HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All right.
BEN KISSEL
Here we go!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So right now you may be stranded on the side of the road because let's face it, you're a bad driver.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Or you may be looking at your home, your village, your town, burned to the ground by vile protesters.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my goodness. Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But don't you wish that you could do something about it? Don't you wish that there was someone there to handle it?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
To take care of it?
BEN KISSEL
I do wish there was someone to handle it and take care of it. I'm feeling really down.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Curious, I see you are.
BEN KISSEL
I'm pretty curious. I'm feeling pretty sad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that's very good.
BEN KISSEL
I have nowhere to go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nowhere to go, perfect. And we have just the 6'7" 330 lb empty space for the perfect-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah? Whoa. That's my size.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Welcome the aboard, clam.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was the right amount of curious.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah!
MARCUS PARKS
Curious?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Curious?
BEN KISSEL
Welcome to the Last Podcast on the Left everyone. Curious Ben here with Marcus and Henry.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh, you're curious Ben.
BEN KISSEL
Yes indeed.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, so you're settling in with curious Ben?
BEN KISSEL
I like curious Ben, if I see a tree, I shake it and try to figure out what's gonna fall out. Sometimes it's a cat, sometimes it's a squirrel, sometimes it's a lemon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sometimes I just want to see you what she looks like with no clothes on.
BEN KISSEL
Curious Ben!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm a bit curious. It seems the area between my pockets is the most curious part of Ben.
BEN KISSEL
Well that's a little offensive. All right everyone, today's episode and a series of episodes to follow, we're covering David Miscavige of course of Scientology fame.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, coming for you, you tiny bitch.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man!
BEN KISSEL
No, you guys are the exact same height.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, I tower over this dude.
BEN KISSEL
Do you?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
David Miscavige is so short.
MARCUS PARKS
Tower, towers is a very-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I tower over this guy.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
David Miscavige is so short.
BEN KISSEL
How short is he?
MARCUS PARKS
How short is he?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Has to go up on his wife. Who's dead. She's dead in Big Bear.
BEN KISSEL
I accept it, I love it, and I'm in.
MARCUS PARKS
Now when we did our series on Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard 6 or so years ago, we ended it somewhat abruptly with his death in 1986, mostly because what came next in the story of Scientology was far too large to broach.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, apparently it's another three episode series worth of information.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. See after L. Ron Hubbard died, he was succeeded by a 25 year old goblin with an incredible amount of energy who, through a brilliant series of highly calculated corporate moves, had positioned himself to weasel his way into the top spot despite the fact that he was a relative unknown amongst the rank and file at the time.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sometimes it's about heat. It's what takes you to the top. Look at the Spotify ranks.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It comes down to yeah, Dr. Greg Almond, he's the number two podcast in the world right now?
BEN KISSEL
He's doing a lot of great anal research right now.
MARCUS PARKS
Anal play. This goblin's name is David Miscavige.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh shit! And don't you fucking forget it!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And he's now actually been the top man at Scientology for far longer than L. Ron Hubbard was ever in charge.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We realized that, we did the math as we were doing the production call because it's all LRH, LRH. Because again he's the heart and soul, he's the adventure and romance.
BEN KISSEL
He's the creator of it all.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's the body.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The sex of Scientology.
BEN KISSEL
Sure, yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But David Miscavige, he gets in there and he really just tears it the fuck up.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yes, he is the human equivalent of a mouse around a series of elephants and it makes the elephants go all crazy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it shows he's the one extended, I think we calculated it was like 31 years that LRH was in charge and now he's at close to 35.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Miscavige is the man who made his religion a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood, the man who took a cue from Catholicism and turned Scientology into a real estate empire. But most importantly he was the man who secured tax exempt status for Scientology.
BEN KISSEL
Yay!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yay! When do we get it?
BEN KISSEL
You have to start your church already.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
My thought academy.
BEN KISSEL
It has to be called a church or you don't get tax exemption.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Church of Thought Academy.
BEN KISSEL
I'm a deacon.
MARCUS PARKS
But David Miscavige is also the man who let this incredibly powerful organization get to the point where they could be chipped away at and taken down by South Park, Stacey from Saved By The Bell, and fucking 4Chan.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
Because if you'll all remember the first real target of the so-called hacker collective Anonymous, it was Scientology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
And that was really the first time that Scientology really wobbled was when 4Chan went after them hard.
BEN KISSEL
But to be fair, when it comes to the Scientology episode of South Park, South Park did have some ramifications.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Chef left!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Isaac Hayes. It was like the only time other than the Mohammed episode which was a little controversial as well, but it was the only time where the guys actually had some blowback from within.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And nancy Cartwright also, who's a voice for The Simpsons-
MARCUS PARKS
She's Bart Simpson.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She's a famous scientologist.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And has famously ixnayed several episodes of The Simpsons that had some form of Scientology joke within that she would not participate in because she knew she'd have to go through a hell of a rundown.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. She actually came and spoke at Texas Tech when I was in college in the early 2000s and afterwards she came down to speak to everyone, was very nice, but she had a big fat stack of Scientology pamphlets with her.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What do you mean? Something like this?
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah! You guys can't see at home!
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I have-
BEN KISSEL
That's a huge book.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Feel how heavy this book is.
BEN KISSEL
Jesus!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Seriously feel how heavy this fucking book is. This is the entire Class 5 Scientology handbook I have. And guess what I'm doing today?
BEN KISSEL
You gonna read it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Our precious audience is gonna learn a lot about David Miscavige but I'm going to heal Marcus with scientological acts. Touch this!
BEN KISSEL
Gimme this. Gimme this for one second before we get into this.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Touch this! Look how big this thing is. It is a collection of every single piece of tech that you can get from a Class 5, it's for volunteer ministers.
MARCUS PARKS
Volunteer ministers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which means guess what? Not getting paid.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh great, perfect.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're a volunteer, congrats.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, you're a volunteer who has to pay for the materials that you use to volunteer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. I have the privilege to pay for the material because then I have the privilege to go teach it for free.
BEN KISSEL
This is the most asinine view of drug use I have ever seen.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, they had a whole thing with drugs. There's a section where it shows a guy doing cocaine with a full fountain drink straw which I guess is very hygienic.
BEN KISSEL
I guess so.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, you don't want to get too close to the table.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
Well today David Miscavige is a man with enemies on all sides, desperately trying to deflect questions about the decades-long disappearance of his wife while coming out of hiding only to film commercials showing off his admittedly fantastic new hair plugs.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ooh yeah. He looks like you know those old commercials for batteries that have the plastic people?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah. The Energizer people.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He looks like that. It's very nice.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, they look like that Primus video for somebody's beaver.
MARCUS PARKS
Wynona's Big Brown Beaver. Now despite their shrinking influence, Scientology is still a well funded organization as is evidenced by the two Super Bowl ads they aired just this previous Sunday.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Curious?
BEN KISSEL
Curious?
MARCUS PARKS
That by the way was the 11th consecutive Super Bowl that the church has had enough money to purchase at least one spot.
BEN KISSEL
Now I am going to just do a little bit of pushback. Gutfeld also had two, okay. Kat Timpf, good on ya, Kat. But Gutfeld had two commercials also. They might not be as expensive as they were.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's no way.
MARCUS PARKS
They're like $7 million.
BEN KISSEL
Was it $7 million for those ads?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well it depends on-
MARCUS PARKS
Dude, what the fuck are you talking about? Gutfeld is on fucking FOX News, the Super Bowl was on FOX.
BEN KISSEL
Gutfeld.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they probably cut him a break. And also I believe most spots are between $2 million and $7 million. It depends on where in the game they they air.
BEN KISSEL
It was an interesting smattering of Jesus, Scientology, and Gutfeld.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But the M&M's are back!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah!
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yay! I wanna fuck each one of them in their little mouths.
BEN KISSEL
That's the only place to do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep. Unless you crack open the shell.
BEN KISSEL
No, no, no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that's where their pussies in their dicks are is up inside of them.
BEN KISSEL
Stop it.
MARCUS PARKS
That's true, that's true. I mean I did show you guys that picture of that naked M&M last week and it did have breasts and a vagina.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I remember. Extremely-
MARCUS PARKS
No pubic hair though. Not a single bit of pubic hair on that M&M.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I thought that was brave.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I will say that the M&M did have boobies that we all recognized. You know what I mean?
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Of course. David Miscavige. Here we go.
MARCUS PARKS
Well from what we know, the longer Miscavige is in charge, the more membership numbers crater. He is put simply a weirdo, a manic frat boy bully-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Unbelievable.
MARCUS PARKS
A shark-toothed little boy with ADHD who is both confusing and cruel with his insults and punishments. He's like that kid from that episode of King of the Hill, the dusty old bones full of green dust kid.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
The one that keeps bullying Hank and riding around on his fucking lawn over and over. Dusty old bones full of green dust! That's David Miscavige.
BEN KISSEL
But the thing is it's a really effective way to just devastate the human mind.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Of course! It truly is a scientological trick, like the idea of saying to you a nonsense, calling you a clam and then everyone laughing, right. Everyone like yeah sure, for a clam. And they're like (snobbish laughter).
BEN KISSEL
What does it mean? What do you mean?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's weird. They say a thing to you that makes no sense to you but they're all laughing like you just got burned out of your fucking shoes.
BEN KISSEL
Well them the follow up is how am I a clam? I don't wanna be a clam.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And then you have to move on to unclamming yourself.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Excellent. Shucking.
BEN KISSEL
Shucking.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's called shucking.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Miscavige is the man who introduced physical pain and torture to the world of Scientology, whereas in the days of L. Ron Hubbard, it was more about control and money. Yes, it was predatory, of course it was. But it wasn't that physical.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
LRH, I mean again, truly I'll strip away some of my ironic love of LRH. I do understand he was a difficult man.
MARCUS PARKS
Bad person.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Bad person.
MARCUS PARKS
Piece of shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Bad guy, con man, thief, and all of this shit.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But within him, I do-
BEN KISSEL
Creator of a religion.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Creator of a religion, yeah. But there's a part of me that I know for a fact that yes, LRH liked control. But really what LRH really liked was his uniform and he liked his hat.
MARCUS PARKS
And his corgis.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He loved his corgis, he loved being on his boat, he loved everybody calling him sir even though he was bad at everything.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He loved all the trappings of being the leader. And then he kind of was truly very kind of introspective and thought that oh maybe in some way I believe in all of this that I'm talking about and I can kind of tech my own way out of this, I can figure out how to do this.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But David Miscavige was his violent hand. Dying LRH had violence in his heart and it reached out and it chose David Miscavige and then David Miscavige became the fucking slapping hand of Scientology.
BEN KISSEL
So L. Ron Hubbard is still responsible for his own creation of Scientology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Utterly.
BEN KISSEL
And Miscavige.
MARCUS PARKS
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And say what you will about L. Ron Hubbard but the man certainly had what you'd call an adventurous spirit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I think that's safe to say.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, and an eater's mouth and body.
BEN KISSEL
He did.
MARCUS PARKS
But the difference between Hubbard and Miscavige is that Hubbard is at his core, he's a romantic as Henry was saying, he loves his little boats, he loves the adventure of everything. Miscavige, he doesn't have a fucking ounce of poetry in his soul.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
David Miscavige came into Scientology playing an entirely different game than everyone else. Miscavige was playing the corporate game and he turned Scientology into a reflection of his own character. But really the main question that we're wanting to answer with this series is how does a cult survive the death of its founder? Put another way, it's sort of like a band losing its lead singer. It's like how Joy Division became New Order after Ian Curtis died.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But would you not say that some people like New Order more than Joy Division?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And some people like David Miscavige more than they liked to L. Ron Hubbard.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Interesting.
BEN KISSEL
Some people like Foo Fighters more than Nirvana.
MARCUS PARKS
That's right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who are those people?
BEN KISSEL
A lot of people.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean I like them both but...
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
David Letterman's favorite musician is Warren Zevon followed by Foo Fighters.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he's got his finger on the pulse of everything that's in the now right now. The kids love David Letterman.
BEN KISSEL
They can't get enough.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But just as the tensions that existed in Joy Division became magnified after the death of Ian Curtis until Peter Hook was eventually and wrongfully forced out of New Order-
BEN KISSEL
Does anyone know what he's talking about?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's his agenda.
BEN KISSEL
Does anyone know?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know because I listened to this series. But yes, this is Marcus' agenda.
BEN KISSEL
Okay, okay.
MARCUS PARKS
So too did Scientology take on a different tone after L. Ron was dead. Speaking of a change in tone, when it comes to Scientology defectors there are basically two camps. There are those who say that Scientology always has been and always will be a scam, that's one camp.
BEN KISSEL
True.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But a scam that you like, that's just a game.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Or it's your lifestyle and you like it. But it's still a scam.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's still a scam. You're still paying through the nose to play this game.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
But then there are those who still believe even after they've left the church that Scientology is real, they just believe that Miscavige came in and perverted L. Ron Hubbard's vision.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well it's because they didn't go through the goddamn handbook and don't understand that it's about touching knees. And then I did read a whole thing and I'm gonna do this with you, I want to try this.
BEN KISSEL
Please do, please do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How you can make somebody sober using scientological tactics.
BEN KISSEL
Let's do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All right. Because you showed up hammered, I saw how you drove.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah, I'm absolutely hammered. Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Look at the liquid death. Look at the liquid death.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Look at the liquid death.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Look at the liquid death.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Look at the waterloo. Look at the waterloo.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, you haven't moved. Look at the fucking waterloo!
BEN KISSEL
I'm looking at it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Say yes.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Look at the liquid death.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Are you sober?
BEN KISSEL
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ah, I gotta keep doing it til you're sober. That is literally what you're supposed to do.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Well it definitely could put you in a different kind of mind funk, sort of focus perhaps.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. You could also just lie and say yes, I'm now sober.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I mean that's kind of the game. And then you find out whether or you believe the lie. And guess what? You just got Scientology.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
But no matter their philosophy, the people who have left Scientology over the last few decades have been incredibly vocal and we therefore have an abundance of sources when it comes to figuring out just who David Miscavige is and how Scientology has gotten to the point that it now finds itself in 2023. Most helpful in this have been the books 'Going Clear' by Lawrence Wright, a classic in the cult genre, and 'A Billion Years' by Mike Rinder, the latter of which being the most harrowing because it was written by a former member of Scientology's inner circle.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And also I got some good information from 'Beyond Belief' by Jenna Miscavige who is David Miscavige's niece. And there's a little bit of kind of understanding, a little more context in the two. There's a lot of fucking sources.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It's just interesting to remind ourselves they all have families.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You know? He's just somebody's uncle, somebody's kid.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh no, she just calls him Uncle Dave throughout the whole thing.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like well I can't believe that Uncle Dave would allow me to be doing manual labor in a desert in California. And it's just like I don't think he's Uncle Dave anymore.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
no, he's a screaming psychopath.
MARCUS PARKS
But for the early years of David Miscavige's life, we have no choice but to mostly rely on the words of his father Ron Miscavige, who co-wrote a wobbly takedown of his own son called 'Ruthless'. And that's where we'll begin our journey today.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I still don't like any father who writes a diss book about their children.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I just don't like it when parents take down their kids, even if their kids are horrible.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
You created the motherfucker.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's such an absolute... I'm just gonna go and just whatever, we do believe here in the concept of rehabilitation.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes we do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We do believe at some point you should be able to work yourself out of the sins that you've done in this life so that you could move on and change and grow.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Otherwise why would anyone change and grow if there's no forgiveness?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ever.
BEN KISSEL
There you go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If there's no forgiveness. But Ron Miscavige is a dumb piece of shit.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And if you read this book, right, like 'Ruthless' just sounds like a cut from Grover's Corners. It's just like I'm just a small town scientologist. But it's the way he covers his own son is interesting because he doesn't go whole hog into ripping him to pieces.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
So Ron is a scientologist.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, Ron is what started the whole thing.
BEN KISSEL
Gotcha.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because Ron, all he wanted to do was play the fucking trumpet.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he was from, I'm from Mount Carmel, it's called Mount Carmel.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And the pronunciation is with the car up front, it's not Mount car-MEL, this isn't a town made out of candy. It's called Mount CAR-mel.
BEN KISSEL
CAR-mel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it was a mining town. People were hard workers and most worked in the coal mines. The down was like a little Europe. My family was Polish but there was also Slovaks, Italians, Irish, Germans, truly a potpourri of humanity.
MARCUS PARKS
Ugh.
BEN KISSEL
I'm sure it smelled just like potpourri.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Football was king. People lived and died by the fortunes of the high school team.
BEN KISSEL
That's healthy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If you were on the Mount Carmel football team, you could do no wrong. You could be caught robbing a store.
MARCUS PARKS
What is the point of all this?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And the cop would scold the store for reporting you. Now on Friday nights in the fall-
MARCUS PARKS
What is the point of this?!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The band and the cheerleaders, they marched down 3rd Street from the high school to the stadium and the town turned out to cheer them on and follow it by.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yay. Nothing else to do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And after the game people were heading down to Mattucci's.
MARCUS PARKS
Mattucci's.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a bar and restaurant.
MARCUS PARKS
Mattucci's, was that some sort of Scientology stronghold? Is that why you're reading all of this? Is that why we're going through all this?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, no, no. That's where we got our pretzels. Yeah. But the thing is you remember when you're in this town now next to football, the only the thing that people in Mount Carmel respected was music.
MARCUS PARKS
Was Scientology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, music!
BEN KISSEL
Music.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See if a miner saw a kid who played an instrument being picked on, he'd say hey, lay off that kid, he's a musician.
BEN KISSEL
I think that's a lie by Ron Miscavige because he played music and was picked on and wished that someone would defend him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And what none of you understand was that was life in the coal region. The values I grew up with and what I wanted to instill in my own children. And for three of the four, I think it worked out pretty well.
BEN KISSEL
So the values were-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is word for word.
MARCUS PARKS
Three out of four. Yes. Number four was one of the most dangerous cult leaders-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Of all time.
MARCUS PARKS
Of all time, to ever exist. But three out of the four, they turned out pretty well.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nailed it.
BEN KISSEL
75% of my kids are not hyper dangerous international felons. What do you want me to do, be father of the year?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Me?
BEN KISSEL
Also I don't know what morality tale he was trying to spin because it sounds like they're preying on teenagers trying to live their lives through their eyes once again. And then inevitably the teenagers become the coal miners and then they watch all the other kids play football and then it's a vicious cycle of alcoholism and sadness.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, you mean the American dream.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god.
MARCUS PARKS
David Miscavige was a twin born April 30, 1960.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're both tauruses.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow. Good job.
BEN KISSEL
Moving on.
MARCUS PARKS
He was born to Loretta and Ron Miscavige in the suburbs of New Jersey. Loretta was a recent nursing school graduate and Ron was a marine vet turned cookware salesman. Regular middle class family.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yup.
MARCUS PARKS
But while most people handled the middle class struggle with aplomb, Ron was physically abusive towards his wife on a regular basis. And that comes from Ron.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How dare you say that? That is called aggressive learning that I was taught in the marines.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what he said. He said he ran his family like it was in the marines.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And yes, yes, it might have been harsh at times, sure.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But once you're a marine, you're always marine, especially when you're having sex with your wife.
BEN KISSEL
Well number one, you were in the Navy so we can make fun of you for that. And second of all your wife is a nurse and you sell cookware. So maybe you're not the brains of the operation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'll kill anybody within 5 feet.
BEN KISSEL
Oh you are more violent though, I see.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Ron only partly takes responsibility for his abusive nature as an influence on his son's violent personality. Instead Ron said there must be something in David's DNA that makes him a dominating vindictive psychopath.
BEN KISSEL
Does he not take any responsibility for that?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nope.
MARCUS PARKS
No, absolutely not.
BEN KISSEL
Because he probably should.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's only half of it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, come on man. Three out of the four, totally fine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nailed it.
BEN KISSEL
It's not baseball.
MARCUS PARKS
He's batting 0.75.
BEN KISSEL
I mean that's phenomenal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is.
MARCUS PARKS
But when David Miscavige was a boy, he was mostly defined by his extreme asthma which is what brought the Miscavige family to Scientology. See Ron Miscavige was what you'd call a born sucker.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Me? No. I was a marine until I was... I literally was born a marine.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
He'd gotten pulled into a pyramid scheme called Holiday Magic that sold fruit-scented cosmetics and distributed leaflets that said that Avon salespeople, they're nothing more than goon squads.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man, you know how those Avon salespeople are, they need to be rounded up and put into camps.
BEN KISSEL
So he was even dumber than the Avon people.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well he said it seemed like a no brainer. Some people said it was a pyramid scheme but I just said it was an idea that didn't properly take off.
BEN KISSEL
Holiday Magic?
MARCUS PARKS
It is now taught in criminal justice courses as the most obvious pyramid scheme in modern history.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. I say it's more of a square business.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, wow. Holiday Magic.
MARCUS PARKS
Holiday Magic, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And they sell scented makeup.
MARCUS PARKS
Fruit-scented makeup. Cosmetics.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ugh.
BEN KISSEL
This one makes you smell like a cucumber, Barbara. This is really nice. Oh yeah. Oh you're really on that time of the month, you're gonna want to smell like a pineapple.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh Barbara, I guess you must have used all that makeup that makes you smell like another man's come. Oh, this is amazing. Wow. It's almost like it is come.
BEN KISSEL
That's just the mango.
MARCUS PARKS
But what's interesting about Holiday Magic is that it was founded by the co-owner of a company called Mind Dynamics. Mind Dynamics was an encounter group that was a part of the so-called consciousness transformation movement and their techniques of visualization and meditation have been closely compared to Amway, EST, and of course Scientology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Sweet. My parents did a thing called KM which was a very bad pyramid scheme that were selling nutritious liquid and it tasted very, very bad. And we just had boxes and boxes and boxes of that at our house. My parents even got a license plate that said 'KM's great'.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh god, nutritious liquids?
BEN KISSEL
It was really bad. If anyone knows about KM, reach out. Because it was isolated I think.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It was right in the Midwest, I don't know what the hell it was.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Ron Miscavige got immediately taken in by Holiday Magic's promise of an annual $100,000 return on fruit-scented cosmetics.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You got $100,000 annually.
MARCUS PARKS
Guaranteed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He got that straight pitch.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A woman he met at a gas station said straight up how would you like to make another $100,000 a year? And he's like absolutely, sign me up. Just immediately.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god, what a goober.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well him and three other quote "distributors" formed a quote "corporate team" that regularly hosted quote "opportunity meetings".
BEN KISSEL
No!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's more of a triangle-shaped circumstance.
BEN KISSEL
See this is like we live in the era of influencers and yeah, that can be annoying. But this is the OG influencer.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
This is worse. You actually had to go to their house, eat out of their shitty Tupperware before you realized that you were just in way over your head and about to get scammed. And the only way to get out is to mark a little box in a magazine and say okay, I'll buy it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
My mom was an Avon goon squad member and I remember the piles of Avon sitting at the house. And I remember my mom being like these bitches don't know what looked good. Just immediately she's got all this shit she's gotta move.
BEN KISSEL
It's so much stress they put on their personnel.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I mean Holiday Magic was one of those pyramid schemes that truly was based completely on getting other people to buy into your network.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A no-brainer.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
A no-brainer.
MARCUS PARKS
Well at one of these opportunity meetings in the year 1969, Ron overheard a conversation being had by a fellow distributor named Mike Hess. Hess said that he got involved in Holiday Magic because as a scientologist he believed in experience everything, as all scientologists believed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And by everything he means everything.
BEN KISSEL
Including getting scammed in a pyramid scheme?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
You don't need to experience that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But you need to if you want to be a scientologist.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Well after overhearing this statement, Ron was in a word curious.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Curious?
MARCUS PARKS
Using classic vague cult speak, Mike Hess told Ron that Scientology was about helping people become more able in life.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Don't you want to be morable?
BEN KISSEL
Morable, yes. I do want to be morable.
MARCUS PARKS
Taking it a step further, Mike said that Scientology was more than just a philosophy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's more than just a philosophy, friend.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
What is it?
MARCUS PARKS
It offers practical solutions to real world problems.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's that easy. All you have to do is spend $175 on this 1000 page handbook.
BEN KISSEL
This is a no brainer.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Hess claimed that if Ron became a scientologist, never gonna have to take another aspirin again.
BEN KISSEL
No more aspirin.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Never gonna have to take an aspirin.
MARCUS PARKS
Never take an aspirin again! Never do it!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Real world problems.
BEN KISSEL
That is a no brainer!
MARCUS PARKS
And when Ron said tell me more, Mike said that the next time you get a headache Ron, here's what you're gonna do.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
You're gonna look in the mirror.
BEN KISSEL
Yes?
MARCUS PARKS
And you're gonna give the guy in the mirror your headache.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Give that guy your headache.
BEN KISSEL
That's me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, that's the guy in the mirror. Because it's really about the fact that your thoughts are... Let's put it this way. Let's say, give me your cups. All right, let me give you your many liquors.
BEN KISSEL
Here's my cup.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You got your Whataburger.
BEN KISSEL
You want my Rockstar?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Give me your Rockstar and give me your Liquid Death and your Whataburger in your cup here, all right.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
That's all of it, that's all your liquids.
BEN KISSEL
These are my liquids.
MARCUS PARKS
He just tricked you into giving him all of your liquids.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're mine now. Welcome to Scientology, all your stuff is now mine.
BEN KISSEL
I need my liquids back.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But no, here we go. So your Liquid Death, as always, right.
BEN KISSEL
Yes, my little drink, that's my little water to help the Rockstar go down.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And so what are your feelings about the winners of the Super Bowl? What are your feelings about it?
BEN KISSEL
I'm fine with it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It doesn't matter what the contents are.
BEN KISSEL
Neutral.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And so yeah, I ask you and I fuck with you, right.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Your thoughts are your Rockstar drink.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But guess what the real world is?
BEN KISSEL
Hyper.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Guess what, these are your thoughts here, they're separate from you.
BEN KISSEL
A lot going on.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's you, right. This is you. But your thoughts are over here, that's Rockstar, different liquid. But this separate concoction liquid-
BEN KISSEL
Well those are both of them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which is disgusting but I'm just gonna imagine it's water.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This, that's reality. That's MEST right there.
MARCUS PARKS
We'll get into MEST later.
BEN KISSEL
Okay, well fantastic. So he went to-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Separating.
MARCUS PARKS
Separate.
BEN KISSEL
Decompartmentalization is really what they're saying.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Your logic from your brain.
BEN KISSEL
So you're looking in the mirror, you give the headache to another person. Okay. If you get one of those great Jordan Peele mirrors, perhaps that'll work.
MARCUS PARKS
Perhaps. But Ron said he tried it a few days later and it worked.
BEN KISSEL
It did not work. It did not work, that's placebo.
MARCUS PARKS
No, it worked. He gave his headache to the man in the mirror. And then when he left the mirror, the man in the mirror disappeared and the headache disappeared with it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And meanwhile that man is just like why am I in here with Michael Jackson!?
MARCUS PARKS
And that's all it took to sell Ron on Scientology. That's it.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Done. Well because up to this point he was struggling with David. Because the one thing he said is that when David was born, he said that the toddler was extremely aberrantly strong as a child. He said that David as a toddler was so physically strong he could lift him up to the top of the door frame and then he'd let the toddler grab onto the door frame and he'd let him go and that the toddler could pull himself up doing pull ups on the doorframe with his own hands.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like Hasbulla.
MARCUS PARKS
That's terrifying.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, Hasbulla is an adult.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Same size, right. But then he'd get these asthma attacks and Ron didn't know what to do with these asthma attacks. Besides take him to a doctor and get him an inhaler, right.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is true. He didn't know how to deal with it so he would do stuff like he would spank him.
BEN KISSEL
Good. Smart.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He'd spank David to try to get him to stop doing the asthma attacks and that didn't work. And then he started doing this thing where he'd bundle David up in his arms and take him into a cold shower and do that to get rid of his asthma attacks because he said he was in his mind, Ron thought that the asthma attacks, he thought they were in David's head.
BEN KISSEL
Really smart.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And so then he started a thing where he said well maybe in order to cure him of his asthma attacks, what I've discovered is that every single time he's having one, I tell him to go into the garage and lift weights. And this is completely real.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So that David Miscavige would go out as a little boy, like between 5-9, and just pump iron every single time he felt like he was having an asthma attack.
BEN KISSEL
Okay. Well it might get the blood flowing a little bit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it's also probably why he's only 5'3". It's because he's been jacked since he was 5.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And again, I don't think that normally beats asthma attacks.
MARCUS PARKS
No, I don't think so. I'm not real sure. I don't know. I'm not a pulmonologist.
BEN KISSEL
It might help the heartbeat a little bit, it might offset something. I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel like if I heard someone else do that, technically you have to call the government, right? Like if you heard someone doing that to their child, you have to call CPS.
BEN KISSEL
We're not supposed to lift heavy weights at that age. But you can lift little weights.
MARCUS PARKS
A little bit.
BEN KISSEL
Little playschool weights. You can look little weights, you're not supposed to lift heavy weights at that age.
MARCUS PARKS
Now as I said, Ron Miscavige was a fucking rube. But most people, especially when Scientology was new, they needed a little more convincing to completely give themselves and their entire families over to the philosophy of a ruddy science fiction author of middling success.
BEN KISSEL
Just the smallest amount of more information.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
By word count though he was the most successful writer of all time.
BEN KISSEL
Jeez.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
By amount of words written.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well to get this done, scientologists followed what they called the four step dissemination drill. First, you gotta make contact.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Then after you make contact-
BEN KISSEL
Yes?
MARCUS PARKS
In a very telling directive, the scientologist then had to immediately disarm any antagonism the individual might display towards Scientology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Take it apart.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You don't know anything.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Well this concept is still in full usage today. In a Scientology ad released on November 25, just a couple of months ago, David Miscavige himself appears and says this:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
"Whatever you've heard, if you haven't heard it from us, we're not what you expect."
BEN KISSEL
Whoa. They're different than what I expected.
MARCUS PARKS
Yep, that's their entire thing. Because they know that everybody knows that Scientology is a scam. Everyone knows that. But now what they're doing is they're trying to play these games, these mind games on a massive scale with 'we're not what you expect' and 'curious' both playing at the same time.
BEN KISSEL
And all religions need to be persecuted.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes.
BEN KISSEL
So they're in phase whatever of that as well.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And now you show up and you are... If you are already speaking to a member of Scientology, you are already probably a seeker, right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You already are looking for information.
BEN KISSEL
Of course.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So it's easy to do the next part.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. If you've stopped in your tracks and talked to them, you're halfway there.
BEN KISSEL
Everyone has gone through a moment of low.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure.
BEN KISSEL
And it can last a long time too.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, man. I mean I'll go into Scientology later on but I'm sticking for management. I have to go straight to... I want to jump in like they do with military school.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then you jump into the officer role.
BEN KISSEL
They're just gonna immediately make you the fall guy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that's the problem. But at least I'm not good enough with like Quicken or like kind of financial records, they won't even let me near that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So hopefully... Because that's where they really get you.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean I gotta admit man, when doing research for this I was checking out the Scientology website and they make it look really nice.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's nice.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean that's the thing is that's the word I would choose, just nice. They make it look nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, if you're already a nerd-
BEN KISSEL
It's like Jesus has Chris Pratt and Scientology has Tom Cruise. Who do you want to be? I mean I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know.
BEN KISSEL
Either of those people appeal to different types.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the third step in the dissemination drill is to quote "find the ruin" which is identifying the problem that's most on the mind of the potential recruit. in Ron Miscavige's case, it was his son's asthma problem. To that point, the recruiter then hooks the mark by promising that Scientology is the answer. Now that answer is provided or at the very least dangled by immersing the recruit in the writings of L. Ron Hubbard, whose life is presented as a grand adventure featuring tales of how he healed himself using the techniques that became Scientology's foundational document, dianetics.
BEN KISSEL
Bathe yourself in the words of L. Ron Hubbard.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But first wet yourself on the tongue of L. Ron Hubbard. But no, if you read it, I guess that's what it is. Shane Morton, my mentor and the guy who was the creative director for Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell, he always talks about you never want to get yourself into the rhythm of a cult leader. And that's what it is. The more you read the first 50 pages of the opening spiel of the romance of everyone's favorite turtle lord, you do start to get into the cadence, you get into a rhythm.
BEN KISSEL
Right. That's a great point.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then you get Gloria Estefaned all the way to the hole.
BEN KISSEL
That is a fantastic point though, when you get in that rhythm and that becomes... It was interesting, I was listening to some of these, I don't want to mention it, that Andrew Tate influencer, right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And a lot of his defenders sound just like him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh sure.
BEN KISSEL
Like they have the same cadence.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they're little robots.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It was just very interesting to hear that kind of mimicking of their super god or whatever.
MARCUS PARKS
It's like they say that you're fluent in the language the first time that you dream in that language and it's the same way with the cult leader. Once your thoughts start to mimic the way they speak, then you're fucking done.
BEN KISSEL
Right. You're done.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well recruits are told that Scientology will produce a civilization without insanity, without criminals, and without war, where man can rise to greater heights, attain spiritual freedom, and discover one's own immortality.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Don't you want to live forever?!
BEN KISSEL
Well I mean kind of.
MARCUS PARKS
Additionally recruits are told that Scientology works 100% of the time.
BEN KISSEL
Well that's great.
MARCUS PARKS
But only when it is properly applied by a person who sincerely desires to improve their life. KSW, keep Scientology working.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Think about it. So if it fails, guess what? You failed.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It's also a lot-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The tech doesn't fail, the tech's written down! You see this failure? No! This tech is right here!
BEN KISSEL
It is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's right here in my goddamn hands! It can't fail! It's written right here!
BEN KISSEL
I agree. It's also the same base of thought with Nutrisystem.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're the failure.
BEN KISSEL
You're the failure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're failing Jenny Craig right now.
MARCUS PARKS
Well put another way, recruits are told that Scientology only works if you give yourself over completely and question nothing.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean that's how we got half the employees here.
BEN KISSEL
That's perfect. I don't think that's true.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And honestly I want to thank them.
MARCUS PARKS
And so Ron Miscavige figured that if Scientology could cure his piddling headache that one time, then maybe it could cure his son's extremely serious asthma. Now supposedly a scientologist named Frank did cure a 9 year old David Miscavige's asthma after a single 45 minute long session in Frank's back office.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They just met Frank, right. They just met Frank, Frank was the local scientologist, his other buddy, I guess at Macucci's, whatever the place was called.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, Mattucci's.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ma-coochie's. I'm going down to Macucci's house!
BEN KISSEL
All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But when they met him at Macucci's, he was just like all I do is fix kids. He was like boom, he's like Scientology, zip-zap-zop. We're gonna do this, we're gonna get it done. And then he did probably a touch assist, right.
MARCUS PARKS
Touch assist, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which is legitimately, there's a whole diagram in here how to properly massage illness out of people. And guess what? You do start, and of course you always lay a strange 9 year old boy down on a cot in the back room of your office.
BEN KISSEL
Always.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you always want to needle him from the top of his butt to the top of his head and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth until he doesn't have asthma anymore. Or at least until he says please for the love of god, you old man, please stop touching me.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't have asthma anymore, I'll say whatever it takes to assist you in not touching me.
BEN KISSEL
I think I may have met a Frank or two in my life.
MARCUS PARKS
Well from what Ron Miscavige said, his son never had a serious asthma attack ever again. Now this is of course a lie or it's at the very least a massaging of the truth.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Excellent.
MARCUS PARKS
Because it's important to note that Ron Miscavige remains an ardent believer in Hubbard's vision of Scientology. He's left Scientology but he still believes in Scientology. He believes that his son ruined everything but he still thinks that the tech is 100% real.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. To be fair, it's like when your kid takes over and you're like I know you. You know? So it would be very difficult to just follow your child as he's god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well he just let it all go. But yes, the book has a deeply hard time letting go of LRH at all.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But nevertheless, this supposed curing of his son's asthma was enough to convince Ron and his wife to give their lives over completely to the church. Now at this point in Scientology's existence, 1972, one of the church's main strongholds was Saint Hill in England, which is still owned by Scientology. And Scientology does still consider it a holy site. That's actually one of the holiest sites in Scientology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's probably only two people working there.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But that's it. Like the guy outside keeping people out and then the fucking guy on the inside I guess sweeping for Ron.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well supposedly a chosen wing of Saint Hill was Tom Cruise's lockdown sanctuary during the height of coronavirus.
BEN KISSEL
Very fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah him and David Miscavige used to hang out there measuring to see who's belt buckle was higher than the other.
BEN KISSEL
Oh, isn't that nice? Tom Cruise, taller than David Miscavige perhaps.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what we're saying. Towers over him, man!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Not towers.
MARCUS PARKS
No, not towers.
BEN KISSEL
Not towers.
MARCUS PARKS
No, 3 inches.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
3 inches.
MARCUS PARKS
Cause Tom Cruise is 5'6", right?
BEN KISSEL
I would say 5'5", 5'4".
MARCUS PARKS
5'5", okay.
BEN KISSEL
He wears heels.
MARCUS PARKS
David Miscavige is 5'3".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Between the heights of 4'5"-5'5", one inch is towering. It is. That's how it is. It's small people math.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Saint Hill, this is also where Hubbard did his infamous tomato experiments.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh I remember those.
MARCUS PARKS
In which he audited tomatoes and took readings of their wellbeing using an E-meter. And I want you to keep that in mind here in a bit when we go through auditing. But by 1972, Scientology and scientologists were banned in England. So anyone traveling to Saint Hill had to smuggle their E-meters and their L. Ron Hubbard novels like they were trying to sneak drugs over the border.
BEN KISSEL
This is why you really can't ban things because it makes it too cool.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the idea.
BEN KISSEL
If you gotta go covert with it, it makes the religion stronger.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's contraband now.
BEN KISSEL
It is.
MARCUS PARKS
But despite England's hostility towards their beliefs, Ron Miscavige, looking to rapidly progress his family through the church, he pulled his kids out of school and moved the entire family across the ocean to Saint Hill for 15 months.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just think about that. Think about the fact that he just met a man named Frank who gave his headache to a man in the mirror.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then massaged the butt of his son until he stopped fake sneezing anymore.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And now you're gonna move the entire family to England.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
From Mount Carmel, so that you can have them all directly in the bosom of a brand new religion.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, to England where your religion is illegal.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't it possible that Mount Car-MEL-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How dare you? How dare you? Ah! Ah!
BEN KISSEL
Ron, hear me out. Maybe your town sucks and you want any reason to get out of it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
BEN KISSEL
And you found it with Scientology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No!
BEN KISSEL
And you like to watch the Friday night football games.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He wanted to play his trumpet.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You can do that anywhere.
MARCUS PARKS
But Scientology, remember, I mean Scientology is actually above Synanon when it comes to jazz musicians. Scientology is full of jazz musicians.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Chick Corea.
MARCUS PARKS
Chick Corea was the number one. Chick Corea, yeah. And remember the Scientology jazz record that we played during L. Ron?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
It's surprisingly good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(trumpeting)
BEN KISSEL
But the interesting thing with jazz is it's all about editing.
MARCUS PARKS
What?
BEN KISSEL
But Scientology as it's written, it's not at all edited. It's about the notes you don't play.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're talking about editing in their mind.
MARCUS PARKS
Editing in their mind.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah but sometimes jazz is all about letting go, no edits.
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
Actually most of the time jazz is about letting go. No edits, man.
BEN KISSEL
I know this. I watched the Ken Burns documentary on jazz and it's about the notes you don't play.
MARCUS PARKS
Don't play.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I like it when it's backwards, Zzaj.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Where it's just (honking).
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(honking)
BEN KISSEL
It's the notes you shouldn't play.
MARCUS PARKS
Now at this point, David Miscavige and his twin sister Denise were 12 years old. And within a year of arriving at Saint Hill, both of them were auditors, the youngest auditors in Scientology history.
BEN KISSEL
Nope.
MARCUS PARKS
Now for those of you who don't know, let's briefly go through what auditing entails, what it is. Just so you can decide for yourself whether or not a 13 year old is up to this task.
BEN KISSEL
I can't even imagine sitting down as an adult male across from a 13 year old.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Across from a 13 year old? The cruel incisive nature of a child.
BEN KISSEL
Oh, they're so brutal. So brutal.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the theory of auditing is that it locates and discharges mental masses that are blocking the free flow of good energy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you for finally putting it in a way that makes sense.
MARCUS PARKS
But according to Hubbard, ideas and fantasies have physical weight and solidity.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I hope not.
MARCUS PARKS
And they root themselves in the mind as phobias and obsessions. Your fears, your obsessions-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah?
MARCUS PARKS
Those have weight, those are physical. They're in there, bro.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But remember they're separate, right. Cause you're your Liquid Death, right.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Your fears and your obsessions are the Rockstar, right. But we gotta get rid of the Rockstar because what's that doing? It's poisoning your Whataburger water.
BEN KISSEL
Okay, got it.
MARCUS PARKS
By talking through these fears-
BEN KISSEL
For those that don't know, I'm drinking out of a Whataburger mug.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's a Whataburger style mug. We're not in Texas right now. By talking through these fears and obsessions in an auditing session with a trained scientological auditor to guide you, these mental masses are broken up and purged. It's like clearing out a drain.
BEN KISSEL
Got you. I mean you do feel weight when you're depressed or anxious, it does feel like a weight.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. A weight is lifted off my chest, a weight is lifted off my shoulders.
BEN KISSEL
Yes, okay. I understand.
MARCUS PARKS
These are things that we're used to hearing. That is the thing about Scientology, it takes that little thing that you do have some relation to and it blows it out into something huge.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But there's certain things, right, because most human beings immediately feel better when you sit and talk about yourself for a while.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So that's one thing, kind of like how they say yes, you're addicted to the nicotine with cigarettes, but the relaxation part of it is the act of taking a deep breath which is what we don't do as often in American society.
BEN KISSEL
And now Marcus can't breathe.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And now he can't breathe!
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Isn't that the ultimate curse?
MARCUS PARKS
For unrelated reasons, but I can't breathe, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But what they do is they put the cans in your hand of the E-meter and then it jumps back and forth. And then what they do is infer meanings to the jumps in the E-meter from the words that you say.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But even the E-meter's technology means nothing.
MARCUS PARKS
Well that's the thing.
BEN KISSEL
I'll just go with the tarot cards.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I like tarot cards better.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's is! It's cause the E-meter stuff was invented by a guy named Volney Mathison that L. Ron took it from.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And again it's just charges, it just bounces.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the E-meter is how they sell Scientology as science.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
The E-meter, it's a little machine that measures those negative mental masses that I was talking about.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I have one headed to my house.
MARCUS PARKS
An E-meter, really?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh we're getting this whole fucking ship in line, my friend.
BEN KISSEL
Fantastic.
MARCUS PARKS
These masses are detected by little sticks held by the auditee. The auditee by the way is called a preclear.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Get that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I got it. Preclear. The pre come of scientologists.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, correct. It can still get you pregnant.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS
If the needle moves to the right while the preclear is holding the sticks, the resistance is rising which is bad. But if it moves to the left, the resistance is falling which is good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Star Wars.
MARCUS PARKS
This is what the scientologists who haunted the train station at 42nd & 8th in Manhattan, that's what they were trying to get you to sit down and do, that whole free personality test thing? They wanted you to sit down, hold the sticks, the needle goes all over the place and they say whoa buddy, you need to come in for some more auditing.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I'm in a New York City subway station, I'm a little fucking stressed. Sorry.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What they have a personality test where they say a bunch of things to you and they watch the E-meter. And so let's say you're talking about whatever, blah blah blah, and then on the word 'broom' the E-meter jumps and they're like what's with brooms? What's with brooms?
BEN KISSEL
Man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's like that is the thing, what is it about brooms that you don't like? What is it about brooms that you are being affected by?
BEN KISSEL
I mean honestly that does make me think of the old wives tale that people used to jump off the refrigerator with a broomstick in their ass and then they would die.
MARCUS PARKS
What?
BEN KISSEL
Do you remember that?
MARCUS PARKS
What the fuck are you talking about?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I have no fucking clue.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know, maybe it was a Stevens Point, Wisconsin story.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is a story that did happen, this did happen to somebody, we covered it on Roundtable of Gentlemen.
BEN KISSEL
No, it never happened.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah but it's not an old wives tale.
BEN KISSEL
I don't think it ever actually happened. It was when I was a child. I think it was homophobic.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Jump off fridge with broom up ass. This is gonna be great.
BEN KISSEL
In buttocks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Broom death, this is from Snopes. Did a co-ed die? It says here it's a legend according to Snopes. Co-ed fatally skewers herself while masturbating with a broom handle.
BEN KISSEL
It went all the way to Snopes! It's a legend, it's a wives tale.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is. Honestly it is like Paul Bunyan.
BEN KISSEL
It is!
MARCUS PARKS
Well that's the thing, if the preclear gives an answer during auditing that makes the needle jump to the right, then the subject of that answer becomes an area of concentration. Like Henry said, you say broom, it jumps, oh let's concentrate on brooms. The thing is about that is that the auditor is just going to hammer away at the subject until they find something because you can keep playing word association until you find a bad feeling.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
But then the auditor keeps hammering until they're satisfied that they've drained the preclear of the troubling experience or feeling. Basically you talk about it until you feel better again.
BEN KISSEL
All right, I admit it. I indeed have not seen a broomstick I have not shoved up my ass. Yes indeed. I enjoy it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Good, good. All clear.
MARCUS PARKS
This is also where overts and withholds come into play. We're going to get into a little bit more terminology here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God, just keep your fucking hats on. Most of these books come with a glossary that we should put out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We should put out one of our glossaries so that people can get more scientological terms in their heads.
MARCUS PARKS
We've had our team build a pretty goddamn good glossary for us over the course of this series.
BEN KISSEL
But isn't that also a component of the search and the fun aspect of it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure.
BEN KISSEL
Right? Because you go ooh, what's that word mean? And then you look it up and you're all in.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're talking about? You're talking about the ultimate torture of scientologists which is about the misuse of words.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And how that is a... MU is one of the worst things that you can do in Scientology.
BEN KISSEL
MU.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you are supposed to travel everywhere with a dictionary in your pocket.
BEN KISSEL
Wow, a misuse. That's an MU?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's misdoing a word, missaying a word, misunderstanding a word.
MARCUS PARKS
When something bad is happening in a preclear's life, then it was because they've done something bad that does the least good for the least number of people or the most harm to the greatest number of people. They have committed an overt.
BEN KISSEL
Well they actually get a third heart like Dick Cheney. But that's okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But if they didn't admit to the overt immediately, they were then committing a withhold which is keeping a secret. And that withhold combined with the overt, that's what's causing your unhappiness.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Not your body, not the way that you eat or all the things that you've done.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're a clam and you made clam problems back when you were a clam. And now you're suffering from your clam problems.
BEN KISSEL
All right. So it's because they did something wrong, they're not acknowledging it and they're not doing anything to fix it. So they're upset.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You see again, this is base level before we understand it's not even you, it's your thetans inside inside of you and eventually have to figure out how to talk to your thetans and release those overts and withholds from your thetans inside of you.
BEN KISSEL
Well I'm actually gonna go catch my train. It's been great to be here, I'm happy I stopped for the free cookie at the subway.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're stressed! You're stressed!
BEN KISSEL
I am stressed, I am stressed. I've got to get to fucking 54th Street and I've got to fight an entire mob of Santa Clauses because it's SantaCon.
MARCUS PARKS
Well in Hubbard's view, overts and withholds were the sole reason for all bad conditions and experiences, so constantly purging oneself of all overts and withholds was a necessary part of the auditing process. This of course is how Scientology collects blackmail.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because you say all of this shit and you don't understand that it's kept in your KR until you start going into the OT. And then all of the shit you said before comes up again and you gotta re-release it all again.
BEN KISSEL
And can you explain what KR is?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We'll get into it.
BEN KISSEL
Fantastic.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Basically it's just every secret you tell them goes into a file and they keep it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Your ethics file, your case.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the ultimate goal of auditing is to emancipate the scientologist from the laws of matter, energy, space, and time, MEST. He said MEST before, that's what MEST is.
BEN KISSEL
That's a lot to emancipate a person from.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. Cause they're pretty persistent.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, the whole biological thing.
MARCUS PARKS
And if you're still all fucked up with your MEST then you're preclear. But if through auditing you cleanse yourself of your MEST, your obsessions, your fears, your irrational urges, you will then and only then become clear. That's what going clear means.
BEN KISSEL
I guess if it ended there, I'd be like all right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well that's what dianetics was when we covered that in the LRH series, dianetics was getting you clear and then released. But then LRH understood I need to bring them back.
BEN KISSEL
I need that money.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How do I keep them back in?
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then what you do is you turn it into a spirituality, you create the idea of thetans, and then OT once you get past clear, the OT levels are all about doing all of these same processes but with the little ghosts that live inside of you.
BEN KISSEL
Right. Because really it's just got a little props but it's just the same as Catholicism or-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You mean made up? Like completely totally just fictional and that certain things have a placebo-like effect.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But then the rest of it is just absolute arcane garbage and then fucking like full punishments systems? Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Well it does help when you did something wrong and you want to talk to somebody about it and all those things. But then Catholicism is like and now you gotta go down this road. Evangelicalism takes you down the whatever path.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure.
BEN KISSEL
And then here they just want to sell you more books and stuff.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they were excited.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean the difference is that you could technically be a Catholic and never pay a dime your entire life and you still get the Catholic experience.
BEN KISSEL
No, you gotta pay.
MARCUS PARKS
You don't have to, no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the thing about Catholicism, it's true.
BEN KISSEL
Buddy, I'm telling you. It's like when you go into one of those restaurants where it's like it's free, donation only. You don't tip and you get a sandwich? My friend, people are gonna judge you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Catholics don't really want you.
MARCUS PARKS
They're gonna judge you but you can still do it for free.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
You could still do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Truthfully, Catholics don't want you. They don't really want you.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Capital 'C' Christians want you but Catholics think that none of you are good enough.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The only people who are good enough are the pedophiles we put superhero uniforms on.
BEN KISSEL
There you go, really powerful, really powerful. Evangelicals, you better fucking tip.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. You better. But as far as David Miscavige's wunderkind status in Scientology went, he was made an auditor at 13.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
All that shit that we just talked about, he was 13 years old with all that power in his hands. And he was clear by the age of 15.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And even though there was a lot of people trying to stop him from being clear, there were several people saying his reports are actually coming back like highly disturbed and they're all like... One guy actually wanted to straight up blow him, they wanted to get rid of him.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. We're gonna get to that here in a second, we're gonna get into that full story. But this served to instill in David the idea that he was an incredibly special person in an incredibly special group. But David also had obvious emotional problems.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What are you talking about?! It's unbelievable!
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, he seems so calm and put together.
MARCUS PARKS
According to one former scientologist named Ervin Scott who was tasked with watching over David when David was a young teenager, David apparently had episodes caused by what they called asthmatic seizures. Which if true means that David Miscavige had both asthma and epilepsy. Seems though this probably isn't true.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
From what it sounds like, David Miscavige may have simply been emotionally disturbed and violent from a fairly young age.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Every time I saw the word asthmatic seizure, I now understood they meant weird temper tantrum.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. Ervin Scott was told that when David had an episode, do not touch him because David gets very violent and beats the hell out of you if you do touch him.
BEN KISSEL
Oh that's healthy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was like this out the pussy.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was slapping and hitting and was a little... I don't know, he was a tyrant.
MARCUS PARKS
A goblin.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was a Tasmanian devil.
MARCUS PARKS
He's a fucking goblin.
BEN KISSEL
yeah. Well I feel bad for that little twin in there that had to share the womb.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You just get used to it though. You just get used to it.
MARCUS PARKS
Scott also remembered that when he was watching over David, he saw the kid take off his shirt in preparation for a shower. He said that David was so bizarrely and disturbingly buff that he looked like a 13 year old Arnold Schwarzenegger.
BEN KISSEL
I can see it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was like a cut child.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And it's disturbing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's weird!
MARCUS PARKS
A cut 5'2" child?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, little Hercules.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Remember that kid?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah!
BEN KISSEL
He was full of drugs.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I remember him!
BEN KISSEL
It was very creepy, he's devastated now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Ervin Scott was one of the first people to notice that there was something wrong with young David Miscavige. Despite being held up as an expert auditor at 13, David didn't seem to know how to audit and even said that auditing was for weaklings because he was already clear from a past life.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He understood the game immediately.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But he's just like you see I have visions of a past life, just like LRH did. LRH traversed the band, remember when he went through the radiation belt around the moon?
BEN KISSEL
Of course.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He sent his mind there, he sent his mind into the past. He immediately was just saying that stuff as a 15 year old.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's like well actually I looked into my past and I've been clear.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they're like that's incredible.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This kid's amazing.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he's a brilliant little sociopath.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But Ervin Scott, he wasn't buying it. He filed what's known as a knowledge report against David.
BEN KISSEL
Uh oh.
MARCUS PARKS
But it seems like someone had a vested interest in David's advancement, sounds like they needed a wunderkind. Apparently the Scientology magazine was writing an article about the youngest auditor in history, little Davey Miscavige. And Scott was simply complicating matters.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, he was getting in the way of history, my friend.
BEN KISSEL
Uh oh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's kind of like how Lebron James was picked-
BEN KISSEL
Touted very young.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
At like 15 years old, he's going to be the king of sports. They did it with David Miscavige where they were like he is the guy. And it's weird because you had a bunch of other guys that were very much sure they were the guy.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then all of a sudden a 15 year old shows up and he's terrifying everybody into believing him.
BEN KISSEL
Well Lebron made them pick him because he was the best, he was the best basketball player of all the eras he played in.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, different.
BEN KISSEL
But I wonder if Miscavige truly was the best. Was he the best at playing the game in Scientology?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think so.
MARCUS PARKS
What I see it as is that instead of somebody like... I don't think he was kind of anointed, I think he was picked as a guy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I think it was like okay, we need a wunderkind, we need some sort of prodigy here. That kid seems like he knows what's going on, he knows the lingo, he knows how to walk the walk. So let's bring him up and see what he does. And they didn't realize that they had picked a monster.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well because also all of the rest of his brothers and sisters got moved to go to do full on, full time Scientology instructions, right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
To go through into a full Scientology school. The rest of them are like I wish I was in school, I don't want to be here.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And David just jumped in.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He just got it from the second that he arrived at Saint Hill.
MARCUS PARKS
Nevertheless, Ervin Scott continued filing knowledge reports on David Miscavige to the ethics office because he was also a strangely misogynistic little boy.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Where he'd say like goddamn, these goddamn broads, they don't belong in Sea Org.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They don't know how to audit! These slits don't know how to break me down!
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was intense. I remember he said that one of the shocking things, one of the things they do in Scientology is that they teach you a lesson and then they do it super abstract where they're like now build the lesson that we just taught you but represent it in play. So you go and you take all the things you just learned and you're supposed to make all these... And then they watched David as a 15 year old walk down and just go flunk, flunk, flunk, just flunking a whole table of adults that are sitting there making clay figurines, trying to represent the fake shit that they all just got caught. And then he understood I just fucking put all of these people in their place and everybody loves me for it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. Well maybe they weren't making the best clay products, were they?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They obviously sucked.
BEN KISSEL
They really may have.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're being suppressive.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
That's the thing, when Ervin Scott was called into the ethics office to discuss all of these knowledge reports, he thought finally, finally I got through to somebody, they brought him in and said you sir, you're enturbulating David Miscavige.
BEN KISSEL
You're enturbulating!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Enturbulating!
BEN KISSEL
I'm enturbulating?!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're enturbulating.
BEN KISSEL
I don't even know what that means but I don't even understand how I could be enturbulating!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You better pull out your dictionary and find out.
BEN KISSEL
Oh man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But guess what? If you went in there, guess what you wouldn't find? Enturbulating.
BEN KISSEL
It's a new word?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
BEN KISSEL
Oh wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just made it up.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. L. Ron Hubbard created the word 'enturbulating'. It means to upset someone, to impede someone.
BEN KISSEL
I mean I love the word to be honest, I do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We talk about it, we love it.
BEN KISSEL
Enturbulating is a great word. You're enturbulating me and I'm not gonna sit here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm not gonna sit here and take that enturbulation from you.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's incredible.
BEN KISSEL
We can add it. Words are all made up.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, of course.
BEN KISSEL
Enturbulation, we'll take it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But instead of backing down, Scott, he stood by his guns. He said this kid is an SP, a suppressive person.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
MARCUS PARKS
It's the worst thing that a scientologist can call another scientologist. They don't use that word lightly, especially not in 1976.
BEN KISSEL
Wow, it sounds like he's really enturbululating.
MARCUS PARKS
Well they said that David Miscavige was actually outside listening to Ervin Scott.
BEN KISSEL
Oh I'm sure he was.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Guarantee it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Curious?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah. But when he used the word SP, David Miscavige was smart enough to know I gotta back off from this guy. I've got to put as much distance between me and this guy as I possibly can.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
At 15.
MARCUS PARKS
At 15.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
And so David Miscavige just disengaged and kept climbing up the Scientology ladder, unenturbulated.
BEN KISSEL
It's a smart decision.
MARCUS PARKS
By 16, David was done with secular life. He announced that he wanted to devote his life to L. Ron Hubbard, technically makes David Miscavige a high school dropout.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Most of them were, most of the heads of Scientology were high school dropouts because they didn't believe in high school.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Well I mean so was Kanye and he's fine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Self educated.
MARCUS PARKS
But as far as David was concerned, he was on to greater things because in 1976 he joined Sea Org.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honk honk! Come on boys, we're going to shore!
BEN KISSEL
There it is. Also I believe college dropout was the reference that I was trying to make.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you.
BEN KISSEL
Thank you. But now he's in Sea Org.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Basically Sea Org is like the Vatican of Scientology.
BEN KISSEL
Sweet.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's where the highest ranking members serve and that's where they make the decisions that affect every scientologist. It's also where they make the decisions that affect non scientologists.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's also changed over the years because some people... It used to be the elite and then it turned into those that worked the hardest to turn into our free labor world. And then that got bumped down to the RPF. So then Sea Org became like... It's strange because they both are the most slave-like members of Scientology but they're both like the lowest class and the highest class all in one.
MARCUS PARKS
Well it's basically Sea Org where Scientology truly becomes a cult.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's where the billion year contract is.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. All the fucking scientologists that are coming in and out of celebrity centers here in LA that are paying their money to get preclear, they don't even know they're not even a part of Scientology, not really. They're just fucking... They have subscriptions.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you're butts in seats.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But the people in Sea Org, they're in a cult.
BEN KISSEL
What's an RPF?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Don't even bother with this raw meat over here.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god. You're you're being inbustuous? What was it called?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Inbustuous, he can say that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're being goddamn inbustuous.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now Sea Org, it's a naval-
BEN KISSEL
No answer. No answer?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We'll see, we'll find out if he finds out.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god. Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Sea Org, they are a naval organization. But not everything in Sea Org necessarily has to take place on a boat, although boating is certainly a part of Sea Org.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Boating lifestyle. Because once the boat became permanently, I'm not gonna say grounded, I'm gonna say-
MARCUS PARKS
Docked.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Docked. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the boat used to be called Flag, right. Then it got parked in front of the Clearwater organization building which is now Flag.
MARCUS PARKS
In Florida.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They parked it there, so that's there. And then they can't move it anymore because they don't have enough people man it anymore because it's a giant, massive, super yacht, right.
BEN KISSEL
It's a big boat. Yeah. So Sea Org is a frame of mind much like-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's about hats.
BEN KISSEL
Margaritaville isn't a place, it's an idea.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, it's a thought virus.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Now once David Miscavige dropped out of high school, he was sent to Clearwater, Florida, the global headquarters of Scientology.
BEN KISSEL
Yay.
MARCUS PARKS
One of the most bizarre places I've ever been in my life.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're welcome.
MARCUS PARKS
When you go to the Scientology headquarters, you know when you feel a building is empty?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
You feel like the headquarters are completely empty. You feel like everyone that's on the property is outside watching everybody that's looking at the headquarters from across the street.
BEN KISSEL
Weird.
MARCUS PARKS
And they follow you to your car.
BEN KISSEL
Oh nice. Well that's nice to get that kind of courtesy walk.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
On the channel 'Growing Up In Scientology' I learned a lot about how a lot of these centers now truly probably have like two or three people working in them.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
There in Clearwater, David was named a member of the Commodore's Messenger Organization, the CMO.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Which is a bizarre paramilitary wing of Sea Org that was at this point made up of terrifying children.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Children army?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because LRH Understood that the kids are the future.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you gotta indoctrinate them while they're children to get them in. And yes was a lot of the commodore's messengers little girls putting clothes onto LRH Because he didn't have the proper dexterity of his fingers anymore because he was dying of various...
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think he had the most advanced case of gout that anyone's ever had. He had phantom toes. He did not know where his fingers were. So he'd have them dress him and stuff like that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But he wasn't a squeezer. I don't think he did any lick or touch at all.
MARCUS PARKS
No, I don't think so.
BEN KISSEL
Not from our episodes anyway.
MARCUS PARKS
No, not that anyone could tell.
BEN KISSEL
Okay, well that's a benefit. That is good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
BEN KISSEL
There you go.
MARCUS PARKS
Well I mean L. Ron, he said very explicitly with the Commodore's Messenger Organization, he was very inspired by Hitler.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let's just try to... All I'm saying is why don't we separate the art from the artist?
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And yes, time has not been positive to Hitler, yes.
BEN KISSEL
Well does Hugo Boss, does the clothes have a political affiliation? Does a Mercedes have a political affiliation? We'll take the style, not the substance.
MARCUS PARKS
That's right, yeah. L. Ron Hubbard did say like Hitler was a madman but-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was a madman but every time a madman has a dream, half of it's great.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And he said the Hitler Youth was the best idea that Hitler ever came up with because you have a blank slate on which you can write anything.
BEN KISSEL
Well truly they were all part of it too, you were just shoved right in there.
MARCUS PARKS
So after a year in Clearwater, David Miscavige transferred to a Scientology base in La Quinta, California called Cine Org which is where L. Ron Hubbard himself was hiding in the last stages of his life, trying to make movies.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, the Golden Era production studios.
BEN KISSEL
Interesting.
MARCUS PARKS
There were about 70 people on the La Quinta base but everyone there was working towards making movies under LRH's direction. Quite quickly, David Miscavige rose to the rank of chief cinematographer.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
And by 18 Miscavige was sitting at the right hand of his religion's founder.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And sometimes it's about physical distance. Because if you want to get someplace-
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Talk about like one thing people are missing, you gotta jump in when these decisions are being made. If you're looking to take over whatever crooked organization that you're in right now and you want to be number one and you're sick of being number eight, what you gotta do is find out where number one eats lunch or what number one likes to do as a hobby and then you just keep being there with number one.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because eventually what happens with the number one, they get dementia, the police are coming to arrest them, all this stuff is happening.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're under all this pressure. Eventually they get arrested. If you're just standing in the room, sometimes you can become number two just because it's like you're in charge now!
BEN KISSEL
All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just pick up the phone when I call from jail!
BEN KISSEL
Yep. Don't expect many things going in your favor if you're not in the room. If you're not with the decision makers, they don't care about you.
MARCUS PARKS
Sometimes all it really takes is just you saying all right, you're the first one to say that, after everything falls apart you're the first one to say all right, here's what we're gonna do. And then all of a sudden you're in charge of Scientology for the next 40 years.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, seriously.
MARCUS PARKS
But working right underneath David Miscavige at Cine Org was one of the men who would eventually be in David's inner circle and would also later become Scientology's most high profile defector. This was where David Miscavige met Mike Rinder.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Boo.
BEN KISSEL
You're gonna boo Mike? I like Mike Rinder.
MARCUS PARKS
Mike Rinder, he's another one of those guys.
BEN KISSEL
Good guy?
MARCUS PARKS
He's tried, he's come out, he's done horrible things but we must forgive when someone is trying to make amends.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I agree, I agree.
BEN KISSEL
Is he the guy from My Scientology Movie?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
The bald dude who does all the reenactments? Is it that guy?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
You might be thinking of Bunyan?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I forget that guy's name.
BEN KISSEL
Bunyan.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Paul Runyan. I know who you're saying, I know who you're talking about.
MARCUS PARKS
Marty Bunyan?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Marty Ginetti?
MARCUS PARKS
Marty Rathbun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Marty Rathbun. Yes, Marty Rathbun.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See, that's all it takes is a little bit of work. But Mike Rinder is this guy who's with Leah Remini.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Got you, got you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He thought he could dare replace Kevin James.
BEN KISSEL
I don't think so, sir. Not my King of Queens.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Mike Rinder's parents were early adopters of Scientology, they joined in 1959 in Australia through a neighbor who regularly drove the 500 miles from Adelaide to Melbourne to hear dianetics lectures from Hubbard himself. Mike was just 5 years old when his parents joined. But by the time he was 6, he was already being dropped off at the local Scientology center for indoctrination seminars called children's communication courses.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
At least they got to go to school. The other kids in the United States had to be put on the ranch, which was the Scientology's version of the troubled teen industry where they just had to pull weeds because LRH said it gets you closer to MEST.
MARCUS PARKS
Ugh.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Well here at these children's communications courses, children were taught a drill called bullbaiting which is somewhat similar to the game that we discussed in our Synanon episode. Bullbaiting was meant to help auditors control their reactions to anything that might be said in counseling sessions if a conflict were to break out. That conflict by the way, that's called a firefight in the Scientology terminology.
BEN KISSEL
That's kinda fun.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, firefight. And additionally, bullbaiting also trained kids and adults to rid themselves of any impulse to flinch in the face of intimidation out in the real world because as scientologists they were going to be met with resistance.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. And it's about being emotionless. They want you to be able to control your reactions and invariably not question things that you were taught.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Kids would be verbally and sometimes physically assaulted until quote "the button was flat". That means that the student no longer reacted in any way to the coach's provocation. You gotta keep pressing the button, pressing the button, pressing the button until the button disappears.
BEN KISSEL
My god, that used to happen with the old Nintendo, the old Nintendo button.
MARCUS PARKS
Press it too much-
BEN KISSEL
It'd get stuck there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
The SEGA button. That would also get stuck.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But that's not what you were trying for because that ended your afternoon.
BEN KISSEL
Yep. That wasn't good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You wanted the button to be up.
BEN KISSEL
You wanna stick the button though and then it's all done.
MARCUS PARKS
Well in Rinder's reading, bullbaiting mostly served to habituate children to future verbal and physical abuse. You can be screamed at and screamed at and screamed at and you're not going to react.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Now like England, Australia also outlawed Scientology in the mid 60s, saying that it was a delusional belief system based on fictions and fallacies propagated by falsehood and deception.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nice. Even though they put their whole PSYOP about watching out for drop bears. Australia's always lying.
BEN KISSEL
Koala bears, government again against the banning.
MARCUS PARKS
But as it often goes in situations like this, the perceived persecution made families like Mike Rinder's believe that they were doing something important.
BEN KISSEL
Exactly.
MARCUS PARKS
Ie if they're telling me I'm wrong, I must be right because I've been told that I'm gonna be told that I'm wrong. So I'm right, Hubbard's right, my auditor is right, and this is indeed a fallen world.
BEN KISSEL
I mean they are correct. Again, biggest mistake they made was banning this damn thought process.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah but also we didn't ban it and this is where the stronghold is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
This is why we're doing an episode on it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah exactly.
BEN KISSEL
Literally it's also been shat on all over the place in America.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. It does not have the same cache but it's what you do, it's kind of... They talk about it with evangelism in Christianity too where if you go and you're taught that what you do is special.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that other people are going to have an adverse reaction because they're not ready to hear about it, they're not ready for it.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, of course.
MARCUS PARKS
Or they are an enemy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're an enemy. And then you go and you try to bring somebody in and they do have a weird reaction to it and then yes, you do then feel isolated. But then when you go back to your home group, they all are super happy to see you and it helps double you down inside of the organization as well.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Same thing with all the words, all the verbiage, you eventually get so drowning in it, you get so covered in all of the terms that you start to sound like a crazy person when you talk.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. You can't communicate with anyone else.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it makes you more isolated.
BEN KISSEL
You do get some people.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure.
BEN KISSEL
And then that's just called a friend group. How many people do you really need to know?
MARCUS PARKS
And so the Rinders kept giving money to the church and they kept raising their kids as scientologists. And once Mike was old enough, he too joined Sea Org and found himself working under David Miscavige at Cine Org making Hubbard movies.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was all instructional videos.
BEN KISSEL
I would rather work on Rust.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yes.
BEN KISSEL
I literally would rather work on it now. I cannot imagine just L. Ron Hubbard-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If I showed up to set on Rust, I would show up with a fucking bulletproof vest and be like fuck all of you, we're doing this bit until this movie stops being made.
MARCUS PARKS
Now from what Rinder remembers, Miscavige was a brash and flexible, vindictive, aggressively competitive bully who berated his subordinates, Rinder included. But Miscavige was also already designated as a so-called rocket within the church, meaning that he'd been tapped as a special person destined for great things.
BEN KISSEL
Wow. So this was just right out of the gates this guy was supposed to be the man.
MARCUS PARKS
However David almost fucked up his entire trajectory when he decided to lighten the mood around Cine Org by filming a skit to give to LRH.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We don't know, we can't find out what the skit was. We don't know what it is. I looked it up.
MARCUS PARKS
We have no idea.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
We tried finding out.
BEN KISSEL
Really?
MARCUS PARKS
Nobody has said what the skit is. Because I mean at this point L. Ron, he was reaching the end of his life, things weren't going particularly well. The mood surrounding him was pretty dark in the late 70s and early 80s.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was dark.
BEN KISSEL
Little dour, I could see that.
MARCUS PARKS
So David Miscavige, this weird little psychopath, thinks it's time for some skits and bits.
BEN KISSEL
Dude I have to fucking know what this skit was.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I wish I could find it. I couldn't find it anywhere.
BEN KISSEL
Oh man.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. We have no clue what it was.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
LRH didn't like it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
So he didn't like it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I assume it must have involved some form of impression.
MARCUS PARKS
And maybe a little bit of a roast.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah because LRH did not react in a way that he thought that he would.
BEN KISSEL
Oh man.
MARCUS PARKS
He demanded to know the names of the people involved.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who did this?! I don't talk like that.
BEN KISSEL
Oh man. So literally it almost got derailed by a bad comedy sketch?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
As it always does.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god.
MARCUS PARKS
The only way that Miscavige was able to get his ass out of the ringer was to completely renovate one of LRH's houses. He had to rid every single bit of fiberglass in the entire structure because LRH claimed to be allergic to fiberglass. But that got him back in.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's his love language is acts of service.
BEN KISSEL
Wow. I mean when we do something bad bit you just gotta move on.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You just move on.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
He had to do a whole renovation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
This apparently ingratiated Miscavige to LRH considerably because in 1980 when LRH finished his most famous novel 'Battlefield Earth'-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Leverage.
BEN KISSEL
It's all about leverage.
MARCUS PARKS
Miscavige was heavily involved in the process of adapting the novel to film.
BEN KISSEL
You know what? L. Ron should have realized film is not his strong suit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
Well today we know 'Battlefield Earth' is one of the worst movies ever made, John Travolta's biggest misstep. But what's lesser known is that John Travolta has actually been attached to this project since 1980.
BEN KISSEL
Wow, that's amazing. And you go back and you do watch it with friends. It's kind of fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. I think that again, John Travolta, when he was in that Fred Durst movie where he played a-
BEN KISSEL
Oh that was horrible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But the choices that he makes as an actor in both films excite me.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's the same thing with Tom Hanks and the Elvis movie, everyone disliked it. But I was still like I can't believe they're letting him fucking do this.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's power is that you get to just suck out loud and everyone's like Tom, incredible. Like every day, wow, great work.
BEN KISSEL
Fascinating.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
John, incredible.
MARCUS PARKS
Now concerning Travolta's introduction to Scientology, Hubbard knew as far back as 1954 that the best way to promote Scientology was to court celebrities. As early as 1955 the Scientology publication 'Ability' published a list of potential celebrity recruits for members to go after.
BEN KISSEL
Ooh who?
MARCUS PARKS
Interestingly this list included both Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Two men who in the years since have been revealed as believers in the alien phenomenon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Isn't that weird? Because Jackie Gleason said that him and Nixon went to an undisclosed location, looked at an alien body together.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That must have been real smoky and farty and full of whiskey.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. Especially because you probably couldn't see, there was so much smoke you can't see what's in there.
BEN KISSEL
No. That looks like a cigar UFO. You're smoking a cigar.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, my eyes are too low.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But when recruiting established celebrities, when that didn't really work out, nobody was recruited-
BEN KISSEL
Not initially, huh?
MARCUS PARKS
Not initially. Scientologists tried a different tack. We gotta catch them on the way up.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I remember the Scientology party I once went to and it was a group of people getting a lot of work.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You had so many fucking chances!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know, I was right there!
BEN KISSEL
Yep. You gotta open that mouth. What's the difference between a cock and a hot dog? Nothing. What's the difference between being a scientologist and satanist? Nothing. You know what the difference is?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love this Frank guy. Frank, you're one of the best salesman I've ever met about what to do with my mouth.
BEN KISSEL
The difference is a fucking film career is what the difference is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, tell me, there's a lot of dicks I probably should have sucked and we wouldn't be in this room.
MARCUS PARKS
We wouldn't be.
BEN KISSEL
I got something, it's called a toothpaste, it's called toothbrush. Use it and you got yourself a fucking new mouth.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What?
BEN KISSEL
Suck the dicks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh you want me to suck the dick with a clean mouth?
BEN KISSEL
No, afterwards.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you Frank. Oh no, after.
BEN KISSEL
I like a dirty mouth and then afterwards.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Why don't you just go cure that other little boy of asthma?
BEN KISSEL
That boy is Corey Feldman. And I think he's gonna make it!
MARCUS PARKS
Well way back when, recruiters were placed outside of central casting to pass out flyers for workshops, quote unquote "workshops" on how to find an agent or how to get into the Screen Actors Guild.
BEN KISSEL
Oh man. So if you want to find desperate people, that's where you go.
MARCUS PARKS
That's where you go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Of course!
BEN KISSEL
Holy crap.
MARCUS PARKS
And the answer to both of those questions, Scientology.
BEN KISSEL
Scientology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep, that's it. That's the only way, bro.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Because they're fronts. Someone shows up thinking like I'm gonna get an agent by the end of the week and nope, you're just getting to be a scientologist.
BEN KISSEL
That's like wanting to date an Irish Catholic girl so you just go watch U2 all the time whenever they're live.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whenever they're live. But technically it boils down to the way Hollywood does work in many ways, it's who you know.
BEN KISSEL
Yes. It is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So the more people that get involved and are in on the game, the easier it is. And then it's not just Scientology, it's the connections within Scientology that gets you through.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then you find out there's certain celebrity centers or CCs that you can or cannot go to. You find out that the LA big celebrity center, the one that's in the fancy mansion on Franklin, it eventually becomes only certain members can come here.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because now so many people are showing up with screenplays and shit that they were like well you don't really to make the cut. Giovanni Ribisi's dog trainer is actually coming in today and he's going to need this seat.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you, I'm sorry, thank you.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It's a lanyard-based culture.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You gotta have the right lanyard.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's my town.
BEN KISSEL
I know.
MARCUS PARKS
The big guys, they get to go to the celebrity center, everyone else has to go to Magnolia and Laurel Canyon across the street from the Gulf station.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Yep.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The welcoming center.
MARCUS PARKS
Well this in a roundabout sort of way, this is how Scientology got John Travolta. In 1969, Travolta was in Mexico making his first film. That was a fun little ball of madness called The Devil's Rain.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(metal guitar riff) It's the best.
BEN KISSEL
Sweet.
MARCUS PARKS
Fucking amazing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's so good.
MARCUS PARKS
It's got Ernest Borgnine as a satanist.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And Ernest Borgnine would never watch it again because he's like that was the scariest I ever was. And he did didn't want to be scary, he said he didn't like how much the devil was involved because it was the only movie that Anton LaVey actually served as a technical consultant on for satanism on a shoot, like he showed up.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god. Honestly poor Ernest Borgnine. His eyebrows are too big for that.
MARCUS PARKS
We actually played some clips from The Devil's Rain on the stream, I remember.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's fucking sweet.
MARCUS PARKS
Guess what? Stream's coming back! Yay!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes!
BEN KISSEL
Yeah! February 21, 2023.
MARCUS PARKS
But on the set of The Devil's Rain, Travolta became friends with an actress, dancer, and devout scientologist named Joan Prather. Travolta confided that he was suffering from depression and insomnia.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh Joan, I'm so sad. I can't sleep, Joan. What am I supposed to do, Joan?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Depression, sadness. Anything about closeted homosexuality?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No!
BEN KISSEL
Not at all. I mean you love musical theater which isn't necessarily-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, no.
MARCUS PARKS
Not necessarily.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just so gay, I wanna dance in the clouds. I wanna be in a plane, Mr. Kotter.
BEN KISSEL
Really good. Really good.
MARCUS PARKS
Great. Did you work on that before?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Mr. Kotter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fucking hours.
BEN KISSEL
Mr. Kotter, yes.
MARCUS PARKS
So Prather shared that all of her raw emotions had been smoothed out by a philosophy called Scientology. Prather leant Travolta a copy of dianetics down in Mexico, Travolta claimed it's cured my insomnia, or not cured, helped with my insomnia.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, cause it put him to fucking sleep!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I read about 100 pages of page it and would you believe, Mr. Kotter, I was asleep. Oh it was like I was a little dog in a pile of sunshine.
BEN KISSEL
That means you need to start worshiping golf because the golf channel puts you to bed, Henry.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know.
MARCUS PARKS
So when Travolta returned to LA, he started taking Scientology courses. During one class, he told the teacher he's got a big audition coming up for Welcome Back Kotter.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How do you think he learned how to say it like that?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That is a big audition.
MARCUS PARKS
And that would of course become John Travolta's breakout role. Vinnie Barbarino, sweathog.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, that's a good show.
MARCUS PARKS
But because Travolta was nervous about the audition, the teacher in his Scientology class told everyone in attendance to point in the direction of the ABC studios and telepathically communicate a message.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We want John Travolta for the part. We want John Travolta for the part.
BEN KISSEL
You know, that's good vibes, they're sending good vibes to ABC. All right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's great. Thoughts and prayers, it always works.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
As it went, John came to the next class with part in hand. And within just a couple of years Travolta would be the world's most famous scientologist, the church's first big celebrity get.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Now when the Battlefield Earth movie was being discussed in 1980, John Travolta's star was already somewhat on the wane after the massive success of both Saturday Night Fever and Grease. But the executive director of Scientology, Bill Franks, still thought that Travolta was right for the lead.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I mean he wasn't-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's the guy, he's the number one scientologist ready to act.
BEN KISSEL
Celebrities used to be able to, I don't think that they wanted to, but they would disappear.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, they'd walk away.
BEN KISSEL
And that just doesn't exist anymore.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Jack Nicholson lives in isolated mansion on the top of Mulholland Drive. He is just there vibing, eating fucking chicken parms, and hanging out with the women that he hires to sit there and watch him eat sandwiches.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Stay hot, get loose.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Get loose.
BEN KISSEL
They're called nurses. Stay hot, get loose. Nurses.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well some of them have their tops off.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the executive director of Scientology as I said, Bill Franks, he thought that Travolta was right for the lead. Franks was also the person supposedly in possession of all the auditing records in which John Travolta spoke about his struggles with his own sexuality.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Would you believe? I look at a set of dick and balls and I'm thinking I like the boobies.
BEN KISSEL
That's okay. You know what? Actually that's fine. You're allowed to be gay, you can be gay if that's your inclination.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ooh!
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, that's fine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a confusing message.
BEN KISSEL
No, it's okay. What a horrible use as leverage against you for the rest of your career.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Leverage.
MARCUS PARKS
And they did. I mean Franks allegedly told Travolta that if he ever defected, if he ever thought about leaving Scientology, if he ever thought about saying a single bad word about it, all those auditing records, all those times that John Travolta talked about being gay, those would all be made public.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. And I can't believe that any 60 year old man with the skin of a 15 year old boy and thousands of $40,000 toupees who regularly dances in swiveling little motions, I can't believe he's gay.
BEN KISSEL
Maybe. Well I think this is a message for the ladies out there, us straight, this is what we look like. Straight men look like this. Yeah, you love your Travoltas. He won't get down on you.
MARCUS PARKS
What are you saying?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What? You're saying that you're the epitome of straight men.
BEN KISSEL
I am straight man.
MARCUS PARKS
You. You are the epitome of straight men.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You have to wear soft shoes, your feet have gotten so big.
MARCUS PARKS
I haven't seen you wear jeans in years.
BEN KISSEL
Not in two years. But that's what I'm saying.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep. Well I have to take it.
MARCUS PARKS
I have to take it as well.
BEN KISSEL
Tom Cruise, he don't wanna have sex with you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, he just wants to have sex with a fucking full uncut trout.
BEN KISSEL
I know, that's your theory.
MARCUS PARKS
Now when David Miscavige heard that Franks was talking to Travolta about the part in Battlefield Earth, Miscavige had enough power at the age of 18 to demand a meeting with John Tra. Pretty soon Miscavige had taken control of Scientology's biggest star, knowing full well the hold scientology had over Travolta. Of course Miscavige had some very disparaging words to say about John Travolta.
BEN KISSEL
He did?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, of course. No, he called him all manner of slurs and said we've got this guy forever.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We've got this f-word in our pocket is the term that he used.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa, I can't believe he said that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Ben. Now of course nothing came of the 1980 Battlefield Earth movie and we'll be talking a lot more about John Tra, Tom Cruise, Kirstie Alley, and all the rest in a later episode. But part of the reason why Battlefield Earth fell apart was because LRH became occupied by other problems. He abandoned Battlefield Earth to escape from a slew of subpoenas concerning charges that included but were not limited to Scientology's mid 70s infiltration of the IRS. Very real criminal charges.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, it was an outsourcing of labor to the IRS from your clandestine secret scam religion.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well this operation, designed to extort tax exempt status for the church, it was called Operation Snow White. We talked about it much more extensively in our L. Ron Hubbard series. Basically you put a bunch of scientologists into the IRS, you get enough dirt until you're finally able to flip the United States government into giving you tax exempt status.
BEN KISSEL
Smart stuff.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's all you gotta do.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that's all you gotta do. But by 1979 the IRS had rooted them out pretty fast, it didn't take that long. And L. Ron Hubbard's wife Mary Sue Hubbard, she'd already been convicted of her direct involvement in the affair. Leaving everything in La Quinta behind, L. Ron, not wanting to go to jail as well, he fled in a white Dodge van tricked out specifically for Hubbard, had velvet curtains, had a daybed in the back.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He needs his amenities.
BEN KISSEL
He does.
MARCUS PARKS
And L. Ron Hubbard eventually settled in an apartment in Newport Beach, California. Now at this time David Miscavige was close to L. Ron Hubbard but he wasn't necessarily in Hubbard's inner circle just yet. Rather he was in the inner circle of Hubbard's inner circle.
BEN KISSEL
He's in the-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Outer circle of the inner circle.
BEN KISSEL
Outer circle. He's not the yolk.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
He's just the white, frothy stuff around it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not the yolk. He's the white.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. See Miscavige had become friends with Pat and Annie Broeker, who were actually two of Hubbard's closest aides. Pat ran secret undercover errands for Hubbard whenever Hubbard needed it. And Annie was one of the original commodore's messengers, making her fanatically devoted to LRH.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know how I like my pants buttoned.
BEN KISSEL
Yes indeed.
MARCUS PARKS
And so when Hubbard went underground in 1980, Pat and Annie were rightly positioned to take the helm. Because of course L. Ron Hubbard could only hand things over to people he trusted. And David Miscavige was likewise rightly positioned to help Pat and Annie at the highest levels. And these are all kids. They're all in their fucking 20s.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Mary Sue Hubbard was the head of the Guardian's Office, which was the arm of Scientology responsible for infiltrating the IRS. Basically the Guardian's Office is Scientology's version of the KGB. They're responsible for attacking suppressive persons.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they got all the lawyers in there.
BEN KISSEL
Got you.
MARCUS PARKS
Miscavige meanwhile had been put fully in charge of the Commodore's Messenger Service at the age of 19.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Little nazi.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it makes sense because the Commodore's Messenger Service is all teenagers, it's all kids.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But in my estimation, or excuse me, Commodore's Messengers Organization. In my estimation the CMO is more Scientology's secret police, it's their gestapo. It's if the Nazi gestapo was run by the Hitler Youth.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well also during this time period it would change. David Miscavige will obviously change all of these structures.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But this served as a pseudo gestapo.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know why they call them Gestapo.
MARCUS PARKS
Cause they keep going?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They keep going?
BEN KISSEL
No, no. You guys don't remember that? I don't know why they call them Gestapo, I haven't seen them stop yet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure. Remember that from what?
BEN KISSEL
I said that on Roundtable.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Years ago?
BEN KISSEL
Probably like 10 years ago.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh wow.
BEN KISSEL
You don't remember that?
MARCUS PARKS
10 years ago, one line out of the thousands of hours that we recorded together?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I remember a lot.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Gestapo? I haven't seen them stop yet!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel like someone's gonna say that was from an old musical.
BEN KISSEL
No, no, no.
MARCUS PARKS
Well that's the thing is that David Miscavige, he's in charge of the Commodore's Messengers Organization, he has half the power that he needs. At this point the Guardian's Office, Scientology's KGB, they're somewhat in disarray. Operation Snow White had come crashing down because a scientologist had turned informant.
BEN KISSEL
Uh oh.
MARCUS PARKS
So trust was at an all time low. David Miscavige saw this crisis of confidence in the old guard as an opportunity and he set about gaining control of the Guardian's Office as a fresh face.
BEN KISSEL
Oh, a fresh face he is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He is, he looks like he's made fifth place at a Rod Stewart lookalike competition.
BEN KISSEL
Just because of the height.
MARCUS PARKS
And at the same time, Miscavige also took on the role of chairman of the board of Author Services. I think it was Author Services International, I think.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I think it was international.
BEN KISSEL
They just put shit at the end.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, the long titles.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well Author Services was a money laundering operation whose purpose was to skim money out of the top of Scientology proper and funnel it directly to L. Ron Hubbard, disguising the cash from the religion as book royalties from L. Ron's prodigious literary output.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
David Miscavige begins this process of understanding of how to double your money, which is what you do is that you take money that people buy. So they're buying in house material from the Scientology store, they're buying this material from you, so you get that money. But then what you do is you take all that money and normally you'd have to divide it up for taxes and blah blah blah, he then takes a chunk of that money says no, no, no, this is something else. And I'm gonna stick that money back back into another side of the corporation and just give it to LRH. But even though LRH, he doesn't have money. He's just walking around.
BEN KISSEL
It would have been legal if L. Ron Hubbard said he was running for Congress.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Basically.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Fine. Just allocate the funds right over there.
MARCUS PARKS
This basically put David Miscavige in prime positions of both the financial and authoritative wings of Scientology all at the age of 23.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
And this of course meant that he was now in Hubbard's inner circle with Pat and Annie Broeker.
BEN KISSEL
He made it to the yolk!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He did it.
MARCUS PARKS
Once Miscavige had L. Ron's ear, he began eliminating potential rivals by wormtonguing Hubbard into believing that once trusted scientologists were taking advantage of the chaos to steal from the church.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I do think he liked the fact that a young member...
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We talked about this a lot, that he saw the violence in David Miscavige and he was just like I like this, I like the fact that you could be the hammer that I can't be anymore. And there was something about having that young energy.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think talking to him, he feels like he's kind of like yeah, yeah, yeah. Like pumped up from David Miscavige. And then he's just like yeah, you go to do whatever you want, David.
BEN KISSEL
I can see David Miscavige doing a pretty good pump up speech to be honest.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He does.
BEN KISSEL
If he turned his powers for good, he could have been a great head coach.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He is not as good as a talker as LRH ever was. I was watching the only real interview with him with Ted Koppel.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he's stumbling. He's actually kind of like back and forth. If he's feeling confident he feels good but a lot of times he just says a lot of curse words and slaps people.
BEN KISSEL
I think he does good on a big stage though.
MARCUS PARKS
He does.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Because I did watch him present, I forget what it was for...
MARCUS PARKS
It was for the tax exempt status.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. He gave some large presentation about 5 or 6 years ago. Do you guys remember that?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He just did a new one.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
In a grandiose sense I think he can speak okay.
MARCUS PARKS
When he's talking to scientologists he knows exactly... When he's talking to people who will not question him in any way whatsoever-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's great.
MARCUS PARKS
He's amazing, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Wow, what a shock. That's amazing. I'm so charming when no one questions me.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And that's the thing is that David Miscavige has this incredibly manic energy. And Henry, I think you're right, it definitely rubbed off on L. Ron Hubbard.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's like yeah, all right, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Because this is also about the time that the first punishments really started in Scientology.
Well at least punishments had always been a thing in Scientology but this is when punishments became torture.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They really were way more about, it was more homework.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because LRH believed in the idea of you reward for positive, you punish for negative. So you give people gifts when they do well, when they fail something you punish them. But it did begin with well you need more MU hours, you need these other things, you need to be audited more, and it started as homework. But David scavenge start being like what if we just beat the shit out of them?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. This is partly how Scientology's infamous running program again. See Miscavige had a rival from New Zealand named David Mayo and Miscavige convinced Hubbard that Mayo was stealing from Scientology's money laundering operation, the ASI.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's laundering from the money laundering operation!
BEN KISSEL
No! That's our money.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You can't launder in a launder!
BEN KISSEL
Wow, double launder.
MARCUS PARKS
So Hubbard supposedly gave an order that forced Mayo to run circles around an old oak tree all day and all night with only short breaks for food and water. This is what I'm talking about with weird shit.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're learning here, you're learning! As you're running in a circle, just being like this is keeping you focused!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It's like a more perverted road to wellness, what the Kellogg family used to do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
True.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I say Hubbard supposedly gave the order because Miscavige came out and said Hubbard, L. Ron told you to do this.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
So we don't really know. At this point we don't know what's actually coming from Hubbard and what's actually coming from David.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Because David is really starting to tighten up the communication between Hubbard and everyone else.
BEN KISSEL
I mean if you do have an enemy, the idea of making him just run in a circle around a tree 24 hours a day would be pretty fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's incredible. It's incredible.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And eventually this punishment became more widely used. The oak tree was replaced with a palm tree and the dirt path was replaced with a gravel track. They formalized it. But today the running program was remarketed not as a punishment but as a class. It's called the Cause Resurgence Rundown and scientologists pay upwards of $5000 to do what was once a punishment.
BEN KISSEL
Why aren't they winning marathons?
MARCUS PARKS
Because marathons aren't in a circle.
BEN KISSEL
Oh it's just in a circle.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just in a circle.
MARCUS PARKS
You're just running circles around a palm tree and you pay $5000 for it.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And guess what? If you do it too fast, you get punished. If you get it too slow, you get punished. It's kind of ingenious. Turn it into a class. Now you're paying to be punished.
MARCUS PARKS
Yup.
BEN KISSEL
I mean you could run 24 point some miles in a circle I guess.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What they do is they have all these side classes because then you've been covered, I believe it's called the super literate. And then if you become super literate, it means you've taken all the side quests. You're trying to get 100% on the game.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Now by the early 80s, Miscavige and the Broekers had tightened communications with LRH to the point where they were actually able to prevent Hubbard's own wife from contacting him. Mary Sue Hubbard in turn referred to Miscavige as Little Napoleon.
BEN KISSEL
I believe it.
MARCUS PARKS
Because if you'll remember, David Miscavige is 5'3".
BEN KISSEL
But isn't he then just Napoleon?
MARCUS PARKS
But that's the thing, calling someone Little Napoleon is worse because that's the other thing is that-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Napoleon was 5'7", a normal height that men are.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well normal height for a French person.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
For men.
BEN KISSEL
Way back in the day.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
For many men.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, for a French person in the 1800s.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
For many different ears of men.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'd be huge in Mongolia in the 1700s.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They'd be like whoa!
BEN KISSEL
Look a that!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who's that? Is he a professional basketball player? What's basketball?
BEN KISSEL
He's towering over me, he's like an inch taller.
MARCUS PARKS
Well eventually Hubbard also decided that Mary Sue needed to become a sort of sacrificial lamb.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I could see that.
BEN KISSEL
Why?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause she's saying all this fucking shit.
BEN KISSEL
She's his wife!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey man, shouldn't have fucking been dumb.
BEN KISSEL
To be fair, she shouldn't have married him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, hey. Someone's gotta love these idea men.
BEN KISSEL
I guess so.
MARCUS PARKS
Well LRH allegedly directed Miscavige to get Mary Sue to confess to murders committed by the Guardian's Office and to do it on tape. And LRH, okay, we get it on tape, then we can turn it over to the government and then everything can be dumped on Mary Sue and I can settle into an old age with no jail time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's called real life insurance.
BEN KISSEL
Yep. That's one way to get rid of your wife I guess.
MARCUS PARKS
But with Hubbard definitively turning on Mary Sue, Miscavige was able to purge the Guardian's Office of anyone loyal to Mary Sue, which put Miscavige fully in control of Scientology's authoritative wing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Piece by piece by piece.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, just every little bit.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
And then from there Miscavige restructured the corporate architecture of Scientology to place more of it under his own control without anyone really noticing, at least at first.
BEN KISSEL
Step number one, all these door frames, they're going to be 5'7" from now on. I want to feel like Gandalf when I walk in here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You kneel! I want you to fucking kneel!
MARCUS PARKS
And Miscavige framed it in such a way, what he said, the reason why I'm doing all this is that if we take L. Ron Hubbard out of the corporate structure, we take him out of the reach of the law. He can't be litigated if he's not a part of the Scientology corporate structure.
BEN KISSEL
Brilliant.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We do it the old fashioned way where he's the fancy king, right. And so yes he's there and he's our inspiration. But I'm the Prime Minister.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And to keep Hubbard out of court, Miscavige hired a law firm that he code named the X attorneys.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
X attorneys!
BEN KISSEL
Whoa. Cool! X attorneys.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A bunch of guys who got disbarred.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, it sounds like it.
MARCUS PARKS
Hubbard then gave Miscavige even more power to purge anyone in the church who was believed to have been aligned with Mary Sue Hubbard. So he's getting rid of everybody.
BEN KISSEL
Uh oh. Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Some of these people have been with Hubbard since the beginning of Sea Org, decades past.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Whatever, boring.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Miscavige relegated all of them to cleaning duty. That was the big thing in the day is that if you're on cleaning duty, you're bottom of the barrel.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Guess who just pulled lawn duty?
BEN KISSEL
No! I don't want that Ben Stiller's character from Happy Gilmore. No! I would just leave at that point. What are they in their 40s and 50s?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's too late, man.
BEN KISSEL
Like I'm fucking gonna be cleaning?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You kind of maybe just sit like this will be a phase, LRH is supposed to be right now-
BEN KISSEL
This is a test?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well because truthfully he's been totally isolated and everybody else has been fed the line LRH is in his thought laboratory coming up with the next wave of tech, right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's in there, that's the reason why he's not talking.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's not because he's dementia laden and kind of embarrassing himself and becoming a parody of an old man. He's doing all that. No, he's there and he's formulating, he's traveling the stars with his mind.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean basically what Miscavige is doing is he's just taking down the number of people who might have challenged his claim to the throne. And L. Ron Hubbard, he is not realizing that he's doing it but he's giving him permission to do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well that's why when you're the older brother, if you play Crusader Kings III, you always kill the babies.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, always.
BEN KISSEL
I just... I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You do, you kill the babies and it's about building family dynasties and stuff because you have to make sure that the right son becomes the leader of your group.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. What Miscavige says, he didn't kill the babies, he made friends with the babies. He killed the fathers, he killed the uncles.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Good for babies.
BEN KISSEL
Lucky babies. No dad.
MARCUS PARKS
Now around this time, 1983, other scientologists were beginning to notice the only people who ever talked to LRH were these three kids, Pat and Annie Broeker and David Miscavige. Because almost everyone from the old days had been purged from contact. When a scientologist named Gail Irwin confronted David Miscavige about this, he allegedly knocked her to the ground with a flying tackle.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man.
BEN KISSEL
Jesus.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean that's how a 5'3" man takes you down.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You gotta go all in. You gotta jump off of surfaces.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah!
BEN KISSEL
Goddamnit, man.
MARCUS PARKS
Well when she complained and demanded a meeting with Pat Broeker in a Denny's parking lot, it was David Miscavige-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh, Moon Over Mi-fucking-ami?! That's what we're fucking doing?!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh let's go get a fucking grand slam, bitch!
BEN KISSEL
That is what we focus on. And I do love the human element of this. Meet me in the Denny's parking lot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You meet me in the Denny's parking lot right now.
MARCUS PARKS
Well she tried getting ahold of Pat Broeker but she got David Miscavige instead.
BEN KISSEL
Oh no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I pick up phones!
MARCUS PARKS
As Gail Irwin was waiting-
BEN KISSEL
Just see David Miscavige carbo loading with a bunch of pancakes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Slamming pancakes. Ah!
MARCUS PARKS
As Gail Irwin was waiting, a black van skidded into the parking lot and David Miscavige with five other dudes climbed out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Get her, boys.
BEN KISSEL
Oh no.
MARCUS PARKS
Using a tire iron, Miscavige walked up to the payphone that Gail was supposed to be talking to Pat on and he smashed it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You think a fucking rube would not destroy a telephone fucking booth?!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
So she realized that Miscavige knew what she was up to.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
And then Miscavige ordered her into the van.
BEN KISSEL
Oh no.
MARCUS PARKS
She wasn't hurt but she was declared an SP which to a scientologist is worse. You would rather have the shit beat out of you than be declared an SP.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Everything has been stripped of you and you're out. And then they've got fair game which will come into play and then you just get cut off.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now by this point no one knew what messages were actually coming from LRH and which ones were coming from Miscavige and the Broekers. Because Miscavige isn't the only one still in contact with LRH, there's also Pat and Annie Broeker, there's basically three people that are in contact with him right now.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
But this confusion and anger about what's coming from LRH and what's not, that eventually resulted in protests at Scientology conventions held in 1982.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
But Miscavige and his minions verbally declared that all of the protesters were SPs, whereas before such a declaration had to come from formally written orders.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Miscavige also positioned himself to speak with LRH's voice in 1983 when Hubbard's eldest estranged son, Nibs-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Remember Nibs?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I remember Nibs.
MARCUS PARKS
Nibs, yeah. He filed a lawsuit to summon Hubbard to court so Hubbard could subsequently be served with a slew of civil cases relating to scientological misdeeds.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All of a sudden I wish I could be there, I wish. But I'm on Saturn right now, just leave a message.
BEN KISSEL
Yes. I'm sorry Mr. Nibs, we don't take lawsuits from little pieces of licorice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
My name is Nibs!
BEN KISSEL
Yes. Sound like a little candy.
MARCUS PARKS
Well to avoid court, Miscavige had the X attorneys hire experts to manufacture a special batch of ink that could be dated with certainty. Miscavige then had Hubbard sign a declaration saying he was okay and alive using this special ink. Then Miscavige had an expert testify in court saying that L. Ron's signature using this ink was proof that he was alive, thereby avoiding any need for L. Ron to appear in court in person.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Think about how deep a scam that is.
BEN KISSEL
That's crazy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He went and found properly aged ink that could be written down.
BEN KISSEL
That's crazy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So if they even tried to look at it with forensics, it would apply.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is the type of true thorough fuckery that he was capable of and this is baby David.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're not even at full grown big daddy David.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
But sneakily this signed statement also included a declaration that Miscavige was in charge of Hubbard's affairs. This later gave Miscavige leverage to declare that Hubbard had named him Scientology's successor.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The most powerful force in the world.
MARCUS PARKS
Leverage.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Leverage.
BEN KISSEL
We know the teeter-totter rules of life.
MARCUS PARKS
Well around this time David Miscavige also began using more aggressive tactics in defending Scientology in the public eye.
BEN KISSEL
Jump kick, jump kick! Super punch, super punch!
MARCUS PARKS
Most notably he used these aggressive tactics during an event that scientologists hyperbolically referred to as the Battle of Portland.
BEN KISSEL
I've seen that footage.
MARCUS PARKS
See Scientology became embroiled in two major lawsuits in 1985 that threatened to murder, kill, completely remove Scientology from the face of the planet. One lawsuit claimed emotional distress caused by brainwashing and emotional abuse. The other claimed that the church had falsely asserted that they could improve the plaintiff's intelligence, creativity, and communication skills.
BEN KISSEL
Now what, now how do we know that that didn't work? Well the thing is I can no longer speak now. I actually was very, very, very stupid. Very stupid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well LRH always said that just using auditing alone, with one auditing session he could raise your IQ point by one point. That easy.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I mean basically people are coming at them from two directions, from one direction of like-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're using slave labor.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And the other direction is you're a scam.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
When the trials were all said and done, the courts were about to award A total of $69 million in damages to the plaintiffs.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nice.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes, $69 million.
BEN KISSEL
That's when you eat, then she sucks your... $69 million, that's a funny number.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nice!
BEN KISSEL
You say 69 and anything is funny.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
That would have easily bankrupted the church at the time.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Now probably not. And so in May and June of 1985, Miscavige organized a protest in which 12,000 scientologists including John Travolta descended upon Portland. This is when John Travolta came out for the first time and openly said I am a scientologist, Scientology has helped me, I have helped other people with Scientology but of course this is also a long after John Travolta was still a big star, a bankable star.
BEN KISSEL
John, okay, you're coming out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's me!
BEN KISSEL
This is great, so you're coming out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, Mr. Kotter, I'm just leaving my house.
BEN KISSEL
That's great, that was 10 years ago.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I took all the doors off my closets 10 years ago, Mr. Kotter.
BEN KISSEL
This is great though. So you're coming out, you're a scientologist. You want to come out-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just putting on shoes and putting on pants, I'm going outside my house. Oh Mr. Kotter.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he came out, this was around 1985 so he was about 5 years past Urban Cowboy but this was the year that he was in Perfect with Jamie Lee Curtis.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She looks good in that one.
MARCUS PARKS
She looks amazing in that one. But he's still also 7 years from Look Who's Talking and Look Who's Talking Too. And don't even get me started on Look Who's Talking Now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
BEN KISSEL
I didn't wanna get you started on any of that.
MARCUS PARKS
But these people, these 12,000 protesters-
BEN KISSEL
But that is really is remarkable.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes.
MARCUS PARKS
It's incredible.
BEN KISSEL
12,000 people.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. They created enough of a ruckus where the judge declared a mistrial in one case and the church reached a settlement for an undisclosed amount in the other. From this Miscavige learned that intimidation works.
BEN KISSEL
So the judge literally was like let's go with mob rule on this.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Basically. Just like all right, okay, okay, okay. Sounds like a big old hassle.
MARCUS PARKS
A little more complicated than that but it breaks down to basically yeah, he intimidated his way out of these. And he basically saved the church.
BEN KISSEL
All right. Well he does get to be the head of it then, doesn't he?
MARCUS PARKS
By 1986 Miscavige, Annie Broeker, and Pat Broeker, they were pretty much the only ones in contact with LRH. And on January 16th of that year, Hubbard suffered a stroke and died on a bus 8 days later.
BEN KISSEL
Not even at sea.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, hey. He discarded his vessel because he had more space homework that he had to do.
BEN KISSEL
I just feel like he should have died on a boat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He wanted that too.
MARCUS PARKS
He wanted that too.
BEN KISSEL
He died on a bus?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He did not want to die on a bus.
BEN KISSEL
I don't wanna die on a bus.
MARCUS PARKS
No. He called it, it was the Bluebird.
BEN KISSEL
It was the Bluebird? It's a bus!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He didn't want to be there either. He loved his boat, he missed it.
BEN KISSEL
So he died in a bus named after a plane but all he wanted was a boat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's how life goes.
BEN KISSEL
Sad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You die with whatever you're in.
BEN KISSEL
I guess so.
MARCUS PARKS
But just before LRH died he issued something called flag order 3879. In this order-
BEN KISSEL
Okay, hold on. Was there any flag order 3876?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who knows?
BEN KISSEL
Did he just magically pull that number out because it sounds cool?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There was definitely forms.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. There might have been 3878 before that, there could have been.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Well in this order called the Sea Org and the Future, Hubbard retired the rank of commodore and promoted himself to admiral.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey congrats.
BEN KISSEL
Sweet.
MARCUS PARKS
More importantly though he instituted a new rank that of loyal officer. But instead of appointing David Miscavige to this new rank, LRH appointed Pat and Annie Broeker which made it somewhat obvious to most scientologists that the torch was being passed to them. Miscavige of course didn't agree.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. That wasn't in his plans.
BEN KISSEL
Oh I see, he didn't know that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But before that fight happened the church had to explain LRH's death to the church. Because remember Scientology is supposed to fix everything including strokes. And if LRH Couldn't figure it out, then what chance do the rest of them have?
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
So Broeker and Miscavige came up with a plan together. They decided the LRH did not actually die.
BEN KISSEL
Oh look at that.
MARCUS PARKS
Instead he quote "dropped his body".
BEN KISSEL
Awesome.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey man, he's busy, dog. His hands are full.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, get rid of it.
MARCUS PARKS
Dropped his body so he could move to a higher level of existence.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hit me with that, dog.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
G me up with that.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
And this was announced by David Miscavige himself at a gathering of 2000 scientologists days after Hubbard's death.
BEN KISSEL
You could almost hear the crowd now be like that's cheugy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Ooh cheugy.
BEN KISSEL
Is that a thing still?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know. But I remember when he died they said that they all applauded. Him and the Broekers were like yes! We did it!
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because they were trying to frame it like it's positive. But then also they were like no we'll it's ours.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. It wasn't at the Hollywood Bowl where he announced it but it was something like that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, the Hollywood Palladium.
MARCUS PARKS
The Palladium, yeah. He announced it there.
BEN KISSEL
Wow. All right, so they were celebrating the death of their dear leader.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now for most scientologists, when they saw David Miscavige on stage announcing all this wacky shit, that was the first time they've ever seen or even heard of David Miscavige.
BEN KISSEL
It must have been funny too because they gotta bring out the little step like when Robert Wright speaks. And then you have to bring out the little thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They do have that.
BEN KISSEL
I know they do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He does have a little stool that he used to use. And he also refuses lifts because he says that's TCs thing.
MARCUS PARKS
TC?
BEN KISSEL
Tom Cruise.
MARCUS PARKS
Tom Cruise.
BEN KISSEL
I figured that one out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But when Miscavige said that Hubbard had reached the level in which the body is nothing more than an impediment, the people listened. Up next at the memorial service was Pat Broeker who had big news to deliver to the congregation to soften the blow of Hubbard's death.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
He said that Hubbard had made significant breakthroughs in his research just before he dropped his body.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
MARCUS PARKS
To wit, Hubbard had discovered two more levels on the bridge to total freedom.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You wouldn't even believe it.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god. Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You wouldn't even believe it. And he had notes for three after that.
BEN KISSEL
Wow! I can't... Whoa, more levels of this pyramid scheme?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey. Hey!
MARCUS PARKS
Now the bridge to total freedom is a list of auditing actions that are needed to reach the highest OT level. The OT level is the operating thetan level which one can only progress through once one has become clear.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's the work after the work after you've done all the work.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And each operating thetan level reveals new knowledge. Like you learn about the Xenu mythology after OT 3 of 8, when it's far too late to turn back.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The wall of fire.
BEN KISSEL
But that's it still, right? It still ends with Xenu or they add another one?
MARCUS PARKS
Oh there's 5 more after Xenu.
BEN KISSEL
After Xenu?!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my.
MARCUS PARKS
After Xenu there's 5 more. And if any of this sounds confusing, then perhaps you merchants of chaos need to stop nattering your misemotionals. I'd recommend taking a gunk bomb to straight wire your purif into a flawless audit. Else wise you clams might be brought up to the Comm Ev at Cedars to blow down your enturbulations.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, and you want some more clam speak for Hubborgs, all right? Because the thing is we get you as raw meat, sure, and we run you up to present time. As long as you're in ethics, you're gonna have to deal with it. But if you're getting rock slammed and you're run down because you're a JND and that's getting ticked on your KR. And your MUs are piling up, you don't jump out gradient, you gotta stick to your SRS and you gotta be the spokes clam you want to be, not the squirrel your thetans taught you to be. So don't blame me for blows or you'll be spending your summer getting your goddamn TRs in.
BEN KISSEL
All right, there we go. I want to be the spokes clam I can be.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, not the quirrel your thetans want you to be.
BEN KISSEL
No, absolutely not. Who would... I would rather... Well theoretically... Well...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We've learned nothing.
BEN KISSEL
No. It's more fun to be a squirrel than a clam.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That took me like 2 hours to put together that sentence.
BEN KISSEL
It's really good. What does I mean? I mean I got the gist of it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's all you need to do. That's all it is.
MARCUS PARKS
That's it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're all words that mean nothing.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Basically I said if all of you people who don't like Scientology, you need to stop fucking up all the things. I don't know.
BEN KISSEL
Great. Already nailed it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually do understand mine.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But we'll let the audience do it.
BEN KISSEL
I get it.
MARCUS PARKS
I understand it but I couldn't explain it. Does that make sense? I understand but I can't explain it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Welcome to Scientology.
BEN KISSEL
Welcome to Scientology.
MARCUS PARKS
Well really all you need to know about the OT levels for the purposes of this story is that there always have been and always will be only 8 OT levels.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But at L. Ron Hubbard's memorial service, you suddenly got Pat Broeker saying nah man, there's two more OT levels. And he actually held up what was supposed to be a page detailing OT 10.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You see this page that none of you can read from the stage?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're gonna all love it!
BEN KISSEL
Wow. That's cheugy, that's cheugy.
MARCUS PARKS
This was of course a ploy to position himself as the new leader of Scientology because he who holds the tech in Scientology holds the power. Or that's what Broeker so naively believed.
BEN KISSEL
That's what Musk thought when he bought Twitter. And then he's like why am I not getting more imprints on my tweets?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Exactly.
MARCUS PARKS
Well this may have been true in Hubbard's day that he holds the tech holds the power.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
But what Broeker didn't realize was that Miscavige had already changed the game. See Miscavige was a man of the 80s-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Who had long since understood that he who holds the corporate structure holds the power. And when it came to structure, Miscavige had a hell of a lot more power than Pat Broeker. By this point Miscavige had his minions in the financial wing of the ACI, he had most of the Guardian's Office, and nearly all of the Commodore's Messenger Service. And that's not even to mention the X attorneys.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah like Wolverine.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, cool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wolverine Rabinowitz.
BEN KISSEL
Also Wolverine is 5'3".
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Interesting.
MARCUS PARKS
Very interesting indeed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Curious?
BEN KISSEL
Indeed. Miscavige, the Wolverine of cult leaders.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'd put him in there. I could see him going berserk.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Pat Broeker meanwhile, he had none of this. He only had mysterious pages that no one had actually seen detailing new OT levels and he had a claim that he was in telepathic communication with LRH from beyond the grave.
BEN KISSEL
That's just a claim.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's just saying stuff.
MARCUS PARKS
He's just saying I've been telepathically, well not from beyond the grave because of course LRH is not dead.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
He's telepathically communicating to L. Ron Hubbard's spirit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wherever he is, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now the only real world card that Pat Broeker had was that his wife was in charge of the religious technology center. But again, the RTC was mostly about the tech, not the structure. And by 1987, Miscavige had seized control of that as well.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No romance, no adventure. He understood that it's played out already. All of the genuine quote unquote, whatever you'd call the "intentions" of LRH, all of the magical properties, everything we've learned from the LRH series, the Jack Parsons series, all of that work of the ritual magic boiled into this system. He said fuck that. It's all about who controls the wallet.
BEN KISSEL
Wow. So he really made it just corporate.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Less fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Can you believe that?
BEN KISSEL
Sounds less fun.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But there was still the matter of flag order 3879, which named the Broekers, not David Miscavige, as loyal officers. So Miscavige took L. Ron Hubbard's advice and went on the attack. Never defend, always attack. See Pat Broeker had taken up residence at the ranch where L. Ron Hubbard had died and from there Pat figured that he could direct Scientology from afar. But Pat being isolated meant that Miscavige could spread rumors. Specifically Miscavige said that Pat was a drunk who spent all of his time traveling the country buying exotic animals for the ranch. Again it's fucking weird.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's just saying shit.
MARCUS PARKS
It's such a weird thing to say about somebody.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it sticks though.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it sticks.
BEN KISSEL
He just accused him of being Tiger King.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah! So with Broeker's reputation tarnished, Miscavige gathered his most trusted allies which included future defectors Mike Rinder and Marty Rathbun. Together this group stormed Broeker's ranch to find and remove the only small piece of power Pat had left, the new OT levels. With an actual goon squad surrounding the ranch, all with walkie talkies ready to rush in-
BEN KISSEL
With any luck it's our Waco.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well in his way too, because it shows his naivete kind of in a way too, thinking that all of this was real.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like he has the secret papers of L. Ron Hubbard.
BEN KISSEL
Seriously.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where it's like you know that he doesn't.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Or you just write other papers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's written a lot of papers.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Miscavige entered Pat's house and tore out the walls in search of the OT levels. What he found though was far better, especially considering how the new OT levels didn't actually exist.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Instead David Miscavige found bags of previously unaccounted for cash in the walls.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Mystery cash!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, where'd that come from?
BEN KISSEL
Oh man. I would call the contractor. You left all this cash!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Mr. Contractor, you left your money behind.
BEN KISSEL
God, why'd you do that?
MARCUS PARKS
And all Miscavige had to do to get rid of Broeker forever was turn over that untaxed cash to the IRS.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they always get their man.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my goodness.
MARCUS PARKS
And with that Miscavige reached the endgame. Broeker had two choices. Either turn complete control of the church over to Miscavige or go to jail. He chose the former. Of course Miscavige, who couldn't let anything go, who was extremely vindictive, he added insult to injury by separating Pat from his wife.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he destroyed their relationship.
MARCUS PARKS
He then convinced Annie Broeker that she had been a victim of her husband this entire time and after she finally agreed, she was relegated to a heavily monitored low authority position by the middle of 1987.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
And so with all of his rivals out of the way, David Miscavige took full charge of Scientology. That of course is where we'll pick back up next week when the bad times truly begin.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It just started, man. He hasn't even begun, dog.
BEN KISSEL
Bad times? The walls are flush with cash! Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow. That's the thing, just to have some of that determination, just a little bit of that Miscavige-like energy would be so nice.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh that manic energy.
BEN KISSEL
We have a little bit of it, we're doing okay in our business.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know. He's just so vigorous.
BEN KISSEL
I'd go 10% Miscavige energy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just a little bit, I wanna bottle a little bit, put it in a cologne. That'd be nice.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. I don't want the smell of it to be honest.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He might smell good.
BEN KISSEL
So this guy, I think he smells robust.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I'm sure he smells of floral scent.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like a woody, a woody smell.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I guarantee you you know when he comes into the room first with your nose. For sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But anyway, all right. David Miscavige. Well that's just the beginning of how he began the process of being the monster he is now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He is.
BEN KISSEL
Holy crap.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And we'll come back, we're gonna talk about celebrities, we're very excited for this update. Cause it's still going, they just serve David Miscavige.
MARCUS PARKS
Today.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They finally got him today.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So we'll see what happens cause they're still going after him shipping a bunch of slave labor to Australia. He's up to his same old tricks that he always was.
MARCUS PARKS
That's the thing and he's still trying to do that L. Ron Hubbard shit, saying if they can't get me into court, they can't get me on anything.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
And today the judge actually ruled like we've been trying to serve you for a year, who gives a shit, we're going for it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, we're gonna get ya.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, we don't have to serve you. You're just fucking avoiding it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, we're gonna get you.
BEN KISSEL
We'll see what happens. Well speaking of shipping to Australia, we'll be there in August.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, we'll be there August.
BEN KISSEL
Can't wait.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
2nd through the 10th. Should I go through the list?
BEN KISSEL
Nah, it doesn't matter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just go to lastpodcastontheleft.com. Take a look at all of our dates in Australia, the first week of August. We can't wait to fucking see you.
MARCUS PARKS
It's gonna be great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're going to do a live Side Stories at the Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills April 8th, I've got those tickets up on my socials, we'll put it up on the Last Podcast socials as well.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh and we're also going to New Zealand too, not just Australia.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes! Yeah, yeah. We're starting in Auckland.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, we're rocking and reeling in Auckland, New Zealand.
BEN KISSEL
And there's a power vacuum, we might become leaders.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Finally. You guys want some new presidentes?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, sure.
BEN KISSEL
Let's do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All right. Listen, just hear me out, all right. Corrective spanks for the government. Everybody in the government gets one stern spank.
BEN KISSEL
You wanna make them aroused? Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh! I thought you meant corrective spanx as in you get some spax, like the pants.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no. Paddles and hands.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah okay, paddles and hands. All right.
BEN KISSEL
They both work. All right everyone, thank you for listening. Hail yourselves!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hail Satan!
MARCUS PARKS
Hail Gein!
BEN KISSEL
Megustalations.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hail me. Do your reading.
BEN KISSEL
Do your reading.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't want you fucking coming up in the next fucking episode explaining to me, saying to me you don't understand the glossary terms, okay. Because they are out there for you to read and it's on you to catch up to us. Okay?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
You don't want us enturbulated.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You don't want us enturbulated.
BEN KISSEL
Soon that'll be the only book that schools are allowed to have in their library.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa! Commentary.