Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath (2016) s02e14 Episode Script
Ask Me Anything Season 2
All right, guys, we have last look.
We are moments away.
Very close to the starting Sorry.
Okay.
Okay.
- We're game.
- We're we're really game.
Let's do it.
We are told that if you reject Scientology, you will lose.
The dark side of Scientology is taking people's money.
We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Standard punishment was called "the paddle".
He would bend you over, and then he would hit you with it.
Did I have any idea that this shit was going on with children? No.
It starts eating into your head.
Who are these people? Why are they doing these things? This is all this ploy to scare these people to death, find what is precious to them, and threaten them with losing it, like your family.
Since you are no longer the face of Scientology, they are.
They need to be held accountable.
My mother sacrificed her own children for this organization.
If you can't keep a mother and child together, how are you supposed to unite the planet? Does that make any sense to you? I was told, one, build your prison, and two, live in it.
What the fuck were we part of? And Quiet, please! If you're a child, you're separated from your parents and put into a dorm with other children with virtually no supervision.
You wake up, you eat communally, um, you are to report to work.
You might get a few minutes of an education, and then the rest is studying Scientology, and then you are put to work like any adult Sea Org member, and a day usually wraps at 10:00, 11:00 at night, and that's an everyday proposition and that's for a billion years.
The Sea Organization is the equivalent to the Vatican or the highest levels of any other religion.
The people who devote themselves full-time, 365 days a year They sign a billion-year contract.
And then here comes the contract, out of the drawer, and they slide the billion-year contract over to me, and they say "sign the paper," and I'm looking at my mom like, "Is this what you call me down here for?" Like, I'm so I'm I'm pissed at this point.
And then another one, "Sign the paper".
Now they're chanting "Sign the paper".
"Sign the paper".
So there was a specific situation that happened where my sister was defiant and wanted to see my mom, and she refused to not see her, threw a fit, and ended up on the "children's RPF".
And it's where you're basically segregated from the group because you're treasonous.
There was also different living conditions.
What was that? It was the parking structure.
- Of the Fort Harrison Hotel? - Yep.
Third floor.
Seven years old.
In a sleeping bag.
The thing that broke me is uh, my wife and I went through a pregnancy that she, embarrassingly, aborted.
But she did so because she was - told to? - Yeah.
She was told to.
- Pressured to.
- Right.
- It's one thing to be told.
- Yeah.
It's a whole another thing to be pressured to.
Within the Sea Organization, in particular, it was determined that children were a distraction to the clearing of the planet and there would no longer be children that Sea Org members had while they were in the Sea Organization.
That is when you started to see the heavy pressure on women having abortions who got pregnant in the Sea Organization.
There's not a man on this earth that has the right to even begin to explain what it's like for a woman to go have an abortion.
But Leah, I I had to sell her on it.
Well, if you on a on on a public street where there's a Scientology building, you'll see there they set up these stress tests.
And they invite people to come in for a free personality analysis.
Well, the first thing is, you have a free personality test, and in that test, it's 200 questions, and it's called the "Oxford Capacity".
- Oxford Yeah.
- OCA.
It's called the "Oxford Capacity Analysis," and is used worldwide in Scientology recruitment, promising to find out how your personality determines your ability to handle relationships.
You go in, you take this test, you believe that it's a bona fide test from some legit place it isn't and then, after you take the test, they give you the results instantly, and for that, you're sent to whom? The registrar.
The registrar's job is supposed to enlighten the person on what's wrong with them.
They enlighten you that there is something wrong, and Scientology can handle that.
- Right.
- "Oh, really? How?" "Oh, well, you need to take this course".
"Okay.
How much?" And in the beginning, it'd probably be $100, $300.
It starts small.
They you know, they work you into it.
They don't just hit you with the big money right away.
There are these various techniques that have been developed of how you get someone to give you their money.
Great question.
Why hasn't law enforcement stepped in? Please print this answer.
Your education is Scientology.
You study Scientology every day, 21/2 hours, minimum.
If you're a child of the Sea Org, you maybe have some basic Math.
Um Yeah, beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic, there is no value placed on formal education by Scientologists.
Scientologists send their kids to a Scientology boarding school at a very young age, to become the model Scientology children, because there, they will get the help of the LRH tech, and they will be with like-minded children from other Scientology families and won't have outside influences on them.
They told me that I was going to a place called Albuquerque, which was in New Mexico, and at that time, perhaps thanks in part to my, you know, Scientology education, I thought New Mexico was the capital of Mexico, and I thought Albuquerque was in Canada.
So we arrive, and again, we're thrust into the Cadet Org.
my mother goes wherever, and we're working again, full-time.
We just cleaned all the time, really.
We didn't go to school.
We did do some more little Scientology check-sheets in the Cadet Org.
We began being constantly corrected because we didn't ever get trained in the Cadet Org.
We're now in a post, but we haven't actually been trained to do anything.
You're kind of making excuses for yourself.
The thing is, you were children, and you shouldn't "have been working".
You should have been in school.
Yes.
Enjoy.
So let's get to some of these Reddit questions.
No.
You are not a suppressive person.
And no, you shouldn't be worried.
Many people beg to be blocked by Scientology.
Or receive their mean tweets.
Consider it consider it a badge of honor.
- Yes.
- Absolutely.
And also, because it doesn't work.
I really started searching on the Internet.
Stories of senior executives leaving the Church of Scientology, and also I was seeing stories of abuse, over and over again people being physically abused, sexually abused.
I started getting enraged.
And for the first time, I started to look, and I went, "How how could this be true?" "How could this be happening within this organization that I support?" Came to a point so I went, "I I can't stay in this organization any longer.
"If this if even 10% of this is true, I can't stay here".
And I realized I have to I have to resign, and I have to speak out.
There's just no option.
You actually had the window to the outside world when David gave you that Kindle.
And at the time, we didn't know that his Kindle actually connected to the Internet.
So I come home, and he's like, "I can get on the Internet".
I did it by accident, went to Google, and I thought, "Wow".
I may have put in "Scientology" or "L.
Ron Hubbard".
Literally, earnestly Googled it.
Yeah, I thought I wanted to see what they said about LRH - or something, you know? - Right.
- And then what happened? - What the hell is this? And he starts reading articles.
- You'd - Yeah.
Every few days, I'd come home, and he was like, "You've got to see the writing on the wall.
This is going south".
But it took literally one Google search for you to be de-programmed.
Yeah.
- No.
- No.
Absolutely not.
Scientology does not recognize depression as a mental illness.
In fact, nothing that has anything to do with psychiatry is acceptable in Scientology.
That is perhaps the most fundamental doctrine of Scientology, which sets up the "us versus them" mentality within the bubble of Scientology.
That is such an integral part of trying to keep people in Scientology.
Fighting the good fight.
Fighting the good fight against the psychs that that will never change.
Tayler has suffered from had suffered from, um, suicidal thoughts and su like, she tried to commit suicide several times throughout her life.
She'd never gotten to see a regular doctor, but she'd gotten to see uh, homeopathic people and tried to handle her symptoms with vitamins and those types of regimens, versus Yes, Scientology.
Scientology's thing is versus medication, because in Scientology, you no, it's not an answer.
It's not an option.
You gotta get do your auditing and take your vitamins and exercise.
And ultimately, you get kicked out of the Church if you said "I want to go see a real doctor, or, "I want to go see a psychoanalyst "or a therapist or a psychiatrist, I want to be put on medication".
- They'd say, "You're out".
- Yeah.
And you would lose everything you'd ever known.
No, 'cause it's it's the Antichrist.
And you're yes, and you're evil to the Church of Scientology and that's it, and then everybody you ever have ever known leaves your life.
I know that my brother, Phil, went to the 15th floor of the Green Building in Boston, which is on the university campus.
He wrote the mathematical equation for his body weight times the velocity, times the distance he would fall.
For him to jump out of that window, when everything seems like it could have been avoided, you know? Like you don't have to do any of this anymore.
You don't have to do it.
But we aren't told that, growing up.
We aren't told that there's another way to live.
The mental health profession should have issue with Scientology promoting itself as the cure.
It is not a cure.
We are told that if you reject Scientology You will lose.
- Ha.
- It's a long question.
The Church will tell you that it embraces all people, that they do not discriminate, that they love gay people, and there are many gay members.
It's a complete lie.
This is where we get to the real issue of "Is Scientology homophobic or not?" Absolutely, it is.
Within the writings of Scientology, homosexuality is viewed as an aberration.
There's a chart in Scientology And L.
Ron Hubbard in short, wrote that homosexuality lands on on a very low position of this chart.
1.
1 on that arbitrary tone scale.
1.
1 is considered to be the most dangerous tone level in society.
It is considered to be a very bad state to be in.
In fact, Hubbard said that society would be better off if all of those people were corralled up and put on an island somewhere away from the rest of society.
This band of person, where homosexuality is charted, is called "covert hostility".
And Scientology says you are the worst kind of person.
You are sadistic, you're a backstabber, you want people to secretly fail in life.
You are the person who smiles in someone's face and stabs them in the back.
So the answer to the question is yes, there is a lot of psychological damage done to people men and women who are gay.
I walk into the parking lot, and the security chief from OSA Int comes up and says, "Aaron hung himself last night" And I said, "Did he die?" and she said, "Yeah".
I don't know if he was struggling with his sexuality, if he was gay or He never communicated anything like that to me.
He wouldn't really be allowed to.
He wouldn't be allowed to, and he was - Yeah.
- Born and raised, essentially, in the Sea Org, and anything other than being straight and in a regular - Monogamous.
- Relationship it's wrong.
Right.
I wish that I could have told him "You can tell me whatever you need to tell me," and I thought that I thought that he knew he could be open with me, but at the same time It would have always been Scientology's answers.
So let's get to some of these Reddit questions.
I think the challenge has been trying to Um Effectively help people.
They are saying, "The only reason "you're feeling this way about the Church "is because you are connected to suppression, "even though you're saying 'No, 'cause something happened to me'".
It's gaslighting.
It makes you absolutely insane.
Somebody reached out to me and said they want to tell their story, but not on television.
The story that she's telling me was that she was molested when she was underage.
In a way, I'm glad the cameras are here, because this is what Mike and I do It's this tape - Day in, day out.
- All day, all night, when the cameras are not rolling, and our job is to simply be there for them, as much as we can.
It's not easy to sit day in and day out and listen to people's pain without being enraged.
We're we just want to help in doing something.
I think that's been the most difficult Is just listening.
She had nowhere to go to get real help, so I wanted to to try to give her support, but I was scared and I let that fear control me Right.
And I wish I hadn't.
Lauren.
I I didn't do what I could, so But Lauren, in the frame of mind of a Scientologist, you believed that there was nothing you can do.
- W - You know, being outside Mike, knowing what he knows now, would never allow his children - to be in Scientology.
- No, no, of course.
So we understand but sitting here, seeing your pain I can't allow you now to blame yourself or to think you could've prevented it, because you couldn't have.
You were also - in a prison at that time.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
"Meaningful departures," um, mean to us any person and yes, that has already happened.
That is where our focus is.
I'm Ramina Nunnelee, and I was a Scientologist for 42 years, and I was in the Sea Organization for 26 years, and I just walked away from Scientology after seeing Leah's show.
That was pff 21/2 weeks ago.
"Going Clear" started the process.
- It did.
- It was this show that clinched it.
Mirriam.
Oh, my God.
My dad is caring for us, and he's a single parent, essentially.
During this time, he's he begins to sexually abuse me, and at one stage, I contacted my mother to ask if she would be willing to provide a statement to assist in the case.
My mother sacrificed her own children.
She has given up her own children for this organization.
I cannot reconcile with that.
I had never asked my mom for anything my entire life.
This was the one thing I needed her to help me with, the one thing, and she couldn't do it.
I know Mirriam's mom because I was in marketing up at Gold, and we had been working together for quite a few years, and I thought, "This is this is crazy," and that's when I decided, "That's it.
Enough is enough.
I'm not a Scientologist anymore".
No.
There are efforts in place to stop the abuses of Scientology.
The thing is, we're a documentary series exposing Scientology abuses.
At the Ranch, there was hard labor.
I mean, it was hard labor.
As punishment, they threw me in the lake with my my only dry, warm clothes.
And then the punishment for us was 200 Suzie Qs those military push-ups "in horseshit" was the exact wording that he said, and so they took us out there, stripped us down to our underwear, had all of the kids surround the horse corral, and there's a large pile of horse manure, very fresh, and they made us get in there and do Suzie Qs in the pile.
Oh, my God.
Is it all him? No, because you've got the backing of policy now.
The people who appear on our series are telling the public and telling people whose job it is to do something about it their stories, and so, yes, we are trying to do something about it.
I absolutely swore that I would never have an abortion.
I wanted kids.
If you were in the Sea Organization, and you got pregnant, you were expected to have an abortion.
The Church claims that pressuring women to have an abortion has either never happened or doesn't happen anymore.
The truth of the matter is it is a mortal sin to get pregnant as a Sea Org member because that means you will have to leave the Sea Organization and thereby "break" your billion-year contract.
It's like that's all I've been thinking about for the last five years is my family.
I mean, that's all I was trying to do, and I went through hell to try and save that family, and went through such mental brutality.
I want to give a voice to these stories, enough that people will be incensed by it to put some pressure on this organization to stop abusing people.
I'm gonna tell these stories in hopes that people wake up and go, "Okay, somebody needs to do something about this cult".
Hypocritical.
Could you imagine? A man answering that question before I even had a chance to answer? That says a lot.
Pretty typical of a man.
Let's take another Reddit AMA question.
Imminent danger? No, never.
Speak for yourself.
- Hey, dude, don't touch him.
- Yeah, don't touch me.
Hey, come on.
He's not touching you.
Take a picture of the squirrel! I know that there is gonna be people who will say things that are just outrageous, made-up lies in order to try and discredit me.
That's the standard policy of Scientology.
- Why are you following me? - Get away from me! I'm calling the police! Good, go ahead.
- Why are you following me? - I'm calling the police! Why why were you taking video of us? I'm waiting for a friend, man.
What are you taking my picture for? Don't do that.
You're not a private investigator? - I'm waiting for a friend.
- Is that what - you're gonna tell me? - I'm waiting for a friend.
You're gonna tell me that you're not a private investigator? You see these two cars parked in the - parking lot there? - Yeah.
Look, they're just totally staring at us.
You know what I mean? You can go.
Go ahead.
No, we're good.
Go ahead.
No, we're good.
Go ahead.
No, we're good, go ahead.
No, we're good.
Go ahead.
- No, we're good, go ahead.
- Watch this.
- Hey, buddy.
- How's it going, man? I'm good.
Who are you working for? - Yeah, right.
- Yeah, okay.
Piece of shit.
My daughter was not raised in Scientology, and I did not use the jargon of Scientology on my daughter.
One of my Scientology friends wrote a uh, she wrote an internal report on me because I wasn't using Scientology terms on my baby.
That is such an integral part of Scientology.
So KR's a knowledge report, which means it's kind of like a chit, or writing up somebody that's done something wrong.
So one kid kind of ratting out another kid.
And at eight, you guys are writing reports on each other? - Yeah.
- Okay.
And so, if you didn't like a kid, you'd write a KR on them, even if he didn't do it.
A lot of Scientology is based on narking on each other and writing internal reports.
You know, when wives write reports on husbands, when mothers write reports on children, When children write reports on their parents, - Yeah.
- You lose all trust.
I get told I'm going to be declared if I don't disconnect from my mom.
- So what happens? - So for about a year, I pretend to be disconnected from my mom, - And you weren't? - No.
- Oh.
- Eventually, I get turned in.
By whom? Our kids' nanny.
Shut the fuck up.
So she found out like, why? 'Cause she saw The kids would make comments that made it seem like they were still seeing their Gigi.
- Their grandma? - Yeah.
Like, "Grandma this," "Grandma that".
She wrote it up and turned it in to the Church.
So she wrote a knowledge report - Yeah.
Yeah.
- On you.
This question is for Mike That's still a ongoing process, and this show is part of that process.
Part of my job was to discredit and destroy critics who spoke out against the Church.
If the Church believed that someone was an enemy and needed to be silenced, or destroyed, it was my job, and I did it.
You, and you and the Church of Scientology have been spying on the BBC.
I don't know what you're talking about.
It seems to me you're getting a bit paranoid.
- Was I being paranoid? - No.
You were being followed.
- We were being followed? - Yes.
And who gave the order to follow us? It would have come under my purview.
If I was told to follow someone, I made it happen.
Everything from following them 24 hours a day to having people camped outside their home to being vilified on the Internet, I was the guy.
I used to think Mike was evil.
How could you not be evil? No, he is evil.
No, he's evil.
Scientology has threatened me, gone through my trash, they've had people in Nazi uniforms picketing outside my office, telling my neighbors what an evil person I'm an anti-religious bigot.
I have to tell you, I was scared shitless of you for so many years.
You were gaunt, you were wearing a gray suit, and Jillian, our assistant, gave you a nickname, which was "Mr.
Scary".
Well, Mike is taking responsibility, unlike the Church of Scientology.
I can only try and explain this was my mindset at the time.
No, I've come to understand that, and I've never needed apologies from you.
- I know.
- Because You're not just journalists or people that I happened to have an interaction with at some time.
I consider that all of you are friends of mine now.
- Now.
- Like, personal friends.
I love that you are modeling for ex-members of thousands of other cults that you can be a leader, you can do horrible things, and you can wake up and be a human being.
A decent, law-abiding human being.
But I feel it's important to tell the truth of what really goes on behind the scenes what really is happening in Scientology.
If I can help one person who I may have harmed in the past, or prevent someone from being harmed in the future, of one family, just one, who is torn apart because of the practices of Scientology, it's worth making it known and hopefully preventing that.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Shelly Miscavige? Yes.
Shelly Miscavige is is I don't I don't know.
I mean, that's why I filed the police report.
In 2006, I was invited to Tom Cruise's wedding.
All of the top clergy of Scientology are there.
It was a big deal for the Church, and then I'm innocently Uh, standing by this fireplace, in this big castle in Italy, and I said, "Hey, where's Shelly?" Shelly Miscavige is the leader's wife.
This was being called the wedding of the century, so it was very weird that she wasn't there, and their reaction was like, "I mean, that's the leader's wife.
You really shouldn't be asking about her".
I saw her get in trouble and she would disappear during portions of the day and I sort of surmised that she was being security-checked.
You know? I could see the terror in her eyes.
I think she said something, Miscavige found out, and suddenly he had this person who was his wife who Holding the electrodes of the E-Meter in her hand Voiced it, and that was it.
The axe fell, and then she just sort of disappeared, very shortly thereafter.
- Why? - Because she's been too intricately involved with him and probably knows things that he just doesn't ever want known, so he's just gonna keep her quiet.
- No.
- No.
You would not see any change.
Sci Scientology is 100% controlled by the writings Of L.
Ron Hubbard.
Called "policy".
And he is dead, so he cannot change his writings and nobody else has the authority to do so.
Is it true that Dave Miscavige is bad? Yes, but if David Miscavige wasn't there, they would grab and they'd, you know, give him a shower and put a suit on him, and then he would carry on the same legacy, because that is what Scientology teaches.
So they are only upholding L.
Ron Hubbard's policy.
Its own activities.
The Hole is a building that David Miscavige designated at the international headquarters of Scientology in Hemet where myself and eventually about 100 people were locked in two double-wide trailers, sleeping on the floor, eating slop, to beat one another up until they confessed to their crimes.
Saw David Miscavige physically beat Marc Yager, who was a very high Church executive, and Mark Fisher.
I saw him physically hit these folks, and you just don't forget stuff like that.
David Miscavige physically assaulted me five separate times.
Uh, the most famous one, I think, and Mike was there I had written an infomercial for "Dianetics".
I had sent it up to Miscavige.
I get called up to the conference room.
He starts reading from my script and making fun of it.
I said, "Uh, sir, if I can just explain," and he goes "See? You see how he talks to me?" Then finally, he jumps up on the table, launches himself at me, knocks me back against the partition wall, starts hammering my face, knocks me down on the floor.
I was scratched up, my shirt was ripped off.
And what is everybody in the room doing? - Everyone just s - Watches silently 'cause you don't want to do anything that will attract attention to you so that you're the next one.
And then there was one time when I was in my offices and he came down, he was talking to us, and he just flattened me, knocked me on the floor, and he said, "You know why I did that?" and I said, "No, sir," and he said, "To show you who's boss".
Can't you can't sip this on camera, right? Nothing happening now, anyway.
All right.
So let's get to some of these Reddit questions.
- You have to fight for her.
- Wow.
You have to fight.
- Right? - Yeah.
I used to say different things.
I used to say, you know, "be kind, just be there for them," but that doesn't work.
You have to fight, you have to shove the truth in their face, you have to say, "This look at what's going on," look what has been going on".
You were children.
Both of you.
All of you there were children, and you were victims.
I hope that even one parent in Scientology or any other cults wakes up and realizes, "I need to protect my own".
If people could just see behind the curtain and see that Scientology did nothing but create complete destruction Of my childhood, of my entire family, Their policies cause this.
All of this destruction is Scientology.
In the end, this family lost it all.
The whole family has disintegrated because of Scientology.
You have to fight for your friends, you have to fight for your children.
I don't care what cult you're in, I don't care what religious theology you believe in, but you need to protect your family, you need to protect your children, and the people that you claim you love.
Uh, yes.
Many families have been reconnected.
I went down there in front of the house In front of her house, and I just scooped her up, and Hugged her like I don't think we've ever hugged before.
If I can say the F word, she said, "Fuck everybody, fuck everything".
We said, "It doesn't matter if they wanna "declare us to the Moon and back, "they are not winning.
They are not ripping us apart".
We started seeing each other every day.
Every day.
She called me and said, "I want to do the show," and my whole world changed when she called me.
Something inside of me was like, "Oh, my God, I never thought I'd have my mom back.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I know you are.
It happened.
I told you when you were in my womb that I would protect you and love you forever.
I'm just so glad I have you back.
I caused horrible things to my children to happen.
That's what it did to me.
That's what this fucking church did to me! It made me think that nothing else mattered but my group.
Nothing else.
Well, guess what? No church is a church if they condone, advocate, that family members split up and disavow each other.
No no church has no decent church would do that! How could they be considered a church? And last Support the show, as they have been.
Write to their Congressmen and women.
Demand that the IRS take another look at the tax-exempt status.
People are starting to get braver and braver and braver and that's leading to story, that's leading to another story.
This one saw that, that one saw this, and then they connecting up with somebody else and it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and if one person leads to two people which leads to more and more Then maybe we could stop A lot of this hurt.
And people should know this at Scientology, who are watching this.
They should know this about me and they should know this about you.
I don't give up.
I'm gonna make a career out of exposing this organization.
It's not gonna continue.
It might not be this year, might not be next year, but eventually, it's gonna happen.
Right.
Thank you to the Reddit AMA audience We hope that we answered all your questions.
If not, hopefully, we'll be back soon.
Say "thank you," Mike.
Thank you, Mike.
Comedy now.
We're doing comedy.
Sorry.
We are moments away.
Very close to the starting Sorry.
Okay.
Okay.
- We're game.
- We're we're really game.
Let's do it.
We are told that if you reject Scientology, you will lose.
The dark side of Scientology is taking people's money.
We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Standard punishment was called "the paddle".
He would bend you over, and then he would hit you with it.
Did I have any idea that this shit was going on with children? No.
It starts eating into your head.
Who are these people? Why are they doing these things? This is all this ploy to scare these people to death, find what is precious to them, and threaten them with losing it, like your family.
Since you are no longer the face of Scientology, they are.
They need to be held accountable.
My mother sacrificed her own children for this organization.
If you can't keep a mother and child together, how are you supposed to unite the planet? Does that make any sense to you? I was told, one, build your prison, and two, live in it.
What the fuck were we part of? And Quiet, please! If you're a child, you're separated from your parents and put into a dorm with other children with virtually no supervision.
You wake up, you eat communally, um, you are to report to work.
You might get a few minutes of an education, and then the rest is studying Scientology, and then you are put to work like any adult Sea Org member, and a day usually wraps at 10:00, 11:00 at night, and that's an everyday proposition and that's for a billion years.
The Sea Organization is the equivalent to the Vatican or the highest levels of any other religion.
The people who devote themselves full-time, 365 days a year They sign a billion-year contract.
And then here comes the contract, out of the drawer, and they slide the billion-year contract over to me, and they say "sign the paper," and I'm looking at my mom like, "Is this what you call me down here for?" Like, I'm so I'm I'm pissed at this point.
And then another one, "Sign the paper".
Now they're chanting "Sign the paper".
"Sign the paper".
So there was a specific situation that happened where my sister was defiant and wanted to see my mom, and she refused to not see her, threw a fit, and ended up on the "children's RPF".
And it's where you're basically segregated from the group because you're treasonous.
There was also different living conditions.
What was that? It was the parking structure.
- Of the Fort Harrison Hotel? - Yep.
Third floor.
Seven years old.
In a sleeping bag.
The thing that broke me is uh, my wife and I went through a pregnancy that she, embarrassingly, aborted.
But she did so because she was - told to? - Yeah.
She was told to.
- Pressured to.
- Right.
- It's one thing to be told.
- Yeah.
It's a whole another thing to be pressured to.
Within the Sea Organization, in particular, it was determined that children were a distraction to the clearing of the planet and there would no longer be children that Sea Org members had while they were in the Sea Organization.
That is when you started to see the heavy pressure on women having abortions who got pregnant in the Sea Organization.
There's not a man on this earth that has the right to even begin to explain what it's like for a woman to go have an abortion.
But Leah, I I had to sell her on it.
Well, if you on a on on a public street where there's a Scientology building, you'll see there they set up these stress tests.
And they invite people to come in for a free personality analysis.
Well, the first thing is, you have a free personality test, and in that test, it's 200 questions, and it's called the "Oxford Capacity".
- Oxford Yeah.
- OCA.
It's called the "Oxford Capacity Analysis," and is used worldwide in Scientology recruitment, promising to find out how your personality determines your ability to handle relationships.
You go in, you take this test, you believe that it's a bona fide test from some legit place it isn't and then, after you take the test, they give you the results instantly, and for that, you're sent to whom? The registrar.
The registrar's job is supposed to enlighten the person on what's wrong with them.
They enlighten you that there is something wrong, and Scientology can handle that.
- Right.
- "Oh, really? How?" "Oh, well, you need to take this course".
"Okay.
How much?" And in the beginning, it'd probably be $100, $300.
It starts small.
They you know, they work you into it.
They don't just hit you with the big money right away.
There are these various techniques that have been developed of how you get someone to give you their money.
Great question.
Why hasn't law enforcement stepped in? Please print this answer.
Your education is Scientology.
You study Scientology every day, 21/2 hours, minimum.
If you're a child of the Sea Org, you maybe have some basic Math.
Um Yeah, beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic, there is no value placed on formal education by Scientologists.
Scientologists send their kids to a Scientology boarding school at a very young age, to become the model Scientology children, because there, they will get the help of the LRH tech, and they will be with like-minded children from other Scientology families and won't have outside influences on them.
They told me that I was going to a place called Albuquerque, which was in New Mexico, and at that time, perhaps thanks in part to my, you know, Scientology education, I thought New Mexico was the capital of Mexico, and I thought Albuquerque was in Canada.
So we arrive, and again, we're thrust into the Cadet Org.
my mother goes wherever, and we're working again, full-time.
We just cleaned all the time, really.
We didn't go to school.
We did do some more little Scientology check-sheets in the Cadet Org.
We began being constantly corrected because we didn't ever get trained in the Cadet Org.
We're now in a post, but we haven't actually been trained to do anything.
You're kind of making excuses for yourself.
The thing is, you were children, and you shouldn't "have been working".
You should have been in school.
Yes.
Enjoy.
So let's get to some of these Reddit questions.
No.
You are not a suppressive person.
And no, you shouldn't be worried.
Many people beg to be blocked by Scientology.
Or receive their mean tweets.
Consider it consider it a badge of honor.
- Yes.
- Absolutely.
And also, because it doesn't work.
I really started searching on the Internet.
Stories of senior executives leaving the Church of Scientology, and also I was seeing stories of abuse, over and over again people being physically abused, sexually abused.
I started getting enraged.
And for the first time, I started to look, and I went, "How how could this be true?" "How could this be happening within this organization that I support?" Came to a point so I went, "I I can't stay in this organization any longer.
"If this if even 10% of this is true, I can't stay here".
And I realized I have to I have to resign, and I have to speak out.
There's just no option.
You actually had the window to the outside world when David gave you that Kindle.
And at the time, we didn't know that his Kindle actually connected to the Internet.
So I come home, and he's like, "I can get on the Internet".
I did it by accident, went to Google, and I thought, "Wow".
I may have put in "Scientology" or "L.
Ron Hubbard".
Literally, earnestly Googled it.
Yeah, I thought I wanted to see what they said about LRH - or something, you know? - Right.
- And then what happened? - What the hell is this? And he starts reading articles.
- You'd - Yeah.
Every few days, I'd come home, and he was like, "You've got to see the writing on the wall.
This is going south".
But it took literally one Google search for you to be de-programmed.
Yeah.
- No.
- No.
Absolutely not.
Scientology does not recognize depression as a mental illness.
In fact, nothing that has anything to do with psychiatry is acceptable in Scientology.
That is perhaps the most fundamental doctrine of Scientology, which sets up the "us versus them" mentality within the bubble of Scientology.
That is such an integral part of trying to keep people in Scientology.
Fighting the good fight.
Fighting the good fight against the psychs that that will never change.
Tayler has suffered from had suffered from, um, suicidal thoughts and su like, she tried to commit suicide several times throughout her life.
She'd never gotten to see a regular doctor, but she'd gotten to see uh, homeopathic people and tried to handle her symptoms with vitamins and those types of regimens, versus Yes, Scientology.
Scientology's thing is versus medication, because in Scientology, you no, it's not an answer.
It's not an option.
You gotta get do your auditing and take your vitamins and exercise.
And ultimately, you get kicked out of the Church if you said "I want to go see a real doctor, or, "I want to go see a psychoanalyst "or a therapist or a psychiatrist, I want to be put on medication".
- They'd say, "You're out".
- Yeah.
And you would lose everything you'd ever known.
No, 'cause it's it's the Antichrist.
And you're yes, and you're evil to the Church of Scientology and that's it, and then everybody you ever have ever known leaves your life.
I know that my brother, Phil, went to the 15th floor of the Green Building in Boston, which is on the university campus.
He wrote the mathematical equation for his body weight times the velocity, times the distance he would fall.
For him to jump out of that window, when everything seems like it could have been avoided, you know? Like you don't have to do any of this anymore.
You don't have to do it.
But we aren't told that, growing up.
We aren't told that there's another way to live.
The mental health profession should have issue with Scientology promoting itself as the cure.
It is not a cure.
We are told that if you reject Scientology You will lose.
- Ha.
- It's a long question.
The Church will tell you that it embraces all people, that they do not discriminate, that they love gay people, and there are many gay members.
It's a complete lie.
This is where we get to the real issue of "Is Scientology homophobic or not?" Absolutely, it is.
Within the writings of Scientology, homosexuality is viewed as an aberration.
There's a chart in Scientology And L.
Ron Hubbard in short, wrote that homosexuality lands on on a very low position of this chart.
1.
1 on that arbitrary tone scale.
1.
1 is considered to be the most dangerous tone level in society.
It is considered to be a very bad state to be in.
In fact, Hubbard said that society would be better off if all of those people were corralled up and put on an island somewhere away from the rest of society.
This band of person, where homosexuality is charted, is called "covert hostility".
And Scientology says you are the worst kind of person.
You are sadistic, you're a backstabber, you want people to secretly fail in life.
You are the person who smiles in someone's face and stabs them in the back.
So the answer to the question is yes, there is a lot of psychological damage done to people men and women who are gay.
I walk into the parking lot, and the security chief from OSA Int comes up and says, "Aaron hung himself last night" And I said, "Did he die?" and she said, "Yeah".
I don't know if he was struggling with his sexuality, if he was gay or He never communicated anything like that to me.
He wouldn't really be allowed to.
He wouldn't be allowed to, and he was - Yeah.
- Born and raised, essentially, in the Sea Org, and anything other than being straight and in a regular - Monogamous.
- Relationship it's wrong.
Right.
I wish that I could have told him "You can tell me whatever you need to tell me," and I thought that I thought that he knew he could be open with me, but at the same time It would have always been Scientology's answers.
So let's get to some of these Reddit questions.
I think the challenge has been trying to Um Effectively help people.
They are saying, "The only reason "you're feeling this way about the Church "is because you are connected to suppression, "even though you're saying 'No, 'cause something happened to me'".
It's gaslighting.
It makes you absolutely insane.
Somebody reached out to me and said they want to tell their story, but not on television.
The story that she's telling me was that she was molested when she was underage.
In a way, I'm glad the cameras are here, because this is what Mike and I do It's this tape - Day in, day out.
- All day, all night, when the cameras are not rolling, and our job is to simply be there for them, as much as we can.
It's not easy to sit day in and day out and listen to people's pain without being enraged.
We're we just want to help in doing something.
I think that's been the most difficult Is just listening.
She had nowhere to go to get real help, so I wanted to to try to give her support, but I was scared and I let that fear control me Right.
And I wish I hadn't.
Lauren.
I I didn't do what I could, so But Lauren, in the frame of mind of a Scientologist, you believed that there was nothing you can do.
- W - You know, being outside Mike, knowing what he knows now, would never allow his children - to be in Scientology.
- No, no, of course.
So we understand but sitting here, seeing your pain I can't allow you now to blame yourself or to think you could've prevented it, because you couldn't have.
You were also - in a prison at that time.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
"Meaningful departures," um, mean to us any person and yes, that has already happened.
That is where our focus is.
I'm Ramina Nunnelee, and I was a Scientologist for 42 years, and I was in the Sea Organization for 26 years, and I just walked away from Scientology after seeing Leah's show.
That was pff 21/2 weeks ago.
"Going Clear" started the process.
- It did.
- It was this show that clinched it.
Mirriam.
Oh, my God.
My dad is caring for us, and he's a single parent, essentially.
During this time, he's he begins to sexually abuse me, and at one stage, I contacted my mother to ask if she would be willing to provide a statement to assist in the case.
My mother sacrificed her own children.
She has given up her own children for this organization.
I cannot reconcile with that.
I had never asked my mom for anything my entire life.
This was the one thing I needed her to help me with, the one thing, and she couldn't do it.
I know Mirriam's mom because I was in marketing up at Gold, and we had been working together for quite a few years, and I thought, "This is this is crazy," and that's when I decided, "That's it.
Enough is enough.
I'm not a Scientologist anymore".
No.
There are efforts in place to stop the abuses of Scientology.
The thing is, we're a documentary series exposing Scientology abuses.
At the Ranch, there was hard labor.
I mean, it was hard labor.
As punishment, they threw me in the lake with my my only dry, warm clothes.
And then the punishment for us was 200 Suzie Qs those military push-ups "in horseshit" was the exact wording that he said, and so they took us out there, stripped us down to our underwear, had all of the kids surround the horse corral, and there's a large pile of horse manure, very fresh, and they made us get in there and do Suzie Qs in the pile.
Oh, my God.
Is it all him? No, because you've got the backing of policy now.
The people who appear on our series are telling the public and telling people whose job it is to do something about it their stories, and so, yes, we are trying to do something about it.
I absolutely swore that I would never have an abortion.
I wanted kids.
If you were in the Sea Organization, and you got pregnant, you were expected to have an abortion.
The Church claims that pressuring women to have an abortion has either never happened or doesn't happen anymore.
The truth of the matter is it is a mortal sin to get pregnant as a Sea Org member because that means you will have to leave the Sea Organization and thereby "break" your billion-year contract.
It's like that's all I've been thinking about for the last five years is my family.
I mean, that's all I was trying to do, and I went through hell to try and save that family, and went through such mental brutality.
I want to give a voice to these stories, enough that people will be incensed by it to put some pressure on this organization to stop abusing people.
I'm gonna tell these stories in hopes that people wake up and go, "Okay, somebody needs to do something about this cult".
Hypocritical.
Could you imagine? A man answering that question before I even had a chance to answer? That says a lot.
Pretty typical of a man.
Let's take another Reddit AMA question.
Imminent danger? No, never.
Speak for yourself.
- Hey, dude, don't touch him.
- Yeah, don't touch me.
Hey, come on.
He's not touching you.
Take a picture of the squirrel! I know that there is gonna be people who will say things that are just outrageous, made-up lies in order to try and discredit me.
That's the standard policy of Scientology.
- Why are you following me? - Get away from me! I'm calling the police! Good, go ahead.
- Why are you following me? - I'm calling the police! Why why were you taking video of us? I'm waiting for a friend, man.
What are you taking my picture for? Don't do that.
You're not a private investigator? - I'm waiting for a friend.
- Is that what - you're gonna tell me? - I'm waiting for a friend.
You're gonna tell me that you're not a private investigator? You see these two cars parked in the - parking lot there? - Yeah.
Look, they're just totally staring at us.
You know what I mean? You can go.
Go ahead.
No, we're good.
Go ahead.
No, we're good.
Go ahead.
No, we're good, go ahead.
No, we're good.
Go ahead.
- No, we're good, go ahead.
- Watch this.
- Hey, buddy.
- How's it going, man? I'm good.
Who are you working for? - Yeah, right.
- Yeah, okay.
Piece of shit.
My daughter was not raised in Scientology, and I did not use the jargon of Scientology on my daughter.
One of my Scientology friends wrote a uh, she wrote an internal report on me because I wasn't using Scientology terms on my baby.
That is such an integral part of Scientology.
So KR's a knowledge report, which means it's kind of like a chit, or writing up somebody that's done something wrong.
So one kid kind of ratting out another kid.
And at eight, you guys are writing reports on each other? - Yeah.
- Okay.
And so, if you didn't like a kid, you'd write a KR on them, even if he didn't do it.
A lot of Scientology is based on narking on each other and writing internal reports.
You know, when wives write reports on husbands, when mothers write reports on children, When children write reports on their parents, - Yeah.
- You lose all trust.
I get told I'm going to be declared if I don't disconnect from my mom.
- So what happens? - So for about a year, I pretend to be disconnected from my mom, - And you weren't? - No.
- Oh.
- Eventually, I get turned in.
By whom? Our kids' nanny.
Shut the fuck up.
So she found out like, why? 'Cause she saw The kids would make comments that made it seem like they were still seeing their Gigi.
- Their grandma? - Yeah.
Like, "Grandma this," "Grandma that".
She wrote it up and turned it in to the Church.
So she wrote a knowledge report - Yeah.
Yeah.
- On you.
This question is for Mike That's still a ongoing process, and this show is part of that process.
Part of my job was to discredit and destroy critics who spoke out against the Church.
If the Church believed that someone was an enemy and needed to be silenced, or destroyed, it was my job, and I did it.
You, and you and the Church of Scientology have been spying on the BBC.
I don't know what you're talking about.
It seems to me you're getting a bit paranoid.
- Was I being paranoid? - No.
You were being followed.
- We were being followed? - Yes.
And who gave the order to follow us? It would have come under my purview.
If I was told to follow someone, I made it happen.
Everything from following them 24 hours a day to having people camped outside their home to being vilified on the Internet, I was the guy.
I used to think Mike was evil.
How could you not be evil? No, he is evil.
No, he's evil.
Scientology has threatened me, gone through my trash, they've had people in Nazi uniforms picketing outside my office, telling my neighbors what an evil person I'm an anti-religious bigot.
I have to tell you, I was scared shitless of you for so many years.
You were gaunt, you were wearing a gray suit, and Jillian, our assistant, gave you a nickname, which was "Mr.
Scary".
Well, Mike is taking responsibility, unlike the Church of Scientology.
I can only try and explain this was my mindset at the time.
No, I've come to understand that, and I've never needed apologies from you.
- I know.
- Because You're not just journalists or people that I happened to have an interaction with at some time.
I consider that all of you are friends of mine now.
- Now.
- Like, personal friends.
I love that you are modeling for ex-members of thousands of other cults that you can be a leader, you can do horrible things, and you can wake up and be a human being.
A decent, law-abiding human being.
But I feel it's important to tell the truth of what really goes on behind the scenes what really is happening in Scientology.
If I can help one person who I may have harmed in the past, or prevent someone from being harmed in the future, of one family, just one, who is torn apart because of the practices of Scientology, it's worth making it known and hopefully preventing that.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Shelly Miscavige? Yes.
Shelly Miscavige is is I don't I don't know.
I mean, that's why I filed the police report.
In 2006, I was invited to Tom Cruise's wedding.
All of the top clergy of Scientology are there.
It was a big deal for the Church, and then I'm innocently Uh, standing by this fireplace, in this big castle in Italy, and I said, "Hey, where's Shelly?" Shelly Miscavige is the leader's wife.
This was being called the wedding of the century, so it was very weird that she wasn't there, and their reaction was like, "I mean, that's the leader's wife.
You really shouldn't be asking about her".
I saw her get in trouble and she would disappear during portions of the day and I sort of surmised that she was being security-checked.
You know? I could see the terror in her eyes.
I think she said something, Miscavige found out, and suddenly he had this person who was his wife who Holding the electrodes of the E-Meter in her hand Voiced it, and that was it.
The axe fell, and then she just sort of disappeared, very shortly thereafter.
- Why? - Because she's been too intricately involved with him and probably knows things that he just doesn't ever want known, so he's just gonna keep her quiet.
- No.
- No.
You would not see any change.
Sci Scientology is 100% controlled by the writings Of L.
Ron Hubbard.
Called "policy".
And he is dead, so he cannot change his writings and nobody else has the authority to do so.
Is it true that Dave Miscavige is bad? Yes, but if David Miscavige wasn't there, they would grab and they'd, you know, give him a shower and put a suit on him, and then he would carry on the same legacy, because that is what Scientology teaches.
So they are only upholding L.
Ron Hubbard's policy.
Its own activities.
The Hole is a building that David Miscavige designated at the international headquarters of Scientology in Hemet where myself and eventually about 100 people were locked in two double-wide trailers, sleeping on the floor, eating slop, to beat one another up until they confessed to their crimes.
Saw David Miscavige physically beat Marc Yager, who was a very high Church executive, and Mark Fisher.
I saw him physically hit these folks, and you just don't forget stuff like that.
David Miscavige physically assaulted me five separate times.
Uh, the most famous one, I think, and Mike was there I had written an infomercial for "Dianetics".
I had sent it up to Miscavige.
I get called up to the conference room.
He starts reading from my script and making fun of it.
I said, "Uh, sir, if I can just explain," and he goes "See? You see how he talks to me?" Then finally, he jumps up on the table, launches himself at me, knocks me back against the partition wall, starts hammering my face, knocks me down on the floor.
I was scratched up, my shirt was ripped off.
And what is everybody in the room doing? - Everyone just s - Watches silently 'cause you don't want to do anything that will attract attention to you so that you're the next one.
And then there was one time when I was in my offices and he came down, he was talking to us, and he just flattened me, knocked me on the floor, and he said, "You know why I did that?" and I said, "No, sir," and he said, "To show you who's boss".
Can't you can't sip this on camera, right? Nothing happening now, anyway.
All right.
So let's get to some of these Reddit questions.
- You have to fight for her.
- Wow.
You have to fight.
- Right? - Yeah.
I used to say different things.
I used to say, you know, "be kind, just be there for them," but that doesn't work.
You have to fight, you have to shove the truth in their face, you have to say, "This look at what's going on," look what has been going on".
You were children.
Both of you.
All of you there were children, and you were victims.
I hope that even one parent in Scientology or any other cults wakes up and realizes, "I need to protect my own".
If people could just see behind the curtain and see that Scientology did nothing but create complete destruction Of my childhood, of my entire family, Their policies cause this.
All of this destruction is Scientology.
In the end, this family lost it all.
The whole family has disintegrated because of Scientology.
You have to fight for your friends, you have to fight for your children.
I don't care what cult you're in, I don't care what religious theology you believe in, but you need to protect your family, you need to protect your children, and the people that you claim you love.
Uh, yes.
Many families have been reconnected.
I went down there in front of the house In front of her house, and I just scooped her up, and Hugged her like I don't think we've ever hugged before.
If I can say the F word, she said, "Fuck everybody, fuck everything".
We said, "It doesn't matter if they wanna "declare us to the Moon and back, "they are not winning.
They are not ripping us apart".
We started seeing each other every day.
Every day.
She called me and said, "I want to do the show," and my whole world changed when she called me.
Something inside of me was like, "Oh, my God, I never thought I'd have my mom back.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I know you are.
It happened.
I told you when you were in my womb that I would protect you and love you forever.
I'm just so glad I have you back.
I caused horrible things to my children to happen.
That's what it did to me.
That's what this fucking church did to me! It made me think that nothing else mattered but my group.
Nothing else.
Well, guess what? No church is a church if they condone, advocate, that family members split up and disavow each other.
No no church has no decent church would do that! How could they be considered a church? And last Support the show, as they have been.
Write to their Congressmen and women.
Demand that the IRS take another look at the tax-exempt status.
People are starting to get braver and braver and braver and that's leading to story, that's leading to another story.
This one saw that, that one saw this, and then they connecting up with somebody else and it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and if one person leads to two people which leads to more and more Then maybe we could stop A lot of this hurt.
And people should know this at Scientology, who are watching this.
They should know this about me and they should know this about you.
I don't give up.
I'm gonna make a career out of exposing this organization.
It's not gonna continue.
It might not be this year, might not be next year, but eventually, it's gonna happen.
Right.
Thank you to the Reddit AMA audience We hope that we answered all your questions.
If not, hopefully, we'll be back soon.
Say "thank you," Mike.
Thank you, Mike.
Comedy now.
We're doing comedy.
Sorry.