into something deep about their mindset.

Because their view, as you mentioned, is that if you're a suppressive person, i.e. someone who's attempting to hold Scientology back, then you are fair game. Anything, they could do almost anything to try and put you out of business. Do you think that these documentaries, whether it's Going Clear or the book by Lawrence Wright or the other woman, what was the name of her book? Janet Reitman. What was her book again? Inside Scientology.

Do you think that all this data, this accumulative data, reaches any of the members that are inside Scientology? No, definitely not. They don't ever examine it? No, no way. It's considered N-theta, which is a Scientology term. It means intubulated theta. I love, this is like catnip to me explaining this stuff. Is it?

Yeah, kind of. It's like I said, I was steeped in it for three years, kind of absorbing all this. Was it your whole life or did you do other things? It was just like, well, not constantly, but you would spend a few days, kind of hours would go by and at the end of it, you emerge like, have I learned anything?

All I know now is these absurd terms that are no use to anyone like N-theta. But in Turbulated, theta energy is, you know, theta is,

thetans are spirits, theta is spiritual, positive spiritual energy, but in Turbulated, it's bad. So it's basically, N-theta is kind of bad for your energy, I think. So it's n-theta for you to be in Scientology, and it could be exposed to anything negative, anything critical of Scientology. So they're encouraged to be off the Internet and to be off, you know, don't consume anything you think might be critical.

They're encouraged to be off the you know, don't consume anything you think might be critical. They're encouraged to be off the internet. Wow. Oh, well, I should say that applies to people within the Sea Org, in the inner circle of Scientology. Explain that, please. Yeah, it's a really important distinction because I'm absolutely certain that there's

plenty of extremely nice, well-adjusted Scientologists, people who consider themselves Scientologists. My ex-neighbor. He was a really nice guy. I bet he was. And I'm sure everything I hear about Beck, the musician, is that he's a nice guy, and I'm sure

Giovanni Ribisi is a nice guy. That guy's in? Yeah. Really? You didn't know that? That guy's in? Yeah. And Jenna Elfman? She makes sense. Really? Juliette't know that? That guy's in? Yeah. And Jenna Elfman? She makes sense. Really? Juliet Lewis.

Yeah. I bet she's nice. I bet she's very nice. She and I have gone back and forth. We've talked to each other through messages on Twitter. I wanted to get her in. Talk to her. And Danny Masterson?

I don't know who that is. He's from, isn't he, that 70s show? He's in too? Yeah. And Jason Lee, I think he, that 70s show? He's in too? Yeah. And Jason Lee, I think he might be out. Really? You know who I mean. My name is Earl.

Yeah, that guy's in? Yeah. Man, you didn't spend very long down the rabbit hole. Well, my rabbit hole was not limited. I try to avoid any rabbit hole that involves celebrities. But Scientology is predicated on, one thing L. Ron Hubbard got right was the idea that if you get celebrities in, then you've got a kind of golden ticket

to reaching the masses. Yeah, I jokingly thought about joining when I first came here. I was like, maybe that's the move, just become a Scientologist. You could make a documentary about Scientology that would be totally different because actually maybe we've blown it by even talking

about it. But if you'd gone undercover If I just decided, that would be good. I don't think they would listen. They would probably fucking hate me. Well, it depends what you've got out there. It's too late now. I'm not a documentary maker either. I don't have that sort of attention span that you have. You could have gone undercover

and you would have been such a great scalp for them. They would have absolutely. Because when was the last time you heard of an established celebrity actor? Joining. Joining. Like, I mean, can you imagine? Well, maybe they can clean it up. When Will Smith, there was a sniff that he might be going that way.

And it went and it didn't pan out. But that was like unbelievable. And there was a rumor that David Beckham might be flirting with it. But I mean, none of these things were borne out. Well, what they could do for you, if you were a David Beckham, or maybe even for me, is they could act as like a gang. That sort of like covers your back. Absolutely.

I think there'd be, and when i was doing the film i went in not exactly undercover but i went in not for a sequence in the film i just to sort of keep myself grounded to keep it all real you know because one of the challenges with when you're not exposed you're not actually having day-to-day contact with the subject that you're covering it's very easy to slip into a us and them mentality of your own. And you're like, ooh, scary Scientologists. Ooh, they're bad. And actually, you know, they're not.

They're good people, many of them. And so I wanted to make them real. And I went along to Scientology.org and just sort of chatted to some people and said, you know, I make documentaries. I'm interested in this subject. You know, what's it all about and they really did one of the things they do is a fairly hard sell um but uh you got the impression that they would 100 kind of take your money no i don't accept you yeah they would take your money and but they would absolutely i think be right be right on it. I don't know.

You know, I kind of lost confidence. I was going to say 100% have your back and be your gang, but I don't know if I really did have that sense. I think if they knew you were a celebrity, if they thought you were, they would really go to you. You would get special treatment. I was in San Diego, and I was filming this television show we had a few hours downtime and they had one of these booths set up Where you would go over there and hold on to the those cans the a meter? Yeah, and I did all that how long did you how many sessions did you do just one just one while I was there? I bet it was pretty good. Was it I was boring was it the guy that the guy who I got was very

Unenthusiastic he's just it seemed like something they required him. They suppose you i got was very unenthusiastic he's just it seemed like something they required him they're supposed you're supposed to be unenthusiastic oh yeah well on the e-meters there's a script for how it's called being an auditor when someone's auditing you in this sense being the therapist they have a script they have to it's called they have to sit there comfortably but um they are not supposed to show any emotion when they're auditing you. He was doing it publicly too. He was holding on to this thing and asking me questions. Was he reading the needle and saying,

and did he say like, is there a prior or something? There's a whole script they sort of say. And did you have to say like, I had a back pain and then they're like, would you remember what road you went down with what you were saying? Hardly. I just remember thinking that this guy. It's just normal therapy. It's nothing that special.

Yeah. The guy seemed like they were forcing him to do it. He didn't seem like this was something he was interested in. He was just like really not interested in what he was doing. And he seemed like a volunteer. That's interesting i mean if on the cat when they're auditing they're supposed to be somewhat blank uh a big thing in scientology is is um sort of being comfortable in yourself and not like learning how to stare at someone there's a drill that we do in the film where you have to sit and stare at someone without saying anything literally for like minutes if not hours and it's

like it's actually a powerful tool because it's like it's all about i'm i'm unembarrassable you know i'm gonna i'm gonna not i'm gonna own any sort of sense of awkwardness by just like i'm impermeable to any kind of social influence you think you can put on me right it's one of the paradoxes of being kind of controlling religious movement because so much of it is about controlling yourself do you know what i mean and not allowing other people's thoughts or negative actions to control you and actually a big thing as well and one of the things tom cruise talks about when he's um in his video is uh pts uh sp uh confronting shattering suppression uh um i don't think i even said they got my acronym right but anyway his thing is

he's like when you he says like one of the best things he learned in Scientology was how to confront and shatter suppression right so anytime you see him in an interview and there's a few of them on YouTube where he's he thinks he's getting a cheeky question you can see he kind of gets a steely

look where it's a sort of it's not exactly adversarial. It's just like, no, you're out of line, buddy. Well, the Matt Lauer interview, which was devastating for his career in the short term. He recovered from it. But that was a window into madness and into what he's really all about. That's the scary part. I mean, as much as i say like there's

a big chunk of it that feels kind of valid and normal maybe even therapeutic but when you tip into thinking that you're the only one that you have like you're the authority on mental illness and that's dangerous and individual issues with people that you have not diagnosed you don't have any medical training whatsoever you don't know what their specific neurochemistry is you don't know the effect of the medication and whether it's enhancing or hurting them and you and you just have this blanket view of psychiatry that was an issue that L Ron Hubbard had and if you go down sunset yeah I think it's sunset on sunset yeah I tree kills its psychiatry the industry of death.

Yeah. That's a fun afternoon. And that's one of their centers, right? Yeah. If you go in there, they'll explain to you. They call it the CCHR, Citizens Commission on Human Rights. And here's my issue with that. I think prescription drugs are overprescribed.

Big time. I think there's a real argument that there's a lot of people that are on antidepressants that shouldn't be on antidepressants. I think there's a lot of natural alternatives, one of them being exercise, one of them being in enhancing your standing in life in terms of like what you do for a living or where you live or, you know, the people that you hang out with, all those things can affect the way you feel, and that can be interpreted as depression. There's a lot of, I mean, there's a reason if your life is shit, if all the aspects of your life is shit and you feel bad, the solution is not a pill, right?

So I think in some ways they've got something to say that makes some sort of sense. But in a weird way, though, that's the dangerous part because it intersects, it's where Scientology intersects with a totally valid um social critique right the trouble is is if you are if you have someone who's heavily psychotic and it's not in it's not a medication induced psychosis you know psychosis is a real medical phenomenon and uh scientology is not going to take them on if you go to scientology and say, I'm interested in Scientology, I've had a couple of psychotic breaks, but I really think you could help me out. They're not going to say, oh, come with us. They'll run a mile from you.

Really? So they're critiquing people who they have no intention of helping themselves. Oh, wow. Yeah. And if you say, oh, and by the way, I've used some – in the past i was medicated for my psychosis they'll say well that disqualifies you from treatment when i went to my one they said if you've put forms of intervention have you had in the past have you done any sort of psychiatry have you had any problems like that and i said well no but i've had you know a little bit of therapy over the years

i said what well what have you done i, I did a few sessions of CBT, cognitive behavior therapy. It's kind of bog standard, talking about problems, things you could do differently. The woman's like, oh, okay, just give me five minutes, okay? And she left the room to check whether that disqualified me and came back and said, oh, yeah, that's not a problem. Okay, let's carry on. But if you had gone on some sort of medication- If I'd said I was on Zyprexa for 10 years because i had a an episode when i thought i was a poached egg for a few weeks um that she would have said she would have said oh well you know good luck with that and um you know don't let

the door hit you on the way out oh wow so they're not interested in treating people that have had treatment no oh that's weird no they they'll, you know, tough break on this life. Good luck in your next life. They really would. We should check that, but I'm pretty sure that's the case. Oh, man, that's fascinating. And there's an interesting, if you want to read, we don't go into this in the documentary, but if you can read up on the internet about cases where there's been people who had mental illness,

on the internet about cases where there's been people who had mental illness, either within Scientology. I mean, perhaps the most famous scandal within Scientology or the most notorious to Scientology watchers was the case of Lisa McPherson. Do you know about her? She's the one that died. Yeah. She's,

she's done in detail in, um, inside Scientology in the Janet Reitman book. She was a paid up Scientologist, took it very, very seriously, a young woman, maybe 30, and she had a psychotic episode in Florida. And instead of being taken and given bed care in a facility, she was taken by Scientologists from a hospital and more or less sequestered in a hotel for a week

or maybe longer and died in the hands of the Scientologists. And what was her cause of death? I believe it was dehydration. We should double check on that. Wow. That's a rough way to go. Yeah. And she'd been having, you having you know total psychotic break she was i think attacking

people in the who were attempting to you know take care or holding her hostage depending on how you define it and um you know there was a whole script that hubbard had for dealing with um people were in psychosis but i don't think it was medically supported. It was basically involved ignoring them and keeping them secluded, kind of locking them in a room. Now, I saw an interview with you where you were talking about someone who used to be a former Scientologist, a woman. Well, she wasn't a former Scientologist.

She had gone undercover to sort of investigate them. Oh, yeah. And you were talking about the auditing having a positive benefit. Yes. I think it probably does. I mean, I think any kind of… But on you. Yeah.

I mean, the auditing I did, I only did one session. And that was with, you know, the main guy in the film is a guy called Marty Rathbun. And he was in it, there's a sense in which the film is as much about him as it is about Scientology. He was, he was a Mr. Fix-It within Scientology. He was the number two to David Miscavige. David Miscavige is the guy who took over in 1986 or thereabouts from L. Ron Hubbard and has been running it ever since. He's an unaccountable leader who is, in essence, the pope of Scientology. And there are many allegations of him being physically abusive towards his followers. Marty Rathbun was his right-hand man for many years.

Marty Rathbun left in 2004 or thereabouts. And he was, so he's sort of our deep throat in the film. But he also copps to the fact that when he was in Scientology, he was involved in all kinds of devious covert activity involving private investigators, destruction of documents, and also a certain amount of physical violence himself, which he has apologized for. apologized for and so he uh it becomes a sort of examination of him and his ability to the fact that he's been seduced by this thing and it's still in certain ways it's still in him you know by by almost by definition you can't be in something that long and that you know leah remini was a celebrity parishioner right she was yeah she was going around the celebrity center she was doing scientology but she was not in the Sea Org. The Sea Org is this clergy.

It's the inner sanctum. It's the difference between someone who goes to a Catholic church a few times a year and eats communion and prays a few times a year. You can be a Scientologist in that way, which maybe your neighbor was. But if you're in the Sea Org, it's somewhere between being in the Vatican and being and being a monk you take a vow of poverty you volunteer you take a vow of poverty yeah you get paid like below minimum wage tiny amounts you leading a kind of spartan existence to save the planet you sign a contract for 40 billion years or something i think it is literally because it's supposed to cover all your future lifetimes right so when you come back you're still in the sea orc in fact their um their um their their slogan is something like vain or whatever the latin is it's we come back meaning like we come back in future lifetimes

and we're still going to be in the sea orc anyway so it's really important to get that distinction because you know i wouldn't want people to have the impression that everyone in Scientology is sort of going around in a uniform, marching around in a vow of poverty. That's just the Sea Org guys, and most of them live down, many of them live down in Hemet, outside LA. And that's where... Where's Hemet? It's outside, it's towards Palm Springs, basically.

It's in the desert. That's where they live? Yeah, there's a base down there That's where they live? Yeah. There's a base down there. Oh, they have some giant center down there that they're going to start producing movies, right? Well, there's a center in Hollywood that they've just bought. Yeah. In fact, not just bought.

They've just refurbed it and they've opened it. And they're going to open it to films. Which is bizarre because they have it. Yeah, there it is. $50 million movie and TV studio complex in Hollywood. That just opened. But they have a complex in Hemet as well, bizarrely. So I don't know why they need another one. They like buying shit.

Apparently, at one point in time, they were the number two real estate holders in Los Angeles. Well, yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. As far as like your corporate. Maybe Hollywood, not Los Angeles. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know.

But I think a lot of that is to do with, someone explain this to me. One of the rules about a nonprofit or about being a religion, having their religious status is they cannot hoard their income. Like money that comes in has to be spent. Otherwise, they're in violation of their charitable status. Someone just told me this the other day. So in other words, they have to kind of keep buying buildings because there needs to be a cash outflow, which sort of makes sense, right?

Yeah, that's totally understandable. Yeah, that makes sense. Wow. And then, yeah, so this guy, Marty Rathbun, who's sort of my guide through Scientology, and he's a fascinating guy. And Marty was in for how long? I want to say 24 years.

Maybe it was 27 years, but I think he said 27 years. He had a nice outfit on and a nice uniform. He got the uniform. He was golden ropes around the shoulder. You know, I'll say this about him. You know, if you're in it and you're up at the top echelons as he was you are on some kind of crazy sci-fi adventure you know if you think about it if you think it's real you are there he is look at that you are living a kind of jedi reality you know look at that rope it goes across the chest you're saving

planets uh what is his medals for look at all his medals no that that thing that might be some of them are photoshopped oh really yeah well that might not be some of them add medals just to make fun of um that might be a real one i don't know but the one that was above it seems real right now look at that one that's real now he doesn't look like that now because he's that's 30 years how amazing is it that they give them military medals i mean it looks like no different than what a general would have yeah what. I mean, it's a beautiful thing. In a way, I mean, it's an exciting life. They probably wouldn't be doing the dishes in that outfit.

Like, that's special occasions. Special occasions. And I'm sure he would get special treatment. I'm sure being the number two guy must have been an amazingly privileged position. Well, yes and no, because basically there's only really a number one, which is David Miscavige, and then there's just everyone else. Do you know what I mean? Oh, well, there's Tom Cruise,

and then there's... But Tom Cruise is kind of number one, right? He's right up there. No, because actually, don't you remember in Lawrence Wright's book, there's a bit where Tom Cruise explains, I think maybe to Nazanin Bonyadi, like his girlfriend at the time,

he says, don't you... Like Boniardi, like his girlfriend at the time, he says, don't you, like, he's annoyed with his girlfriend. This is after it split up from, what's her? Penelope Cruz? No, the one before. The Australian broad? Yeah. You know who I mean. Nicole Kidman. Thank you. Nicole Kidman, who's who, by the way, she was considered an SP because her father was a psychiatrist, I believe.

Anyway, so he went out with a woman called Nazanin Bonyadi for a while. And there's a section in Going Clear where they talk about, I think Miscavige came around for dinner or something. And I think it was, anyway, his girlfriend at the time was having trouble understanding what Miscavige was saying because he speaks quite fast. And so she was like, what are you saying? And Tom Cruise was really upset and said to him, don't you get it? There's LRH, then there's David Miscavige, COB is what they call it. Then there's COB and then there's me. You're doing a goddamn good Tom Cruise impression.

Thank you. It's just the intensity. Do that again. Don't you get it? There's L-R-H, then there's C-O-B, and then there's me. Don't you get it? Don't you get it? You're glib.

You're glib, Matt. You're glib, Matt. You're glib. That's a really good impression. You just got to be. You know what? I feel him. I feel him saying that.

I don't think I need Scientology if I've got caveman nitro. Yeah, 270 milligrams of caffeine. That's giving me an OT edge. I'm on OT5 right now. Do you know what morning thunder is? I think I had that yesterday. You mix this caveman coffee with some emulsified MCT oil in an iced coffee. That's what I have every morning.

What is emulsified MCT oil? It's MCT oil that you can mix very easily with cold beverages or hot. What is MCT oil? Medium chain triglyceride oil. It's the most nutritious aspects of coconut oil that are blended together. They spin in a centrifuge to extract

the best stuff. Did we just do a commercial? No. You can get it anywhere. MCT oil is readily available At any Sort of health food store And a lot of Erewhon and Whole Foods And those type of places carry it

I've never even heard of that You know of coconut oil right They're healthy fats They're really good for your brain Good stuff So that's Morning Thunder The point being We are on so many tangents right now. Yeah, we went off.

But your original question. What does COB stand for? COB is Chairman of the Board. They fucking know. There we go. COB RTC. There we go. There's LRH.

There's COB. And then there's me. And then there's Glib. Then there's Matt Lauer. And then there's John Travolta just below Matt Lauer. Apparently they have quite a dim view of John Travolta within Scientology. What? Why?

This is such, this is gossip. All the butt fucking? What is it? I think. Massage therapy? He's viewed, I don't know, Marty Rathbun that's allegedly. Can I throw in allegedly in there? Allegedly they have a bad view of him. I'm just part, everything, a lot of what I'm saying is based on, you know,

once he blew, once he left, Marty Rathbun spilled his guts on the internet. In order to let people know what was going on. And he kind of, he was the biggest thing, I would say, in terms of exposing Scientology for what it is, probably in the history of Scientology. John Travolta's wife was on Fear Factor. And I got to meet John Travolta because his wife was in the finals. She lost to Coolio who was by the way

you want to talk about a guy who performs very well under the influence of marijuana Coolio might be at the top of my list right up there with Joey Diaz Coolio they would open up his trailer and it was like a Cheech and Chong movie

it was hilarious and he would go out there and he would perform out there and he would perform these stunts just high as a kite i mean just gone because you look in his eyes they were just glazed over and he would perform flawlessly and the last stunt involved balance it was his balance thing and i had a conversation with him before we did it and i was uh unfortunately stone cold sober at the time i believe and uh cul Coolio was, he's like, I've done this a million times in a million different lives and other universes.

I'm ready to do it right now. I'm like, get after it, sir. Good luck to you. But John Travolta's wife, what is her name again? Kelly Preston. She's very, very nice. Very nice. And very, seems so normal.

I had conversations with her, and she even sent me a gift. It was some sort of protein powder that she was drinking, some health drink that she was drinking. I asked her about it, and she said, you know, give me your address. I'll have some sent to you, and this and that. So she sent some to the studio, I believe. She was very nice. I'm sure. Greta Van Susteren is a Scientologist.

Get the fuck out of here That's the one that surprises me really isn't she a journalist. I would yeah, I would have Fox News Yeah, is she on the tone scale or not? Yeah, she be maybe there's a side maybe there's an exception well, I met her as once as well She seemed very nice as well.'s something about george carlin i'm sure she is nice and i'm sure you can be i mean not to sound like a broken record well again my neighbor who my former neighbor many years ago was a very nice guy and uh i've met a lot of scientologists inside of hollywood and they all um have this actory thing going on which is uh i i would like to believe that they are as nice as

they're pretending to me, but I'm not sure. You know that actor-y thing? Yes. And I know one of my early experiences when I was talking to a Scientologist, when I was trying to first negotiate access to the church back in 2003 was, I'd sent her some old documentaries that I'd done. So this is who I am. This is what I do. And she was on the phone. She said, oh, yeah, I got the DVDs.

And I was watching. And she started laughing in the act of talking about. Like a fake laugh? Yeah. And I was like, that didn't feel quite real. Yeah. And then later on, another person I knew who was a scientologist did the same thing we're like i saw the thing you did on television oh that is a that's a pet peeve of mine i was like oh wow that is a giant maybe

that's part of what they do is sort of it's a kind of weird love bombing i don't know maybe that was just coincidence well it makes sense because they're trying to be influential and they're trying to be charming. Yeah. Right? I find a lot of the Scientologists that I've met that are actors, they're extremely charming. Like, there's one of the things you hear about Tom Cruise. He looks you in the eye. He talks to you.

He remembers your name. Firm handshake. Yeah. I'm sure that's true. I mean, they drill, as I said, they drill on looking people in the eye. But let's just assume that that's his real behavior pattern now. It's a very good behavior pattern. Yeah.

It's very nice. I'm in favor of positivity. Yes. Although I think the world needs negative people. What? I think there need to be some. What? Don't you?

But wait a minute. It's part of the ecology of life. Ah, the yin and the yang. Yeah. Yeah. If everyone was positive, then, I mean, it would be a little too much. Well, it would be very strange if the world did become enlightened. Like, what if some pharmaceutical company devised some pill that eliminates all the negative aspects of humanity?

So much. We all just started taking it. Yeah. I mean, look, how many people brush their teeth? Pretty much everybody, right? What if everybody started doing whatever this is and this new thing, which eliminated, became prevalent throughout the world, eliminate like vaccinations, right? Pretty much I would estimate high 90% of the Western world is vaccinated. Every now and then I meet some kid who had hippie parents and they gave them apple cider vinegar and they never

vaccinated them. A few of those exist, but for the most part, most people are vaccinated to prevent against diseases. If we came up with some sort of a vaccination to prevent the more disgusting aspects of human beings, negative behavior, aggression, meanness, it'd be very curious, very curious as to how that would play out, whether or not that would diminish ambition and progress and who knows. Yes, I think it was. Yeah, it's like you said, the yin and the yang. I think Scientology aspires to be that, you know, and I think the danger of it is it would bear certain similarities to a sort of almost fascist vision, I think. I mean, I think that there is an overlap there.

You know, the cult of health, the cult of glowing, smiling beacons of health and humanity marching up and down. And actually, it's our ability to rub along with difficult characters and to sort of embrace the ugly side is, I can't define exactly what it is, but it feels like that's an important dimension of life. Well, it certainly seems to be that there's a dynamic that plays out between human beings and that we learn not just from the positives, but also from the negatives. And I learn a lot from other people's negative behavior, how to never be like that myself without having to make those same mistakes. Also learn from my own mistakes, I'm sure.

But when we see horrible things in the news and negative things, I think that does sort of reinforce how fortunate you are that you're not experiencing those horrible things and that there is some sort of an understanding of the the worst aspects of people where it broadens your your spectrum of possibilities i agree but i also think that many of my favorite writers you would probably define in some sense as uh walking the negative side of life you know you think about hunter thompson hunter thompson william burroughs or um you know emingway philip roth if you like, you know, talking about the absolute, the most kind of contemptible and disgusting impulses we feel.

Bukowski. Oh, yeah. You know, that's absolutely Rambo, you know, the French poet. This is sort of like, this is who we are. This is the stuff of life. I think it's ineradicable and i think i'm suspicious of anything that that uh that pathologizes it too much and says you know what that's sort of um you know that you know which scientology does in fact they say that's your

reactive mind it's a malfunctioning part of your mind it's a pseudo-scientific thing whereas actually christianity i'm not a christian but it sort of embraces the fact that it's just your human side. Your human side is earthly and twisted and sexual and actually you need to embrace some sort of higher being. Well, I think most religions or ideologies that are trying to promote some sort of advancement. They look to the past and to the horrific nature of animal behavior, the tooth fang and claw of the wild, and the recognition that somehow or another we've emerged from that and that we aspire to do better. And then we know that in our own lives, I mean, if you look at your own life as a microcosm, you've sort of figured out what you've done wrong, hopefully, and have

advanced past those days of youth and foolish behavior. And you're now a wiser, more educated person. And you seek to continue to advance and continue to do better. So it's sort of like it's all analogous. It all sort of ties in together. Now, when people go too hard with that, when people go too hard with that, when, when people to go too hard with, uh, eliminating the bad behavior, I always wonder if like L Ron Hubbard himself, if he was, you know, when he, when we talk about him

self-diagnosing and self-treating and if that's what they're doing as well, it's like, like, do you know that like, there's an old expression that, uh, well, there's an old thing that you see with, uh, women, um, that are, uh, what's the best way to put this sexually loose that they always like to point the finger at other girls that are sexually loose. It's like one of the first indications that a girl might be a slut is that she likes to point at other girls. And that, and that's, that's a real common thing.

And I think that the things that annoy you the most about yourself, you tend to highlight those aspects when you discuss human beings or other people that irritate you. I'm sure there's something in that. They say, yes, my dad likes to quote, there's a Bulgarian philosopher and writer called Elias Canetti who's had an aphorism that the thieves' hell is the fear of thieves. So that we sort of project our qualities to others and it fills us with anxiety that they may be that. To go to the other point, though, it would be wonderful to feel that we advance through life acquiring wisdom.

I don't know that it's necessarily the case. And what strikes me about Hubbard is the merit that you see in Scientology, the bits that feel workable and make sense, seem to have come out fairly early on. And then later on, the stuff he was coming out with was more and more outlandish whatever therapies he was evolving it when it went to the ot levels it was really getting properly

out there like um i mean whether that maybe he was spiraling out i mean there's allegations that he was fully mentally ill uh at least for episodes, towards the end of his life. Well, he spent a great deal of time. The Sea Org was kind of concocted because he had to be in the ocean. He had to be, first of all, away from America. So he took to the sea. So he didn't get prosecuted. Basically, as I understand it, yes.

And so he had a sort of ocean-going religion where they were kind of traveling around. And then for a while he was in England and then for a while he was in what was then Rhodesia, what is now Zimbabwe, sort of trying to find a niche, like find a kind of new frontier that he could more or less make for his own kind of claim for Scientology. But then even when he came back, he was so caught up in lawsuits in the last 10 or 15 years of his life, people pursuing him for money because they felt that Scientology had made them psychotic or they just thought it was fraudulent or that they wanted their money back. He had to disappear and was living in seclusion, more or less hiding out while money was kind of shuttled back and forth to him. And that's why I say, I said at the beginning, the problem with Scientology is an overabundance of material. You probably saw The Master, right?

The Paul Thomas Anderson film. I fell asleep. I was watching it in a hotel room and I passed out. It had its moments, but there's so many weird stories within Scientology. The Master is loosely based on Scientology? I would say it's fairly closely based on aspects of L. Ron Hubbard. Is that public? I mean, have they acknowledged that?

I think he had a screening for Tom Cruise, and I think he publicly said it wasn't based on L. Ron Hubbard. What did Tom say? I think Tom said, I don't know. Your glib. What do you hear about Tom? Everyone seems to say he's a good guy. You meet him, he's, as you say, very focused, very attentive.

I've heard several things. One, that he's not as short as everybody says. A lot of people want to say he's like 5'2". Apparently he's 5'9". That's what I've heard but who knows he could be wearing some funky stuff in his shoes that he's very friendly

that he's very focused very intense very charming, very charismatic, very smart and seems to be genuinely interested in what you have to say I mean I've heard the same thing what's your

line on if would you if tom cruise is interviewed on a chat show you feel he should be asked about scientology no no asking about whatever i think chat shows as you put them are they're pretty much bullshit anyway because what they really are is you have a seven minute chunk where you're supposed to be promoting some movie about a super spy that fucking repels down from the ceiling and gets past lasers. I saw that one, yeah. That's, I mean, that's really, or the other, I think he's a great actor. I love that movie. What is it?

The Edge of Tomorrow? Is that what it's called? I love that movie. That was the time travel one. I love time travel. It was sort of Groundhog Day meets Mission Impossible. Yeah, meets Alien. It's a great movie. I really enjoyed it. I was sort of like Groundhog Day meets Mission Impossible. Yeah, meets Alien. It's a great movie.

I really enjoyed it. I think he's a great actor. And I think you have to be fucking crazy to be a great actor. I really do believe that. And you know what was nice in that was that he started out in that movie as a kind of non-Tom Cruise character. Do you remember? He's kind of cowardly and slightly weak. And he learns in the course of the movie to become Tom Cruise.

And it felt refreshing after seeing so many kind of Cruise as Ubermensch films, which, by the way, I think is part of Scientology as well, is that he doesn't want to take on roles that are N-theta. Yes. In other words, one of the things I learned was members of the Sea Org who have taken this vow of poverty, live extremely abstemious, cloistered lives. And they're not allowed to go to the movies for the most part, except when a Tom Cruise movie comes out. So you know it better have a positive, uplifting message.

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So they would literally be bused, I was told, to the cinemas to watch the matinee performances of Tom Cruise. Are they held back while the previews are playing? That's a good question. I would imagine they would have to be. What do you think would be the worst thing they could see in probably a preview for my film? Yeah, that would not be good.

Oh my God, how ironic. Their eyes would drop out of their heads. Their eyes would drop out of their heads. And I think that's one of the perhaps issues they have with John Travolta as well is that he's playing a heroin addict. Yeah. Pulp fiction. That makes sense. I mean, he really embraces some very bizarre roles.

Yeah. He was in drag, in hairspray. They probably didn't love that. Yeah. He probably loved it, though. He's very good. Don't you love John Travolta, though? He probably had a great time. I do. I love him. I think he's a great though. He's very good. Don't you love John Travolta, though? He probably had a great time.

Yeah, I do. I love him. I think he's a great actor. He's so good. And don't you feel like we've been on such a journey with him from Vinnie Barbarino to... Yeah. He's like... He's a legend. He's a fascinating character.

And I met him as well when his wife was on the show, and he was very nice. But it was that thing where he's really engaging, looks you in the eyes, very present, you know. You think he's gay? Is that where we're going? People say that he's gay. I don't know. I have zero problem with people being gay, but I do have a little bit of a problem with someone who's not gay, pretends that they're, or someone is gay rather.

Well, that would be a real problem. Someone who's not gay and pretends they're gay. That's odd. That's something like if you're, if you Well, that would be a real problem. Someone who's not gay and pretends they're gay? That's odd. But that's something, like, if you do gay stuff, you're just gay. Like, even if you're not gay and you pretend and you start dating guys, like, I'm not even gay, but I'm going to trick these dudes. I got news for you, pal. Could happen. Yeah, it could happen.

It's, you know, it's an unfortunate aspect of... I don't know that he's pretending not... Is he pretending not to be gay? Allegedly. It's an unfortunate aspect of... Is he pretending not to be gay? Allegedly. That's the word. The word is allegedly that he's definitely not out. So if he is gay, he's pretending to be straight. But there's photos of him kissing men. And there's allegedly these massage therapists that have claimed that he tried to have sex with them.

I don't know if they're telling the truth or if they're just exploiting a possibility. Does that make you gay if you have sex with a man? It definitely helps. Unless you're in prison. Yeah, and even then you're just gay for the stay, right? Exactly. I don't know. I just think it's an unfortunate aspect of our society that,

and this is a reality if tom cruise is gay it would be a very smart business move for him with his business to stay in the closet because he's a leading man and he's a leading man that has love affairs in these movies with women and you cannot do that if you're gay it's one one of the weird things about being a gay person, even in today's liberated and very progressive society, that a woman can be gay and she can play a straight woman in a movie because no one cares. Homosexual and then he winds up marrying her and having children with her everybody's like we got our year like men get excited But if a woman meets a guy who's been just blowing dudes for the past 20 years and then all sudden decides He's not gay anymore They're not excited about that. They're like are you sure you're not gay like I don't even know how I feel about this It's we don't accept a gay person yet at least playing a straight man who's a leading man in a movie.

I don't think there's anyone who's been able to pull that off. There's that one dude, Doogie Howser. The Doogie Howser dude. He played like a womanizer in some sitcom, but nobody's buying that bullshit. Sean Michael Patrick. Neil Patrick Harris. Neil Patrick Harris. Neil Patrick Harris.

Yeah. It's an interesting – and one of the allegations about Scientology always used to be that you spill your secrets in auditing, which is like confession. And then suddenly they're kept in a locked vault. And if you leave, they become public. And there's sort of a tacit blackmail going on. So whether that's really happening now, I don't know. That may have happened in the past, allegedly. Well, there is an issue with them going after detractors and people that leave because it doesn't really exist in other organizations or other religions.

A perfect example of another religion that was most obviously created by a con man is Mormonism. of another religion that was most obviously created by a con man is Mormonism. Joseph Smith was 14 years old when he claimed to find golden tablets that were the lost work of Jesus. And then only he could read them because he had a magic seer stone. It's a ludicrous story. It was a story that was created in 1820. It's such a ludicrous story that, you know, a lot of people, when they find out about it, they go, wait, wait, wait, hold on. Like people, people like they become Mormon and then they get deep into it and then they find out the roots of this when they find out about it they go wait wait hold on like people people like they become mormon and then they get deep into it and they find out the roots of this and they go wait a minute what the fuck and by the way it's that's that not scientology that mormonism is the fastest growing religion in america i wonder well they're nice people this is the thing they seem very nice

they are very nice you whatever you sit against mittney, I'm glad he's not the president. But whenever I would see him with his family, I thought, well, you know, why can't our family be a bit more like that family? I am not glad he's not running for president right now. I think he's would be a fucking easy run for people that were conservative, that were uncomfortable with this Trump character and all his fucking loose dialogue and all the crazy shit that he says. I don't think so.

I think what Trump has is, and it's why he's proved so durable and popular, is just this absolute, I'm different, I'm, you you know fuck everything anti-establishment um i think that's exactly what romney doesn't have romney looks like the consummate insider he's um he's he's establishment washington all the rest of it and trump seems is a kind of caveman yeah he's a weird guy weird guy. So the, you know, the people out there, I think white, blue collar, kind of white Americans on the front porch see Trump and they think, yeah, that guy's my guy. Well, they embrace the strong man. He's a strong man who doesn't give a fuck.

He says crazy things. He talks about how big his penis is. I mean, he, I mean, the, the run up to becoming the Republican nominee was one of the most embarrassing times ever for the Republican Party. Because you had all these fools dancing around this strong man. Also you had robo-candidates, almost literally in the case of Rubio, who was kind of malfunctioning with his kind of soundbite algorithm was glitching. So he was coming out with the same soundbite within 10 seconds. But all these robo-candidates, and then someone who seemed like a kind of visceral, flesh-and-blood human on stage,

and who, moreover, when he said stupid, crazy stuff, did not then hit the trail to apologize. He would just keep saying weird things. And I think people felt like, you know what? He's showing the media for the shell game that it is because he's saying, like, I'm not going to do that that thing of like, oh, I'm so sorry I said that. Whereas like, and also the old cliche about who would you want to have a beer with? Would you want to have a beer with Romney?

First of all, Romney probably doesn't drink beer. He doesn't drink. And Trump, actually, you would probably enjoy the kind of weird, ludicrous, just peering at him would be entertaining in itself. Did you ever see the picture that he put up on Instagram with him in Trump Tower eating a taco bowl? And this was after all the crazy remarks that he had said about Mexico and Mexicans coming over here and raping. And I talked to the president of Mexico. Who's going to pay for that wall? You know, we're not going to pay for that wall.

Yeah. Well, the wall just got 10 foot higher. And everybody starts cheering. And then he takes a photo on Instagram of him smiling, eating a taco bowl. Look at this at Trump Tower. And it says he's got the thumbs up. He's eating this taco bowl. And it said something about like, I love Hispanics.

Happy Cinco de Mayo. But the best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill. And then he also said, I love Hispanics. See if you can find the actual Instagram post. What's your actual point? Look at this. I love Hispanics. That's fucking crazy.

That's fucking crazy. I mean, I saw that. I'm like, okay, we're being trolled. And look at the likes. Look at the retweets and the likes. 42,000 retweets. 44,000 likes. But that's his genius, isn't it?

Yes, yes. That he can speak out. He'll say something crazy. And then 10 minutes later, he'll say something contradictory. Well, it's fun for us. It's fun for us. It's interesting. It's fun for us.

And also, he doesn't necessarily represent, for a lot of people, he doesn't, like, one contradictory well it's fun for us it's fun for us it's interesting it's fun for us and also he doesn't necessarily represent for a lot of people he doesn't like one of the things that Romney represents it's problematic for people is that not only is his father a Mormon not only is it from the but he's from one of the most bizarre sects of Mormons where they left the United States so they could have multiple wives who Who, Romney's family? Yeah. I didn't know that. Oh, let me hook you up, Louis.

Romney's family. Is it FLDS? No. I don't know what the fuck it is, but there was a vice piece on it. It's a fascinating piece. They all live in Mexico. Okay. Romney's family.

I know who you mean. They moved to Mexico before Romney's dad was born. Romney's dad was not born in the United States. He was born in Mexico. And when the United States made polygamy illegal, they decided- This was in the 1800s when they didn't have cars. So people were like, well, who gives a shit if we're in the United States or Mexico? We're still riding horses and banging our nine wives.

Let's just go over there. So they didn't want to give up the polygamy aspect of the religion. So they just went south to Mexico, which was not that much different than the United States back then. Then when cars were invented and the United States really exploded and became much more prosperous than Mexico, then ultimately it got even crazier where they get involved in the drug war. The drug war where there was drug cartel. People were kidnapping people in the Romney family and other Mormons that are living down there. So they started like being, they had armed guards on sentry 24 hours.

I mean, it's like a scene from The Walking Dead. They're all standing there with high powered rifles. This is where we're talking when? Right now. Wait, so Romney's family is still down there? Yes, yes. Oh, my goodness. Oh, it's amazing.

Right now. Well, Romney was born in the United States. It's the Mexican-Mormon War, and it's a Vice series, and it is wonderful because this is something that, for whatever reason, was not really discussed

during the campaign trail. I think they tried to keep this because I think they thought it would be incredibly damaging to the Republican Party because this guy is the frontrunner for the Republicans, and I don't know who the fuck on the Democratic side agreed to not really get into this, but

that means they're not just a part of a cult, they're a part of a gun-toting, polygamous cult that has an armed compound in Mexico. How do I not know this? Well, that's why Romney's dad wanted to be president, but could not run for president because he was born in Mexico. He came out of his mother's body in the wrong patch of dirt.

So we did not allow him to run our great nation. Isn't that amazing? It's amazing. Did he become a senator? I do not remember. He was involved in politics in some way. Ted Cruz was born in Canada though, right? Yes, he is. So did they change the rules? Dirty Canadian. He's not one of us. I love Canadians. I'm kidding. Did they change the rules?

No, because he has dual citizenship because his mother was something. So you can be born... Yes. Like my friend Brian was born in the Philippines, but he's American because he was born on a military base. No, you can be American, but he was going to be... I mean... Yeah. But can he be president and not born in the U.S.?

Well, in my book, no. Because he was not given the God-given right to be born in the right patch of dirt. So fuck him. That's in my book. But Constitution... Well, that was something that Donald Trump was bringing up. Well, by the way, people do forget, conveniently, that Donald Trump was one of the primary birthers.

He was one of the biggest proponents of the idea that Obama was not born in America. That he was born in Kenya. Do you remember that? That was a big issue. Oh, yeah, big time. Huge. I mean, he still is propounding absolutely fringe conspiracy nut beliefs about, you know, he said that Obama founded ISIS, right? At a rally in Florida. Did he find ISIS?

Founded ISIS. That Obama had started ISIS. But did he decide to say this at a rally in Florida, or did Obama found ISIS in a rally in Florida? I think he said it at the rally. I think he said that Obama founded it in Rekha. Obama. Let me hear this. Let's hear this. All over the Middle East.

And it was a terrible mistake. And then Obama came in in and normally you want to clean up he made a bigger mess out of it he made such a mess and then you had Hillary with Libya so said in fact in many respects, you know, they honor President Obama. ISIS is honoring President Obama. He is the founder of ISIS. He's the founder of ISIS. He's the founder.

He said it three times. And they're fucking cheering. He founded ISIS. Four times. And I would say the co-founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton. It makes you wonder if he knows what the word found means. He doesn't give a fuck. Do you know what I mean?

He's a pro-wrestling candidate. I had a bit about this in 2005. I had a bit about George Bush in that he was so dumb that I don't think that he was really the candidate that the Republicans, like the best candidate they could have. I think it was a test to find out how dumb people are. Because there's only one way to tell. The people, the bankers, the industrialists, they don't really know how dumb Americans are. They know about pop culture. They know what people like.

And there was only one way to find out. You put a dumb guy in office and you see how people react. And that at the end of the first year, when he won again, or the first term when he won again, I think they were sitting around going, I think we can go dumber. And they just decided to get some fucking pro wrestling type president. Some dude who's like a combination of like a drill sergeant and a pro wrestler who just, you know, you just go to Ted Nugent concerts and scoop people up with nets and you just set them up. And that this is kind of what he is. I mean, you watch that.

That is like, even the way the audience is yelling along and cheering, it's theatrical. This is all like a parade. It's theater. They don't necessarily think that Obama really founded ISIS. Yeah, they don't care if he did or not. There's no thinking there. There's a box that they operate on. It's a very small box. They operate, all their thoughts exist inside this box and they operate on. It's a very small box. They operate, all their thoughts exist inside this box. And they never expand. They never go, there's no

nuance. There's no subtlety. There's no broad spectrum. There's no big picture. There's none of that. It's just assholes have their king. We have a lot of assholes. It's really easy to survive. It's real easy to have kids.

You can't have thought, when this started, you couldn't have thought that this would get this far. No. This seemed like a joke to begin with. Yeah, I thought somewhere along the line, cooler heads would prevail. But I'm torn. Because as a comedian, you know, I mean, this is a fucking gold mine they're they're about to open up a dam of gold they're gonna break down the dam and gold is gonna flow down it's gonna be amazing but as a human being this could literally lead to the end of civilization i mean yes as as as a student as myself as a sort of student of kind of self-sabotage and the bizarre abysms of the human condition, do you know what I mean?

I find it fascinating. It could be the end of the world, but you just see things happening that absolutely are unprecedented. And I have a kind of chaos, a chaotic streak that enjoys. It's like that feeling you get in the playground as a kid when a fight breaks out. Fight, fight, fight. You just sort of, it's like, it's almost an arsonist's thrill of seeing civilization burn. Something's going to happen. Something crazy is going to happen.

It's not business as usual. And here's another thing that I like about it. There's a lot of things that he says that are absolutely true. And here's one of the things that I like about what Trump represents. He is not the political establishment and the political establishment sucks. It really does suck. It is a corrupt, completely corrupt institution. And what he's saying about crooked Hillary, I agree. Look, if you look at the Clinton foundation, you look at what they've been able to do and the laws they've been able to skirt and the amount of influence that they're able to have and the amount of money that they're able to generate and where

that money goes and how ambiguous it is and how that hasn't been investigated. He's right. He's right in a lot of ways. So I hope that a lot of what he's doing is theatrics. And if he does wind up winning, I hope that he puts around him some real political advisors that understand international policy, he tones everything down and this is all. That's like the ultimate hope, right? I don't necessarily think it's true. Well, I hope that he loses personally. But do you hope that Hillary wins? Because I hope that she doesn't win either. Well, I don't see, I mean, I don't see Jill Stein winning. I mean, I think it's either

Trump- What about Gary Johnson? Who is Gary Johnson? How dare you? He's the... Well, he's an independent. He's... Gary Johnson's the libertarian candidate. He's a very reasonable guy.

I thought Weld was the libertarian candidate. No. Is Johnson with Weld? Is Weld the... Is Weld the vice? We're going to find out. Johnson is the former governor of New Mexico. Between Hillary and Trump, you would go Trump?

No. No. No. I would go asteroid. I hope an asteroid hits. You'd go Hubbard, OT3. I don't like either one of them. I'm in a bad place.

I agree with what you said about it took an orange-haired casino magnate with pathological lying issues to point out the truth about the American, the brokenness of the American. Yeah, Gary Johnson and Bill Weld. Bill Weld is his vice president. I think we're in a bad place with either one of them because either one of them are exposing the ridiculous aspects of our society and the ridiculous aspects of our political establishment, our political system. It's just not a good system. Representative government doesn't make any sense when people can represent themselves. It made sense back when it was impossible to get word to Washington how

all these people felt. But now that people, you're almost saying by continuing representative government in 2016, you're almost saying that, well, you can't have one person, one vote because people are too fucking stupid for that. I mean, you're almost saying that. Well, maybe they are. But are they? And if that's the case, we need to fix that instead of just continuing business as usual. We need to figure out how to expand our educational system or enlighten some of these people,

maybe drop mushrooms everywhere or something. There's got to be a better way than just continuing business as usual and that business has been shown at least in Hillary Clinton's case to be completely corrupt. Do you think, how would you rate Obama? I like him as a human. What I like about Obama is he's measured, he's intelligent, and I think there's one thing that has to be said. I mean, as much as when you look at politics, you look at someone who's running the president, there's a lot of speculation. How much power does he have?

What is it like behind closed doors? What are those meetings like? Is, you know, like Sam Harris has an interesting point. who was lying all along, or when he was running for president and then gets into office and does different things, like keeps Guantanamo Bay open and doesn't leave Iraq and all the different things that he sort of reneged on? Or is it that you become president and then you are briefed? And then someone sits down and explains to you the horrific nature of the outside world. And here are the threats to civilization itself. Here are the threats to civilization itself.

Here are the threats in terms of terrorism, in terms of these different dictatorships that are seeking to gain nuclear arms. And here's some real problems and here's the strategies and here's what we have to do and here's why we can't do what you promised. There's that too. I don't know. We don't know. But what Obama does represent, and here's what trickles down, is as a man. He's very measured. He's very intelligent He's he's very articulate. He doesn't lose his cool He doesn't respond to nonsense and the speeches that he gives are that they're they're a great representative of education of

Dignity of a guy who speaks very well and a guy who is smarter than most people that you know I think there's something to be said for that And I think that that is what George Bush wasn't and that was what was appealing to me about Obama But you know anybody've bullshits to you know so it's like At what point in time do you get to speak your mind? Do you ever do you ever get to say what you really think if that's what he really thinks if that's who he really is when you're a politician you are almost required to try to play this game of not pissing people off over expressing your

true feelings on things like you you've got to kind of play it as much down the middle. You know that there's going to be a bunch of people on this side that are going to hate you. There's going to be a bunch of people on that side that don't think you're going far enough, but you shoot down the middle and you get the best results. It's almost like pretending to be someone who you're not to try to pick people up at a bar.

Like it's, it's a, it's a bullshit act and that's what politicians are. They're bullshitters. They're, they're really good at bullshitting. What's bizarre about Trump is and that's what politicians are. They're bullshitters. They're really good at bullshitting. What's bizarre about Trump is that he's not doing that, that this is who he is. I think that's true, I think.

But to go to your point about whether people are stupid or not, I think that's an unkind way of phrasing it. I'm an unkind dude. But actually, no one has the time. We have jobs to do and to be informed on all the subjects you would need to be informed on to make the right decisions to run the country. No one has the time. It's a very good point. We need people to specialize in these things. And it's like Brexit was a triumph of – in the UK when it was put to the vote, this massive decision on whether to be part of the EU. In the UK, when it was put to the vote, this massive decision on whether to be part of the EU, no one in that space of time as a member of the electorate could educate themselves to the point where they could make an informed choice on that. And so people thought, you know what, I just want to have something different.

Let's vote for a change. And we had Brexit with, I would argue, disastrous results. Well, temporarily disastrous, but to be seen whether or not it's ultimately disastrous. My friend Steve Hilton, who's a very bright guy, who's been on this podcast before, he was David Cameron's right-hand man. He actually is a supporter of Brexit. That's one of the things that he had a problem with Cameron over. They had a falling out. I want to talk to him, sit down with him. I don't know enough of it. I don't really follow any politics. I barely follow the United States. I didn't know what the fuck Brexit was until it was going down and everybody was saying it was the end of the world. Yeah, I mean, I agree.

Like, I feel as though it's easy to go along with the group think, but I was in favor of staying in Europe. Well, when I'm talking about representative government, what I'm talking about is like this electoral college set up and the one person, one vote set up and the idea that 300 plus million people are going to be represented by just a handful of people. Oh, I agree with that. Yeah.

And the way in which Bernie Sanders was marginalized, I think, and likewise, you know, in a way, the fact that Trump could run away with it is – I mean, it's just fascinating how he managed to overturn the apple cart. I haven't really grappled with the minutiae of how U.S. democracy works, but it seems to me like it's a really bizarre, arcane system with the delegates and whatnot. Exactly. Who came up with that? Well, they came up with it back when there was no communication. They came up with it back when you had to take a horse and you had to carry a handwritten letter across the country to communicate with people. And that was just, it was ineffective.

They had to figure out how to have people in your various states and various counties and various districts represent the greater good of the people and also have the ability to decide over the rest of the people. That's one of the things that people don't even realize. In representative government, when you have this one person who represents a group of the people, if the group of the people, the group decides to vote for Hillary Clinton, that one person doesn't have to agree with that. It's a weird, funky system. It's really weird.

And it's designed for back when people were illiterate and you know there's a bunch of farmers and pilgrims and savages that came over from europe on rafts and made it to america and just fucking have at it and they're trying to trying to manage this and trying to trying to figure out how to take the founding father's ideas and best keep it all together while they're exploring this whole new world and dealing with governing these people that were literally thousands of miles away that you couldn't even reach. We can do that now. I mean, instantaneously, someone can send a Facebook message. They can send an email.

They can tweet. You can find out what people's opinions are. They can tweet. You can find out what people's opinions are. But then it becomes whether or not these people are qualified to decide which direction the country goes. Well, if they're not qualified, we should probably figure out what the fuck we can do to make people more aware of what are the consequences of all these different decisions that are going to be made by our politicians. Because there's a lot of stuff that gets made when it comes to disastrous implications for the environment. I mean, when Obama was in office, he set so much in order or so much in motion that environmentalists and people that are against offshore drilling. I mean, there's a lot of fracking and offshore drilling and all sorts of things that could potentially have disastrous implications that were set forth by him that no one had any say in. No person in America that was just a regular citizen had any say in these major decisions. Like, you know, Mark Ruffalo just tweeted something about all the different offshore oil rigs that Obama had agreed to while he was in office.

And it's disturbing. Really? That's interesting. I have to say, as someone who resides in the UK and who's more used to the British system, the biggest shock when you come over here is during the election cycle, the amount of money that gets spent and the length of the campaigns. And for all its flaws in Britain, there's a cap on how much they can spend on their campaigns. So they have like one or two TV ads each and then a couple of posters. But they do not do anything on the scale of what happens here. And the amount of money that gets spent here is just insane.

So it does seem it has all the hallmarks of a broken system, I would say. Well, not only that, there's two recognized parties and anything else you're throwing your vote away. That's the implication. That's how people think. And, you know, Tom Rhodes, a friend of mine, he lived in Holland for quite a while. And he was talking about the variety of candidates to choose from in Holland. And now they just have so many different people. They have conservative liberals, they have conservative Green Party candidates, they have liberal Green Party candidates. I mean, it just goes across this just wide range of different philosophies on how to govern and

people get a better sense of what you know, what they would like, or what they agree with most. Because this hard line right and hard line left, and this rigid ideology that you have to subscribe to on both sides, like, if you're on the right, you don't support gay marriage, you're anti-abortion, you're this, you're that, you want gun rights, you want this, you know, fuck immigration, you know, there's all this stuff that you have to kind of agree to if you agree to the right. And then on the left, you have to agree to a lot of things that people, you know, not necessarily agree as well.

So it's it's it's so complicated to have a two party system and try to pretend that there is a real democracy that is. And it's not really democracy. No, no. Representative government. Yeah. I mean, that's that's for sure not really democracy. It's a representative government. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's for sure. Do you think Trump's got a chance of winning? Yes, I do. Especially if, if people find out what Hillary has really been involved in. I mean, if they really start hammering that, like we have a few months to go, it's only August. We have to go through all of September, all of October, and then November. That's a lot of time. And in that

time, crazy shit can come out. And it seems, I mean, I've read in and then November. That's a lot of time. And in that time, crazy shit can come out. And it seems, I mean, I've read in the LA Times that he's already on a mini rebound based on this semi-apology he delivered last week. And that if he could tone it down a couple of notches and just sort of appeal to a few more women and just seem a little bit less insane, he will climb in the poll numbers. He could do it. Well, she's under two criminal investigations. And there's also plenty of video out there where there's a direct contradiction between what the FBI has said they were investigating what she was guilty of and then what she has said they said. So she's not honest.

She's just not. I mean, it's pretty clear when you compare many things to what she said versus the actual facts. It's just she's a lawyer. She's a lawyer who became a politician. She's a career politician. She knows what to do. She's got Teflon in her DNA, and she keeps plowing forward no matter what. She doesn't do interviews. She's not doing any of these rallies.

She's just going forward, and it's very bizarre. There's also a lot of questions. I mean, Dr. Drew did some big thing the other day talking about her health. Because, you know, she had fallen down in 2012 and apparently, like, had a blood clot on her brain and really hurt herself really badly. And at her advanced age, this is a really dangerous condition. And he talked about her health care and talked about the care that she received and what the diagnosis was. And he's like, this is not, this is dangerous stuff. And so who knows how much of her behavior, because traumatic brain injuries are really significant when it comes to the way your brain works post-injury, the way you behave, impulsive behavior, aggression.

I made a program on that subject. Did you? Yeah, last year. What was it about? It was called A Different Brain, and it was set in a brain injury rehabilitation clinic in the UK, and it was basically about serious personality changes in the wake of a traumatic brain injury. As you say, impulsivity, sometimes a lack of empathy um erratic behavior and and it

was about uh people you know inevitably it's about the relationships that they're in and the way in which people have to adapt around to the new needs and you know yeah it was it's unbelievable stuff i mean you're talking about i mean you know better than anyone from your sports kind of interests that post-boxing, post-NFL, post-hockey, if you're a fighter in hockey, and pro-wrestling too. There's been several terrific documentaries, one by Steve James called Head Games and a few others that all examine, I mean, the levels of erratic behavior after an NFL career are unreal. Whether it's divorce, bankruptcy, suicide, or serious depression, it's off the charts. Yeah, I've seen it firsthand. I've seen it firsthand from friends who became erratic and became really unstable after getting beat a few times in mixed martial arts fights. I've seen it from boxers, people that I knew when I was young,

and then I met them 10, 15 years later, and their life was a mess. They become alcoholics. They have a huge issue with their endocrine system, and they supplement with alcohol and drugs to try to self-medicate. It becomes a real problem. The brain is very fragile. complicate it becomes a real problem i mean the brain is very fragile it's it's connected with this very very soft connective tissue that keeps it in place inside the head it's just not meant to be hit that much you know you're meant to like survive a few bumps and bruises and that's what

it's kind of designed for and anything else especially prolonged continued abuse like that can have dire consequences or one significant injury can have dire consequences. One significant one that can be life-changing, or in the sports context, two concussions, I'm sure you know, back-to-back within a single sort of space of time, like one game. You know, the first one's not good, but the second one is cataclysmic. Yes, and it happens a lot of times where people deny the first concussion, and they go right back to playing football, or they go right back to sparring. It's a lot of times where people deny the first concussion and they go right back to playing football or they go right back to sparring. It's a huge issue.

You think Hillary may have a TBI, a traumatic brain injury? Well, I'm no doctor, obviously, but she definitely had a traumatic brain injury. She fell and she had a blood clot on her brain. I mean, this is all open public record, the diagnosis. When you have a blood clot on your brain at 60-something years of age, that is incredibly dangerous. It's really bad. And then you have to address, like, what made her pass out in the first place?

Like, what made her black out when she fell down and hit her head? That's not good. I think what we really need in this country is, like, some altruistic Elonon musk type character some a real genius someone who's like a really brilliant person who sees the state the country's in and offers some intelligent well thought out solutions that doesn't exist because those people are too busy doing whatever they're doing so what we're left with is career politicians and then this madman who's a reality TV star, who's a casino man. I don't think that our system is good. I think it's

very archaic. I think it's just not the best we can do. And I think we're just going to continue to use it until it blows up in our face. It's like instead of redesigning cars, we've got some Model T and we keep adding turbochargers to it and fucking bigger wheels. And someone says, hey man, I think we can make a better car. Fuck that. This is our car.

USA, USA. And they keep just slapping bolts and fucking rivets and screwing this thing in place. And it's not good. It's not a good system. And it's not the best we can do. It's certainly not ideal. And I think human beings in all areas of life, other than our political system,

we have advanced radically since the 1700s. If you look at the way we approach education, if you look at our ability to communicate with each other, you look at technology, the innovation and the constant expanding of our horizons and possibilities as far as what we're capable of with technology. All those things have radically improved since then. But we still have this goofy system that was created back when people rode horses, wrote with feathers. And when you wanted a picture of something, you had to draw it. I mean, that is dumb. But that's great because that's a great metaphor for the human brain in a way.

That is dumb. But that's great because that's a great metaphor for the human brain in a way and kind of a big thought to carry us as we sort of draw to the close of our interview. But, you know, because the brain, you know, our brains are hinged around the innermost parts of our brain, the amygdala, which is essentially reptilian in origin you know and so many of our deepest impulses the fear response and so forth are programmed from a kind of evolutionary heritage you know we've got neuro circuits that go back thousands if not millions of years and you know that metaphor you use to describe our political system of being an old jalopy that's been turbocharged is in essence what our brains are and you know as much as it would be lovely to believe that technology and our ability to control nature and control our environment had been hand in hand with sort of a moral and civilizational uh improvement that you could deduce maybe as many uh examples that suggest that all it's done is allowed us to do everything

whether for good or ill more more efficiently and more effectively. So we can help more people. We can blow more people up. You can drive faster, but you can drive faster away from a crime. Do you know what I mean? So I don't hold out any huge hope that there will be a positive change. See, I think that— I mean, I might be wrong. Sometimes I read things that persuade me otherwise.

I think that we're more advanced and more safe now than ever before. I think if you look back on 2,000 years ago and you look at today, which is a blink in the eye in terms of the age of the Earth, it's infinitely better to live today than it is then. Certainly here in America or in the West, but in a globe with six billion. I think it's seven. If you were dropped at random on Earth, where would you?

I mean, chances are you wouldn't be Joe Rogan. You would probably be what? I don't know. You'd probably be in China somewhere. Well, there's certainly some horrible places. Working, making Apple phones in a factory. You could be. Or you could be in China living in some sky rise, being some multi-billionaire cell phone magnate.

Who the hell knows? You know, I mean, there's certainly some wonderful spots in the world outside of America. There's certainly some great places to live. Even if you live in poverty, you could live a wonderful, happy life that's way safer than it would be thousands and thousands of years ago. The internet is pretty much worldwide. Cell phones are pretty much available everywhere now. And so I think that access to communication is going to change the way people view the world because they're going to have more data to choose from. They're going to have more cherry picking that they can do. They can certainly have more confirmation bias and stick

to their own group. Like we're talking about with Scientologists who don't go on the internet, don't take any suppressive information and don't watch any videos. And I think, um, I think what I'd like about your approach and what I like about what you're saying when it comes to Scientology is that you're not a mean person. You're not like mocking them and you don't want to shit on them. What you want to do is you want to look at them? For what they really are and try to get a really good understanding of it Like one of my favorite parts of the trailer was that guy filming you and you're filming him and you go Are you making a documentary too?

Well, and it's that's it isn't it because you don't want to you know, if I can quote Nietzsche Which is kind of a sophomore I think do but it's the idea of like, you don't, when you when you look into the abyss, the abyss looks all too into you. Like, when you fight monsters, don't become a monster. And I don't want to they're bullies in many cases, and I didn't want to bully them back and I didn't want to be trapped into a paradigm

of us against them and I was really trying to say, look let's keep, I don't want, I don't, I want to see the human in you. Yes, not just an agent for an oppressive regime. I think that's beautiful. I really do. And I think that is a very measured and intelligent and wise way to approach this. And I've enjoyed that about your other videos as well. I think in that sense, you're very unique in the way you approach documentary filmmaking.

And I think the Scientologists, they're not our enemies. And the gentleman who left, who's the number two guy, what was his name again? Marty Rathbun. Look, he's a perfect example of that. You're talking about a guy who was in it for two plus decades. He left and he's sort of coming clean about all the stupid shit that he did when he was in there. People become a prisoner of their earliest ideology, the earliest ideology that they adopt. And that's one of the problems with any sort of a group think, whether it's a cult,

a religion, whatever the fuck you want to call it. Ideologies become problematic when you can't escape, you can't vary, you can't, you have to stick to the dogma, you have to stick to the doctrine. And that's not good for people. It's not healthy. It's not smart. Because I think the ability to communicate an open debate is why we've advanced to the point we're at in the first place. The suppressing of that is almost always someone who has a bad idea that they're trying to shelter. So when you see people that are chasing after someone because they're trying to communicate about something like you, who's doing it super respectfully, when you see that, what you have is a bunch of people that are trying to defend a bad idea and defend it with aggression. That's exactly right.

But the more you kind of become a mirror image of whatever they're projecting, you reinforce them in their position as well. Yes. whatever they're projecting, you reinforce them in their position as well. And from doing other stories about extreme religious beliefs like the Westboro Baptist Church, I know from people who I met who were in the church when I made my documentary and then subsequently left that what short-circuits their beliefs, what allows them to see something bigger than what they're in is when you treat them with kindness. And instead of shouting back at them or hurling abuse back, see something bigger than what they're in is when you treat them with kindness you know and and instead of um shouting back at them or hurling abuse back which just reinforces their view of

you as um an enemy of god or suppressive or however they characterize it if you actually behave decently in attempt to robustly present your position but in a respectful way and with a kind of coming from a place of caring and empathy as opposed to um sort of censorious or hostile attitude that actually um can be much more effective absolutely you know as well as being humane kudos to you sir oh thanks i'm a big fan i really am i really appreciate you coming back here and i'd love to have you back before uh the documentary comes out, which is in January. And hopefully by then the Scientologists have – they've wised up and they've let you go.

Maybe their film will be out and we can plug their documentary. Yeah, we will. Maybe their film is going to say, Louis is a really great guy. Yeah. We've investigated it. We found out he really practices what he preaches, and we're sorry. I don't think it will be, but we'll see. Alright, folks, we'll be back

in just a little bit with Hannibal Burris. He'll be back at 5 o'clock, which is an hour from now, so until then, enjoy yourself!