Raw Transcript: Ex-Scientologists & Ex-Jehovah's Witnesses | Middle Ground

If you speak out against Scientology, you become a target. You know, I've had 10,000 attack tweets in the last couple of days. My front door has been kicked in. I've had my flights here and back to the UK messed with, right? I've had to have calls with my airline. If it was legal, they would kill you. [Music] Step forward if you agree with the prompt. My former religion was more of a cult than a faith. [Music] I mean, uh, what separates, I think, a cult from a faith is the amount of control that they exercise in the individual lives of the members. So, I mean, whether we're looking at like Steven Hass's bite model, controlling your behavior, access to information, your thoughts, your emotions, or whether it's fog, fear, obligation, and guilt. um at the end of the day uh they owned our thoughts, they owned our feelings. It wasn't a faith that we could just have and express in our own way. It was all dictated to us as to how we had to express it. And if we fell short of that, then there was a lot of shame. Uh for me, I uh was 8 years old when my parents became Jehovah's Witnesses and I was 38 when I finally got out. It was a really really tough path and a lot of it was the mental and emotional abuse of that control that eventually led me to find my way out. I'll say that um I got involved when my parents got in when I was four and I didn't get out till I was 42 and I worked for the church for 25 years. So I was all in. And the weird thing was called the church scientology but from my experience none of us thought of it as a faith. It was a practical set of tools you apply in your life and this is science baby. These were literal truths we were learning. And so I never ever thought of it as a belief system. I used to work in recruitment in Scientology. And then one of the things we used to say is that it's not like Christianity where you have to believe in the Bible. Someone tells you the story of Jesus and you either choose to believe it or not. Scientology is something you apply, you do, and it works. So in at its core, I don't think it's necessarily a faith. It's an applied religious philosophy is how it was scripted or how it was sold to other people. But ultimately, like you said, control is at its core. Um, you know, the further you go into Scientology, the more there is no other option, right? It works if it if you apply it correctly. It's a totalitarian extremist belief system. Um, and that in my mind makes a cult, right? Yeah. So, did you also feel like it was your personal failing? Like if you weren't doing better, like it wasn't just like this there might be something wrong with the system. It was like, oh, I'm not following the steps correctly, so I'm a failure. Yeah. It's it's called what did you do to pull it in? If you do something if something happens to you or whatever horrible abuse may have you may have suffered from, uh you get put in a room and asked what did you do to pull this in? You're responsible for your own condition in life. That is a core principle of Scientology, like absolute all the way to the bottom. You are responsible for every single thing that ever happens to you and ultimately you're responsible for everything in the universe. That's wild. No pressure. Far as cult goes, I mean, we had an RPF. I mean the rehabilitation project forces a sort of sequestered away prison system that they would put you in. I did that for three years and it's like know talking to people outside run everywhere you go. You don't speak unless you're spoken to. It was like a little prison system and it was hard physical labor about 12 hours a day. That's when you're confessing your sins and all the stuff you've done in your life. And so and past lives and past lives. There were a thousand hours of recorded confessionals on on my part to get through that program over those three years. There were a couple of people who were there for 10 years to prove that you are rehabilitated spiritually. I think prison system is putting it lightly. It's a North Korea style re-education. You have more rights in prison probably and better food. Do they heavily encourage you to go there like they suggest you go there or do people put themselves there? You have no option. You're sent there. You're assigned to go there. And those punishments are through every single level of the Scientology organization. Things like interrogations are common place for public parishioners or for staff members. You know, when I was a teenager, I was locked in a room and said, "You can't leave here until you confess to everything that you've done wrong against the church and you have to write everything down and time, place, form, event." Every time you've ever masturbated, right? As a 15year-old, it's it's nothing short of child abuse in my opinion. kind of like I think the three elder interviews that you all the judicial committ was going to say it's like there are a lot of parallels as it goes and I think that the interesting thing is that this is a more covert version so we we have all of our similar versions of things that you're describing but one of the like interesting cult level things to me about it is that this is a group that has a lot of money and typically Jehovah's Witnesses are known as the group that has the least amount of money. Like they are the lowest income big religion that there is. Um and that's because they are more seeking out vulnerable people. We were trying to reach people while they're grieving at a grave site and bring them in. Like we were trying to find people at their lowest points and bring them in with us. How you were saying that um Jehovah's Witness go after vulnerable people. Well, Scientology has a saying that we make the able more able. So, they actually don't want you unless you already are able, which means you can write a check to them. In Scientology, you have to pay for every service that you do. Um, and you also have to have a membership to the International Association of Scientologists. You als that that has a cost attached to it. They might not have many members. Um, but in terms of per member, they have more money than the Mormon church than potentially even the Catholic Church. Catholic church have a lot of people. No. Per member, per capita. Yes. The Catholic Church has more money than Scientology, but per person, the average donation for a Scientologist per year is way more than any other religious. It's a pyramid scheme. Oh, it's it's wild. I think another cult element is you can be shunned. Um, typically being shunned is about a year. In that time period, you're expected to come, sit in the meeting group, not say hello to anyone, leave, not say goodbye to anyone, and you're supposed to come and do that for a year while no one looks at you, no one talks to you, not even your friends and family. So, you can talk to your family during that time. Uh, if you live at home and you're a minor, you can talk to your family limitedly, but not about spiritual things. Many people still can't eat with their family as kids who are shunned by their own family. So I've interviewed people who had like refrigerators, little mini fridges put in their room where they could eat out of so that they didn't have to, you know, cross-contaminate the rest of the house with it's only for a year, right? No big deal. Well, as long as you're doing everything to come back during that year, you're expected to submit letters to that body of elders begging to be reinstated and that they're almost never going to accept your initial uh letters. So, that process is about breaking you. It is about you to be to come back so that you won't leave again, right? Or you won't repeat that sin, whatever it is. And we may not have had your forced labor as far as I would say we didn't have forced labor. We had coerced labor and it was the field ministry that we all were made to do going doortodoor all the time building kingdom halls. There's so much free labor that that organization profits from in the end uh financially. And then most of us if we had any kind of desire to attain any kind of further education I had scholarships to engineering school and such. I turned them down because I was shamed uh and and told that I had to go knock on doors for 90 hours a month. And I and I listened, right? Because I fully believed. And I think that's the problem. That's how they got me on staff working for the church right out of high school. Yep. Yeah. Right. 17 years old. And they're like, "Hey, college. What a joke." Yeah. College. That they don't know what they're talking about. Yeah. Exactly. So what? You can go make money. We're going to save the world, right? And so they can't risk us learning about psychology or sociology or or history. Why I was told, why do you want to go to college? Elron Hubard did everything. He learned everything there is to know. You just come to Scientology and learn what Elron Hubard cuz cuz he knows he learned the best. Isn't it crazy? I was born into Scientology as a third generation. So my mom was raised completely in Scientology. So as a child I was taught by her. Shaped your whole worldview. Exactly. You don't see outside of it. I I never I didn't. And I didn't leave until I had my son because he came to the ages. Like I was interrogated. There's something called the children's security check. Um it's a 99 question interrogation where you hold on to an E-meter. It's like an electrical device. It puts a little current through your body. It has a readout and it is everything. If you say, "Oh, I didn't do it." But it says you did it. You did it. And you might have not even done it in this lifetime. You might have done it in another lifetime. You might have done whatever the crime is a billion years ago. And I'm curious, did Jehovah's Witness have a past life thing? Do you guys believe Do they believe in reincarnation? No. No. No. Okay. Uh yeah, they pretty much teach that you're just a worthless human being. Um from dirt you are to dirt you return. You're just here to to live out your life until Armageddon comes. So we were a doomsday cult. through and through. Well, Scientology kind of is too, but on the other end, we were waiting for a physical destruction of planet Earth at any given time. Like as a child, a storm would come and I'm like, "It's happening. I'm not ready. I'm going to get destroyed." So, we were very physically like scared of a doomsday coming to Earth. Did you guys have a doomsday? Like, yeah, kind of. Scientology believes that millions of years ago or billions of years ago, everyone was like immortal spiritual beings like with god-like power. Like you're their belief in God is that everyone is a god. And we have handicapped oursel like you know just to make it more fun and that through scientology you can get back all these like native godlike powers and be able to move out of your body and like telekinesis and all this stuff that never has been proved. like Marvel characters. You're supposed to be in power over matter, energy, space, and time. So, they they are saying the end of the world is coming and you're the only way that it's going to get better by getting your butpecially when you're a kid, you're like into it. It makes a lot of it's very empowering in the beginning. When you're a kid, you think, "Oh, great. I can like I can rule the world, right?" And that's one of Yeah, I like Star War all this. But then what it turns into is, for example, friends of mine who had horrible abusive things happen to them, they're sat in a room and said, "Okay, well because you're an immortal spiritual being with these innate god-like powers, that means you have inadvertently caused this to happen. So what did you do to pull this in? Why have you allowed this to happen to yourself?" And that's where it becomes really abusive as an organization. You can believe in what you want, but you can't treat people like that. That's why I protest behaviors, not beliefs. Okay. Yeah. It all look cultlike practice is the one thing that has always stood out to me the more I learned about psychology and um going to a lot of therapy is narcissism. That is the backbone. There's always some rich old dude who's a nutbag narcissist that starts these cults. Very good at manipulation, ropes people in. I mean, like we can see it right now with Donald Trump. He's doing the same He's got his own cult. It's the same practices over and over. And if you peel back all of the the weird beliefs and the punishment, making everyone feel like they're dirt so that they can uh you know, worship the leader. It's all the same behaviors, patterns, cycles. Uh the phrase that I like is uh the difference between a religion and a cult is what happens when you try to leave. Yeah. For me, it was very severe, harsh, shunning, cut off in one day because it happened to me in one day. Um, the information control that Jehovah's Witnesses have is very severe, very strict. Of course, I had never researched my religion at all. I had never researched it on the internet a single time. And when I finally got the courage to do that and look into a lot of things, it was days on end of research allin-one. And I went, "Okay, this is unacceptable. I have to do something. I have children. I can't be a part of this." I told my parents. Um, they removed me from the family group chat. They sent out a mass text to all of my friends and family that said, "She's an apostate. Don't speak with her." Um, so even if I wanted to say goodbye to anybody, they wouldn't have answered. Um, I knew not to even try. But if you do run into anybody that you've ever known in public, even if they are related to you, they will not meet your eye. Mhm. They will not make eye contact with you. They'll treat you like you're dead is essentially the the way it's described. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. Do you do you think that the people who are shunning are do they believe that they're doing it like for your spiritual good? Yeah. For love. It's a loving thing. Okay. We're all shunned here, right? Yes. Everybody. Yeah. We're declared suppressive. Our apostate is your suppressive person, right? But Scientology goes one step further. It's not just disconnection. If you speak out against Scientology, you become a target and they will then go after you with a policy called fair game. And many of us here have been subjected to fair game. It's an ongoing campaign of targeted harassment. They will try and destroy your life in any way they possibly can. Let me just describe that there's a division in the Church of Scientology called the Office of Special Affairs. It's its own legal affairs, public relations, and dirty tricks division. And they are the ones who take care of what's called fair gaming, which is where you are declared fair game by the church. They can do anything to you. And they will. They'll go through your trash. They'll stalk you. They'll call your neighbors. They'll tell them that you're under investigation for criminal activity. They will call your job. They will call your family. And there's a whole division of the church that literally doesn't have anything else to do all day except this activity. The policy says maybe tricked, sued, lied to, or destroyed. And destroyed is the key word. If it was legal, they would kill you. They use these smear campaigns. They pretty much all of us, I'm pretty sure, have hate websites that they set up. There's a an ongoing targeted campaign of harassment against pretty much all of us. You know, I've had 10,000 attack tweets in the last couple of days. My front door has been kicked in. my employer, my family have all been contacted in a a desperate attempt to try and uh ruin my life so that I have nothing left. I've had my flights here and back to the UK messed with, right? I've had to have calls with my airline. Um I left Scientology and yet they are still trying to continue to abuse me and all of us even though that's what we're saying is stop abusing people. Wow. Wow. I know that's that's a huge difference when I was doing my research between the two groups is like we have similar like the mass texts that don't talk to this person, cutting them off, cutting them like people get fired when they're working for other Jehovah's Witnesses. They lose their families sometimes. Like my little brother came out gay. They kicked him out of the house when he was 16. He was sleeping by dumpsters. Um All right. That there's a difference is where they attack them psychologically, but you they go way further on your guys's side to like literally destroy their lives. Yeah. And they have millions of dollars with which to do it. Yeah. My former religion cost me relationships. I still mourn today. I haven't talked to my mom in 8 years and um it's because I don't want children to be abused and I don't want that to happen in our family anymore. And so in Scientology, as we've talked about, um I'm a suppressive person. I have been deemed an enemy of Scientology. And Scientology will tell everybody who listens that if you are against Scientology, you must be so truly evil at your core that you don't want humankind to improve. So yeah, it's it's it's a equals a on that. She actually believes that if she has a relationship with somebody who is antagonistic towards Scientology, then her spiritual gains like she'll lose them. So at this point, if I want to talk to my mom, even me just saying, "Hey, your grandson graduated high school. He got into college. Aren't you excited?" I can't do that because that's somehow evil. I did not think I was going to cry today, guys. So that's my answer. And I miss I miss her very much. Yeah. Yeah. My uh when I left um my mom didn't talk to me for 10 years. Wow. Um you know, didn't know anything else. I grew up in it. I had I had zero, you know, I woke up when I was 27 and a half and I was just about to ready to like devote my life to um the headquarters in New York. And then when you go down the rabbit hole and the Matrix pill is swallowed and you can see everything and your your own family won't even talk to you, your friends and family. Um it it's a psychological um torture tactic to do all of that to people. It's meant to torture people. You know, if you take a puppy and throw it outside during winter in a storm, it's going to come crawling back. That's the whole Yeah. the whole thing. And they get off on seeing you crawl back. Um, there were some really good people. There's some really well-meaning, sweet people. I think that, you know, all of us can think of probably a handful or maybe a dozen or so that were really sweet people that were highly traumatized and they were holding on to this belief system for dear life because they had nothing else. Because almost every kid is touched. Almost every kid is abused. Almost every kid is manipulated and uh made into this codependent deeply hurt person. And I miss those people. A few of them have woken up and we've reconnected and we're friends now to this day and we go to like EDC and do Molly together and it's great. But you know, Jehovah's Witnesses went unofficially. It's like 20 million unofficial that go to the big convention every year. That's a lot of people. I don't know the numbers for Scientology. that it's about 25 or 30,000 internationally at this point. They're shrinking pretty fast. That's still a lot of people. Still a lot of people. On the point of the of the losing people and the two hardest things are shedding the the cult habits, right? All the mental crap that that you still carry with you. Even if you turn the switch off on the beliefs, you still treat people like you did when you were in. And it's and overcoming that is is a lot of the path. But the other thing, and it really keeps people in, they don't want to lose their community. They don't want to lose their family. They know they step out and it's all over. I had spent 5 months going down the internet rabbit hole and learning what a pathological liar and crazy person Elron Huard was. And I've got a fiance now who I'm, you know, going to like be connected with and her whole family, she's Scientologist. They're Scientologists. the whole network of social people that I'm connected with are still Scientologists. It's a struggle and I needed to start speaking out and I spoke out anonymously on the internet on chat boards and internet forums and they were watching the internet and they figured out who I was because I said too much. So, they call me in for a meeting. They fly some people out from LA and they confront me with this and now I'm going to have to do all the steps like you have to sit for a year in the back at the church. We have what's called the A to E steps and you have to do step A, B, C, D, and E, and then you'll be back in the good graces. They were going to make me do all those steps. And so, I went, well, I don't want to lose my relationship, so I'll do it. Even knowing what a scam the whole thing was. A month later, I I'm going along with it. I'm jumping through their hoops and my fiance writes me, "Yeah, we're done. It's over, right? And I can't be with you." And overnight, I I I call them. I go, "Okay, well, I'm not doing this anymore." Overnight, my Facebook friends are zeroed. You know, my my social contacts zeroed out. Nobody's going to call me. Nobody's going to text me back. Nothing. So it was reset button to get out and then it was reset button again socially everything. Uh and I had to figure all that out from the from the bottom up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the dysfellowshipping process is similar. They weaponize your community at such a level and because you're taught from the beginning to really only have association within the organization. You have no outside community. Yes. I really don't have anyone in my life that I've known longer than three years at this point other than old work acquaintances and things like that. So, I've lost all my childhood friends, all my cousins, my nieces, my nephews, my siblings, my parents. Um, I have minor interactions with them over like family business, but literally overnight 60 of your closest friends and family like literally no longer talk to you. I sent a text message saying goodbye to my cousins who I grew up with as siblings kind of and couldn't get any response back because and my aunt told my mother if she would have sent the message one day earlier prior to her being announced we would have replied. Wow. So it is announced it is the it's done cut off. Yeah. And then I chose to disassociate uh 2 and 1/2 years ago. So, it wrote a letter officially leaving. And so, I was actually mentally prepared, right, for what it was going to be like and um I was able to intentionally spend some time kind of saying goodbye to my family without them knowing I was saying goodbye. So, it was it was I knew kind of my timeline with that. But yeah, I mean there's a lot of relationships I grieve and I think the main reason I grieve them is because I realize the level that I was brainwashed at. And I know how so many people in my life that I love and care about, like how they're operating off that level of brainwash. And I don't think that there's ill intentions. I think a lot of them do believe that they're doing the loving thing by not communicating with me. Um, so I do have a lot of grief around that. I'm going to ask a disagreeer to step forward. My parents, I didn't lose my parents when I was 38 and I was shunned. I lost them when I was eight years old and they lost themselves in this cult and I never knew them and they don't know them. I can't have fake people in my life anymore. I can't have conditional relationships. And and to be honest, the conditional relationship I had to lose was the conditional relationship with myself. M and I owe myself more today than to allow people who would only bring pain into my life to come back into it. I wish them well. I hope that my mom someday, my dad has passed. I hope my mom someday wakes up. If she ever does, I would love to have a couple conversations with her and then turn her loose to go find her own healing because she's on her own path and it's not mine. I feel a little different about my siblings than I do about my parents. Um, is that because they were born into it versus they chose it? Yeah. I think Yeah. And that's a little personal, you know. Um, well, my mom's the one who's left, you know, she exercised power and authority over me, right? Uh, whereas my siblings did not. Um, and and so, you know, I had conversations with her as I was getting ready to leave this thing. And at some point she was like, "Oh, sweetie, I don't believe all of it." And I was like, "What the hell? You told me I had to believe all of it. You set me up for this thing." So I just the only way I want anything to do with any of them because they're not good for me. And if my phone rang and their name was on there right now, my stomach would sink. I wouldn't be overjoyed. my stomach would sink. If the conversation does not begin with the words, I am so sorry and I left this thing, then there's nothing there for me. And that's exactly how I started the conversation with my brother when I left is I reached out to him. I found him on Facebook and I said, "Oh my god, I am so sorry I did this to you. I have left this thing. I understand if you never want anything to do with me. I get that. But I hope that perhaps as I show you that I'm a healthier person and a different person, we can have a relationship. And we do today and it's awesome. So, in terms of mourning, I I have a lot of friends I left behind. I don't mourn them. Um I got married uh when I was 18 years old and um because we worked in this highest level of the organization the C organization they're kind of paramilitary organization they don't allow you to have children because that would mean you would be pulled away from your work and then they would have to pay for raising a kid which is expensive. M so um on two occasions over the seven years we were married um she got pregnant and on both occasions uh we were to have an abortion like the um the ends justify the means every single time like you're so selfish for wanting to be a parent ask like please if you and your wife at the time weren't in the sea or would you have had kids and child I would have two kids that are in their 20s right now I So, I mourn that. Um, I miss a lot of other people. I wish them well. I would help them if they ever needed help. Um, but I feel like with that other part. How are you liking the video so far? It's really interesting, but to be honest, I'm having a hard time focusing. I got rearended on my way to work today and I hit my head pretty hard against the headrest. Wa, that's pretty serious. You might have a concussion. Have you thought about suing? No way. Is that even lawsuit worthy? Yes. There's a reason injury law firms exist, just like there's a reason Morgan and Morgan, the sponsor of today's video, is America's largest injury law firm. Morgan and Morgan specializes in a wide range of personal injury cases and have won thousands of big cases. Just recently, Morgan and Morgan has secured verdicts of 12 million in Florida and 26 million in Philly. That's up to 40 times the highest insurance offer. I'm telling you, your case can be worth millions. The best part, it's all free. It's all free unless you win your case. 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So they charge that person money. They monetize the crime and then they do a bunch of stuff and they get absolved. The police are never called. Authorities are never told. And in most cases, those children are put back into the same environment with that abuser. Meanwhile, in my case, if you're the victim, it's well, what did you do? So now, Scientology is monetizing this on two sides, right? I'm paying to find out what I did to pull in this horrible crime and the perpetrator is now paying to get absolved. So, there's a system built into that. And it's my story. That's not a unique situation. That's designed. It's designed. It is designed. and it's financially beneficial for the organization. Not to mention when they have dirt on somebody, then they're that much more controllable. Children are at risk. Children are are at risk not just from Scientology's direct practices, but from the perpetrators. And some of these people, let me tell you, they've been doing the same thing 40, 50 years and and new new children come in and and it happens again and again. So that's terrible. an example that happened with my family that isn't um monetarily related because my mother, she brought me out to be part of the SE organization when I was 10 years old and she then worked for one of some of their highest level executives. My mother was his secretary and worked up at their secret international base. At a certain point, her boss started to um basically engage in quidd proquo sexual favors like wanting massages, touching her inappropriately and she didn't know what to do. So she let it kind of happen because at the same time she was scared that she would get in trouble and it was kind of an impossible situation. Eventually through their security checking practices it came out and he confessed to it. They removed his commander stripes sent him back to his job took my mother put her on a lower position where she then worked as kind of a food service person for about four years. Once I ended up escaping and she had to disconnect from me this guy that she was working for he had what they call below. that's their term for uh leaving without authorization. They could say he below the organization. He had left. So they decided to get rid of her. This is almost like double jeopardy now to be on the same thought reconditioning um project that Chris was on down in LA here. Literally that big blue building. She spent six years on this thought reconditioning camp from the age of 59 until 65. Then got back into it. And once she started uh getting money for social security, they then started harvesting that money in order to get her to pay for her Scientology services when she works for $50 a week. any inheritance that she got, any money that she got from the government because she was now old enough to get that money. They started taking that money. And then when these things are found out about, they cover them up in a way that because financial crimes and crimes against elderly and crimes against children are the kind of that is actually going to make it. So Scientology loses tax exemption. So they will cover it up because that is their cash cow. If they lose tax exemption, they're going to sink. Exactly. It would probably be the same for JWS. Yeah. Absolutely. They're very concerned with that. You all have that two witness rule. Yes. Yeah. Basically, their rule is that if there aren't two witnesses to a crime, whether it's child abuse or something else, then they will just kind of say, "Well, it didn't happen. Didn't happen." That's so infuriating because most of the most horrible things that happen happen between two people and there are no witness. It almost never happens that there are two witnesses. So, they also don't have a procedure to call the police if the crime is reported to them. They don't call themselves mandatory reporters. So they, you know, if elders are, if they hear when they hear of these cases, they take personal notes. Like every Jehovah's Witness has files on them that are like every sin you've ever committed or whatever, but they're not necessarily going to do anything with that information. They're just going to hold on to it. So there's no accountability for them. But there's documents that they have created that show the They have a database at headquarters of tens of thousands of reports of child sexual abuse. The lawyers like the Zulan law firm who've represented a lot of ex Jehovah's Witnesses who've been hurt. He's talked about it and yet they were told years ago to start destroying records in individual congregations. And when states like Pennsylvania go after them, uh they have to um I don't know, put a scramble. Yeah. Well, Watchtower is told basically you can't destroy anything, right? But we all know they did. I mean, right, it's easy to shred things, right? And and so if I shred it, it never happened. Of course, it never happened to them anyway because uh it's all about keeping up appearances and not bringing reproach upon Jehovah's name, right? So, they've got to make Jehovah look good. Jehovah's Witnesses must have a clean reputation at all costs and that cost is often children and they're okay with that. It was one of the final nails for me when I left the organization was learning about the practices. I watched the Australian Royal Convention. It was basically an inquisition by the Australian government um to in part Jehovah's Witnesses I think were part of it. It was basically looking at the shunning practice and then also the reporting practice for um child sex abuse and basically saying, you know, if a child is victimized, there is next to never going to be a witness. And so there was no mandated reporting and things like that. Um but kind of in further investigation, I looked up the settlements and I looked up how much money Jehovah's Witnesses were paying out to settle these cases before they even got to court. And I think in one year it was over over $40 million. and they are 100% a voluntary donation-based organization. So what basically like got me was like I'm like like my dollars are going to that and like that all this litigation literally and they they keep it out of the news. They also create a culture where you are not only not encouraged to look outside the organization, you're punished if you do. If you ask certain questions, if you even not look into apostate literature, but if you look into actual news sources, you're you're taught basically just to look the other way. And so the ignorance within the organization of what's actually happening is so insane. So even similar to you, it literally I was snowed in in a hotel and I watched one day of videos and I was like, "This is all a lie." Like it just it crumbled so quickly. That's why they don't want you to look outside of it. They will not acknowledge it. They will act as if they are like attackers that are like coming at them. They never apologize. They never have accountability and they continue all the practices. They don't implement the changes that any of these um well they also take these court cases and use them as evidence as persecution which like basically like reinforces the cult mindset that like look the world's against us and then everyone huddles together doing the right thing. They're after us. Yes. But the irony too on the other side when the governing body are under oath they take a completely different stance too when they're talking to government officials versus what they turn around and say inside warfare. It's so manipulative in public. It's exactly the same in Scientology. In 1984, a UK high court judge ruled in a an actual judgment that Scientology is a dangerous harmful movement that is out to capture people, especially children and impressionable young people. And yet they are still continuing to operate exactly the same way they currently are today. Just look at the Danny Merson case, right? And it's, you know, Claire Hedley testified in a course of law as an expert witness that Scientology prevents you from reporting anything to law enforcement. It's considered a crime in Scientology. If you report another Scientologist to law enforcement or you sue another Scientologist, you are punished for that. So, of course, they protect abusers because if they don't, you're punished. Yeah. The there's there are levels. There's actually a written issue that gives you about 70 different levels of punishment as a ladder that you go down. And so it starts with reporting and a harsh talking to. And then there are courts and there's a thing called a committee of evidence which is like a tribunal which is always going to result in months of disciplinary action and monetary fines. And then the final bottom of the barrel is you are declared a suppressive person and expelled from the church. and then of course begins the fair game campaign if you continue trying to speak out. So it's a it's an actual policy written as to how to do this. It's a very formalized sort of thing they do in Scientology with this. Can I say I assume that a lot of people will probably watch this that are not uh from Jehovah's Witnesses or Scientology. Um, but the fact is that they're not only not protecting the kids in these organizations, but these are predators and they're in your communities. And in our case, they might have been knocking on your doors. I don't know about yours, but you know, in any any case, they're out there in the community. And just like our kids weren't safe, neither are any of yours. If you're watching this, you know, there are probably tens of thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses in a database who have been stated to have done something and they're just out there doing their thing. And and and so no one is safe. It's not just ex witnesses or Scientologists. No one's kids are safe. My former religion had some good intentions. I I I would say like if you're stepping forward then that means that you think it had more good intentions than not. Okay. Bye. Some that wasn't the question. I want to be alone here. Oh, it's okay if you're alone. I know. I I'm undecided. I know. I'm kind of undecided. I'll do it. I got it. All right. Can I start with a quote I like? One does not have to act with great malice in order to do great harm. Um, and I think that Jehovah's Witnesses think they're saving the world. When my mom became one when I was eight years old, she was looking for something. She had always been searching for the truth. And I've interviewed a lot of extra Jehovah's Witnesses and you see a lot of times it's a it's a mom who has some kids and she wants them to have structure and religion. She wants them to have something good. It's a group of misfits and people that were struggling in life that have come into something that they thought was going to better their life. Now I know of absolutely horrendous things that go on behind the scenes. Um, even in those cases, and as much as I hate to say it, those parents thought they were doing the right thing. They were doing it in a messed up way. I'm not going to sit here and say they're good people or something like that, but their intentions, they think, as misguided as it is, that I am saving my kid by putting them in this thing and by treating them in the way that controls them so that eventually we can all be happy in a paradise. They they think they're doing something good. I know I did. I thought that I was doing something good. And I was not always a very good person in that organization either. I was kind of a jerk. Very similar. Like my mother uh recently divorced, now kind of a single mom with a kid. She was trying to find something that was a good wholesome place to raise a kid. And she uh it was sold to her as like this glowing wonderful thing. And Scientology kind of at its bottom line, face value, it has a lot of self-help techniques that are very valuable for people. And with very few exceptions, Scientologists who get into it, these are some of the most well-intentioned people that you will ever find. All of the stories that we've been t talking about, they're willing to go through that because they want to help people so much. Now, they get into levels of um indoctrination, but what you're sold at the front door is a whole lot different than what you find out about later. Like because one thing that is very different about Scientology is your basic run-of-the-mill Scientologist does not know what Scientology believes in. And there's a demarcation line about right in the middle of their processes that kind of go from the bottom all the way up to the top. And halfway up it, it's all confidential. And when you get above that that halfway point, it's all about space aliens and uh the intergalactic warlord Zenu, you know, 75 million years ago was doing a had an overpopulation problem and called everybody in for tax audits and you know, took half the population like Thanos and you know, and wiped them all out and put them in a bunch of uh you know, they froze them, flew them here in something looks like a DC10 because Hubard was a science fiction writer and apparently that's what cool science fiction looks like to him. and then dumped them in volcanoes and blew them up and now they're all stuck to us. And that's why we have all these problems in our life. And that's what Scientology actually believes. But in the front door, they're like, "We can help you with communication. We can help you with your money. We can help you, you know, with, you know, getting yourself better." Yeah. And people don't join the group because they are bad. They join the group because they are actually very good. Yeah. I mean, I think the organization is is filled with very sincere people. Like I would say the majority of Jehovah's Witnesses that are either born in or brought in have a true desire to do good. And there are good things that you're taught throughout like there is a a level of honesty that you bring and there's like a lot of affection as far as like within the organization and care, but again I don't think it outweighs the totality of the organizational harm. Well, I think that cuts to you. I talk to a lot of folks and the question always comes up, what would happen had my parents never been Jehovah's Witnesses? Yeah. I don't think I would have had a happy childhood even if my parents hadn't have joined something that gave them a narrative for their dysfunction. Um I my parents weren't healthy people. They didn't love themselves well. They didn't know how to love. And I don't think that they would have ever just found that on their own. They weren't going to go get actual therapy or help or something. They were looking for something that just made them feel good. And it's almost like an addiction. It dominates everything. They're willing to give up their kids for it. Those are all terrible things, but in the end, they think that that is the thing that is saving everybody. There's this old expression, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and that is absolutely the case, I think, with both of our groups. I don't disagree at all with anything you said as far as the good intentionness of the various members. Clearly, the management structure and the people at the top, we can question their intentions and their knowledge because they know what they're doing and they're doing it on purpose. But there's a moral degeneracy at the at the middle of this whole thing, right? which is this sort of narcissism that gets imbued in all of us and this is one of the things that makes it a cult. We're following narcissistic people and we become like that. And so we then start treating people very very badly because we know better than they do. We get the truth. They're living lies. They're living in the mud. They're living in, you know, sin. And we are above all of that. And there's this whole us versus them that happens as a result of that where we tell ourselves we're good people and we're good intention people. But when you look back at the end of the day to the day-to-day work we're doing, we're persecuting people. We're we're we're insulting them to their faces or behind their back. We're judging them constantly and we are judging ourselves as being on this pillar of of truth and and goodness. And that's where it becomes this sort of institutional evil. Have you guys seen that movie by A24 Midsummer? Parts of it. You gotta watch it. It's that's not a horror movie. That's it's a documentary and it's a highly traumatic beginning. Like she loses her parents and this cult comes in and just naps her from beginning to end. You see her turn into very narcissistic by the end and it's very traumatizing. So just a heads up like there's some up in there. But that's exactly what it's like. And uh you know that Florence Pew character that was my mother, right? She came from an abusive traumatic household and they found her at a very young age when she was pregnant with me. So I was born in these narcissistic leaders and people are looking with binoculars for people to snipe to to go after. They're looking as targets. There's there's nothing good about that. And that's why I don't think anything about these people at the top are good. you know, the rank and file, they have best intentions, but they're also taught to be evil, to be manipulative, to be uh nasty, cover things up, so that way all of our hands are covered in like blood, right? And you know, when I left the organization, um I ended up finding out all the elders had either raped kids, committed fraud, there was cover-ups for murder, they would cover up kids who uh took their lives when they got kicked out. And I knew these people. I grew up with them. And like eight to nine times out of 10, the people at the top were just super evil. and I can't I can't I can't do that. Um I can't be a part of that. I can't support it. I can call it out. Um and that's why I didn't step forward. It's like it's they're all evil. Um I got involved with activism down in the capital in Sacramento. We found out their legal loophole that all the churches use to not do mandated mandated reporting. Uh and the Catholic Church and uh sent their lawyers. Another lawyer showed up representing 22 other Christian organizations. They're all buddies. They all pay each other's bills. Yep. Interfaith. Scientology is totally on board with those. Yeah, they're all they all are drinking whiskey together to cover up the child abuse and we made headway, but they lied to their members and had hundreds of thousands of signatures signed to kill the bill, right? Um and and the legislative people were pissed at the the the lawyers representing and the Catholic Church that I had to sit next to. Um but because they have money and numbers, they're able to cover up and nothing is good about that system from head to toe. Something I think is important just to pull apart like the evil is it's really hard to say we're going to sue Jehovah's Witnesses or we're going to sue Scientology. But if you try to sue individuals who did individual things, the executives that do this, the the elders that do this, like those people have names and you have enough of that reporting happen, not only does that shine some light on it and start to disinfect it a little bit, but then those people can go to jail and hopefully it then results in either extreme reform or abolishment of the organization. Yeah. Sexual shame still affects me today. Man, the Jehovah's Witnesses are all about sexual shame. That's like they're they're a sexobsessed cult. They talk about it all the time from the moment you join or pop out of your your family. It's all about shame, guilt, control, and they leave you highly ignorant about it. So, when any diddling happens, like the kids don't know what's going on, and they can hide it. Um I've I've had to let go and heal a lot of that through therapy. Um, but uh when you grow up in a highly controlled environment where everyone's in your business, they know who you like and they think they have people who you they want you to date and get married to and reproduce with and they try to manipulate and control your whole lives and you're not allowed to masturbate at when you're hitting puberty. And then if you do, you have to tell them and they ask way too many personal questions in those elder meetings of like, "What did you do? Did you like it? Was it this porn? Was it that porn? Is it? And then especially with girls, they they get super creepy with girls. Um I mean the level of graphic that they get into, especially when you are a young woman sitting in front of three 60 plus men like alone alone by without your parents without your parents. And they'll ask incredibly detailed questions about who touched who, how long, um if you orgasmmed, like very very detailed. Did you enjoy it? Yes. What did you do? Yeah. And this whole time they're trying to gauge how repentant you are about it too. But you're also and how culpable you were in the action. And so even whose fault it is that that it happened. Even women who have experienced sexual assault get taken through the same process. Yeah. And most of those elders are abusers themselves. Most of them have molested kids and people in the conversation. At the very minimum, they're completely unqualified to hold a conversation like that. It is really hard to shake that kind of shame, especially coming out as gay at on top of it. like the messaging throughout the entire organization. I mean, 39 years essentially of indoctrination about what a gross sin that is and like the level and the money I had to spend to work through it. Like I did neuro feedback. I did therapy. I sought out ex Jehovah's Witness therapists and coaches and things like that. And it's it's such an insane process to deconstruct that. I mean, look at why everyone is dysfellowshipped or kicked out. It's almost always sexual sexual sins, right? Yeah. Um because if they can control a natural biological urge and need for most folks um then what can't they control? And so that's where all the focus usually is. I mean how many cults are sex obsessed and the leader tells everyone who they can have sex with or who they can't or he has sex with everybody, you know? I mean like isn't isn't that what they all do? Yeah. Up until just when I left, I realized I'm fairly normal as a human being. I also came out as gay when I left as well. Um, but everything about me I felt was so wrong and bad and was going to lead to destruction all the time. It's drilled in there that it's like I am a terrible person. I'm so wrong for this. I'm so bad for this. Well, they keep you disconnected from your body and your emotion. Like there's no normal growing up connected to who you are as a person. So if once you're an adult and you're deconstructing that, it's like I was healthy. I was normal. I was okay. But you spend your childhood feeling wrong and dirty and bad. Yeah. They tried really hard to shame me about about sex. And it worked for a while. Uh but we have the luxury of we're not contending with God. We our founder is was was a man. And after I left Scientology and like I had my rabbit hole to go down, I found out that this man was married three times when we weren't told. I found out that his first and second wives accused him of psychological torture. he was a biggamist. And so it's easier for me to dispel that shame because it's not coming from some, you know, power and I can pinpoint. I can say, "No, this was a very deeply flawed human white 1950s male. I don't need it. I don't need it." And and I can live with that. There's a document called pain and sex that basically Elron Hubard says that pain and sex are tools used by evil alien psychiatrists to basically enslave the population. And so when I was sexually assaulted at 14, um, and I went to my church and I said, "Hello, I'm in a relationship and it's not okay. I'm I'm being hurt." Um, they said, "Well, you need to study this." And so that's what I say when they try to get me. There is shame, but I guess we're just not the four people that are holding on to it. Evil alien psychologists. Yeah. Yep. Oh, yeah. These guys on I I definitely psychiatrists are demons in Scientology. They are demon because there's past lives and because we've been around for billions of years. Psychiatrists are the universe's bad guys in Scientology. They are the modern incarnation of evil beings who have been trying to enslave populations for Trilania. It's it's a complete fantasy and it's Elron Hubard's delusional fantasy but it is given to all Scientology Zenus and even preceding that. Yes. I would never let my child join the religion I left. One of the first things that I ever had doubts about was when I started thinking about my children as they started to get a little bit older. Um, I have an eight, a seven, and a three-year-old. And when I first was thinking that if I ever get remarried, I'm going to be shunned, I had that realization, and I went, there is no planet that I would ever do anything remotely close to this to my children. And the only thing that I did tell my dad when we had like a final conversation when I was being shunned was I would never never do this to my own children. Realizing that I had never had the feeling of being truly loved or accepted by my parents was kind of a revelation. My parents were my best friends prior to this. Like I was there almost every night. They live right down the street. Um, but it was all gone in like one fell swoop. Um, and I just I I I realized that this was never going to be something that I want my kids to have anything to do with. I told them that I would never be a part of any religion that would tell me I need to have a a brid some kind of wall between me and my children because that feels the most wrong that anything could ever feel to me. I am yet to speak to a single exitologist who was not abused or harmed in one some way, shape or form. And for me, that indicates that abuse occurs at every level of this organization in every city in which it operates. And for that reason, if I was to have kids, I would never let them go anywhere near Scientology, JWS, any sort of cult. I would educate them on how these groups work, how coercive control works. Um, and hopefully that will uh defend them from being manipulated, being um, gas lit and being lied to by these organizations. To your point, I don't have kids yet. I do, at least right now, still want to get married and have kids. I would like to have a couple. Uh, I don't ever want to see that happen to them. And I know that's, you know, that's what my mom, she went through a lot of abuse, too. She didn't want to ever see that happen to me, but it did. And she still stayed in. And I'm that was a huge, that rocks your world. And when I do have kids, I have a plan, at least for right now, and it seems to work with my therapists, is um I'm going to going to take them to the Jehovah's Witness Church. I'm they're going to be by my side. They're going to go to some meetings. I'm going to take them to Buddhism. I'm going to take them to an atheist rally. I'm going to take them to a Pride rally. I'm going to take them to a a magn Whatever the opposite. I want them to see everything and raise their emotional intelligence extremely high because that's what is very low in these organizations. They want us dumb. and let my kids be educated and know how to communicate and and train them well to be able to spot manipulation from a mile away. You see different perspectives. We didn't get that at all. No. I want to give them the world and whoever whatever they've become and and be like I'm not going to cut them off and I will love them as long as they're not like psycho killers or you know start diddling kids. I think I would do pretty well as a parent however they turn out and I will expose them to stuff but they will be right by my side. So when I got pregnant and I told my parent, it was kind of a surprise. I was in my 20s and when I went to tell my parents, my stepfather said to me, "Your child's going to be a fourth generation Scientologist whether you like it or not." And that stuck with me, as you can imagine. My oldest is uh 19 now, and my I got two boys, the other one's 11. Later, I realized that it actually wasn't enough for me to walk away quietly. I actually had to make a scene. so that they would never ever be they would never come after my children because if I just walked away quietly, his grandparents or you know would would swoop in there. Um and actually I had an older brother who was a poster child for Scientology. He was a genius. Um he we went to Scientology boarding school, very elite, very you know the best of the best. If you raise your kids like this, they'll be great. Well, he uh committed suicide at 19. And at that time I realized like everything's wrong. Everybody is saying this is so great. I have all these friends and my brother are killing themselves. People are drinking bleach. I know four people that drink bleach just to get out of where they were. Um so I actually went to school. I went to I got my degree in child and family studies and education. It doesn't have to be a formal college thing. Just like learning more changed everything for me because now I have a standard where I didn't I wasn't raised with that. Now I have a stand like this is abuse. It doesn't matter what you believe. It doesn't matter what you think. This is abuse. And there are developmental milestones and things that we all went through that were denied us. Yeah. Just that child experience. So my kids will never um but that was at great cost to me. At great I mean I I gave up my family, my inheritance, everything so that they would never ever be prey for Scientology and I would do it again. Amazing mom. Thank you. I mean, you did the we know you got to do what you've got to do. Yeah. You know, and nobody I mean, I don't tend to be like a violent or aggressive person, but I get very mama bear when I think about anybody coming for my children or anybody else's children. Yeah. I think it's really clear that we both had very different beliefs in our former groups, but the mechanisms and the tools that they use to manipulate and control us are almost identical, right? Yeah. Absolutely. Exactly. It's it's it's all a matter of which levers are being adjusted, but it's all the same levers. Today, we get to pull our own levers. That's right. Lots of middle ground in this one, right? You guys are amazing. Lots of blacks are circling the block waiting for us all. Oh, man. We'll protect you. Thank you. Oh, okay. Nice to meet you, man. That was awesome. Nice to meet you. information. Yeah, I would love to. Thank you guys. Thank you for sharing. Absolutely. We're proud of you, too. That's awesome. you. We're