HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm discovering so far that the entirely ironic suggestion to people that have told me something super serious that has happened to them.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Right now it's like there's a lot of obviously we've had friends who've lost people, there's a lot going on.
BEN KISSEL
I have blisters on my sisters! What do you tell me?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You gotta run an audit. And that's what I've been saying to people.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now that I have all this stuff, I have all this material and they all come to my home. I've had several people like say a bunch of like really grave news to me.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, heartfelt stuff. Reaching out to you as a person.
BEN KISSEL
You didn't even acknowledge my problem.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just because yours is... How do I put this? That's more allegorical.
MARCUS PARKS
I also don't understand your problem.
BEN KISSEL
That's a song! There's blisters on your sister.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's because you have an MU-
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You need to run your words first of all, that's what you don't understand.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause I'm going to actually step in for you, Kissel.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's because you don't know, you need to properly to define your words.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay.
BEN KISSEL
Blister.
MARCUS PARKS
I need to properly defined my words but I'm also getting pretty fucking enturbulated here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ooh, that's now back on you. Now you don't be enturbulating me!
BEN KISSEL
I don't wanna enturbulate, this is just the start of the show!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's true. But apparently yeah, people don't like the ironic suggestion for me to audit them until their needle floats. Because it seems that a lot of times again, yeah, there seems to be a wall to the kind of vulnerable areas of my personality.
BEN KISSEL
Right, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I hear and acknowledge.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I make frown... I listen and I go-
BEN KISSEL
You do a good job. Welcome-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I put my hands on my hips and go hmm, ah.
BEN KISSEL
Wow, yes. It's the sociopath does to pretend like they're a human. Welcome-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
At least I'm making the effort.
BEN KISSEL
Really good. Welcome to the Last Podcast on the Left, everyone. Ben hanging out with Henry, hanging out with Marcus. Have you checked your E-meter today? Is your E-meter running? Better go catch it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa! That's good Scientology humor. Clean.
MARCUS PARKS
That's not bad.
BEN KISSEL
I do.
MARCUS PARKS
It's just as good as any other Scientology humor, which is to say it's bad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Also first of all again, most of the reading I've been doing-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We need to stop all of this. We gotta grind the fucking brakes here.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay.
BEN KISSEL
Okay, great.
MARCUS PARKS
All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because it's not Scientology, all right? It's the science of knowledge.
MARCUS PARKS
I would say that I think you might be wrong there, Henry. It is the study of knowledge.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's the study-
BEN KISSEL
It's the study of knowledge.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Of the science-
BEN KISSEL
Of the study-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Of knowledge.
BEN KISSEL
Of knowledge.
MARCUS PARKS
Or perhaps the science of the study of knowledge.
BEN KISSEL
Well either way-
MARCUS PARKS
Or the knowledge of the science of study.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Either way... And either way?
BEN KISSEL
Kirstie Alley was great in Cheers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Loved her in Cheers.
BEN KISSEL
There we go. Let's do it, David Miscavige part two. Let's continue to delve into the weird long yet short life of David.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's kinda fun because yeah, for a small man, got a lot in there.
BEN KISSEL
Keeps on going.
MARCUS PARKS
So when we last left David Miscavige, he'd dealt a mortal but not yet fatal blow to Pat Broeker. Pat Broeker of course was his main rival for the top spot at Scientology following L. Ron Hubbard's death. Pat was of course the man with the supposed new OT levels hidden away and as long as he had that in his back pocket, he still had a chance at succeeding LRH.
BEN KISSEL
Also I would like to point out it is hidden away in my back pocket, so please do not peruse my back pocket.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Excellent.
BEN KISSEL
Oh, I shouldn't have said that out loud.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah because what's perfect about me is that I am at back pocket height. Pat Broeker actually threw his own wife under the bus first.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
As you go into it another layer deeper, you understand that actually his wife was the one that was truly close to LRH and that Pat-
MARCUS PARKS
Because he was one of the first commodore's messengers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. And so Pat actually first got her out of the way and then kind of shuttled her off.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's a thing about being a Scientology wife that you really need to think about. If you are, let's say you're an up and coming young actress.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you meet some guy like, I don't know-
BEN KISSEL
Troy Polamalu
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Troy Polamalu.
MARCUS PARKS
Troy Polamalu.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's new into Scientology, you want to get in there because you're like oh the uniforms, ohh who's that redheaded baron? I love that man, that writer is incredible, I love each one of his non essential words.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They love all of it. But just know that if you're married to a high functioning scientologist, the over under of you disappearing is really high.
MARCUS PARKS
Higher.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. It just seems like no matter what, whether the religion be new or old, women kind of get fucked over at some point.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
Well at the end of the last episode we implied that Miscavige took out Pat Broeker with a pretty simple 1-2 punch involving bags of cash hidden inside the walls of Broeker's ranch house.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
In reality though, it took Miscavige over two years to fully establish himself as the leader. So we're going to get into that fight in detail right now.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
Now since Miscavige had already spent years purging the upper echelons of the church of anyone who might have made a claim to the throne, there were no other serious contenders to deal with besides Pat Broeker. Even though those two years were basically Miscavige trying to find just the right angle to line up the kill shot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So the original OG group was you had the Guardian's Office, right, that was the big old kind of governing secret police body of Scientology.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
The KGB.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And so what David Miscavige did was like I'm in charge of the Sea Org, I've become sort of the representative of the Sea Org. The outer echelons of Scientology up to this point, yes a lot of them were Sea Org members but this was before it was essential for you to be a Sea Org member to be management.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And so they viewed the Sea Org as a bunch of Navy biting nerds, right.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like a bunch of guys that put on a bunch of uniforms, stolen valor, they have no reason to have the uniform.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because their leader was barely in the Navy. You know what I mean?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We all know this from our series on LRH.
BEN KISSEL
Bro, I just saw a stolen valor video of this dude trying to get half off waffles at the Waffle House, man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the saddest way to do it.
BEN KISSEL
And this guy fucking reamed his ass. He's like what troop were you in?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause Waffle House, a lot of those guys, they do work in the military and then are ex-cons.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. And then literally the guy at one point just looked at him in the fake army suit and was just like man, I'm just trying to get free waffles.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know.
BEN KISSEL
And then I almost felt bad for him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure, yeah. Batter cost 10 cents.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It costs nothing. So what he understood implicitly was what we're gonna do is we're gonna take the inner group, yeah we're the hardcore motherfuckers.
BEN KISSEL
They are!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're the cocksuckers getting the work done. Which is how he was.
BEN KISSEL
Yes. If you control the militarized group of any organization, you're in charge at any point you want.
MARCUS PARKS
And so is a coup.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was a coup.
MARCUS PARKS
Absolutely.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well partly Miscavige was able to pretty much corner everyone because he'd assembled a pretty solid goon squad of his own on the way up. Because if a bully is aggressive enough, he will inevitably attract more bullies. Aside from future defector Marty Rathbun, Miscavige also had the aforementioned Mike Rinder who suddenly found himself in charge of the Office of Special Affairs International.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Mike Rinder is a perfect example of button up to the top.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Talk about a dude that was bounced back and forth from being in charge of the most important parts of Scientology to getting busted down to scraping barnacles off the bottom of a fucking boat.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He did that like five times.
BEN KISSEL
I mean then he knows the working the working class lifestyle of a scientologist and one of the higher echelon lifestyles of a scientologist. So he knows the whole thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And every layer was absolute hell.
BEN KISSEL
Okay, great.
MARCUS PARKS
Well in this position, the head of the Office of Special Affairs International, Rinder was in charge of all international public relations, legal relations, government relations, and the quote "handling of enemies".
BEN KISSEL
That's awesome, dude.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what a nerd writes down. If a nerd's making his own government, there's gonna be a whole handling of enemies section.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah because anyone can be your enemy. It's like you missed a taco in my Taco Bell order, you're an enemy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. My fucking doctor told me they were joking about how my blood pressure is the highest blood pressure they've seen in the year.
BEN KISSEL
They weren't joking.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They were all serious or whatever.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I was like yeah. And so now milk is my enemy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm not allowed to have milk or salt. Those are my enemies.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah but that's technically good, that's good for you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fuck this and fuck that and fuck you, you're a PSYOP, we've already talked about this.
BEN KISSEL
I'm not!
MARCUS PARKS
Well most likely the OSAI, they've probably been the ones battling those Australian subpoenas these last few years in an effort to keep Miscavige from answering human trafficking charges in open court.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And there's something to be learned from David Miscavige which is if they can't find you, you're not guilty of anything.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. Even if he's right in front of you.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Mike Rinder... Is it Rin-der or Rine-der?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's Rin-der.
MARCUS PARKS
Mike Rinder.
BEN KISSEL
yeah, I got a couple of DMs and they were just like it's not Rine-der, it's Rin-der with like 5 Ns. Rinnnnn-der.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, Rinnnnn-der.
MARCUS PARKS
Rinnnnn-der.
BEN KISSEL
I'm like is he a yarmulke? That's the name of a little bicycle, right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I have no idea.
BEN KISSEL
A yarmulke?
MARCUS PARKS
No, you're thinking of a Yamaha.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yamaha.
BEN KISSEL
Yamaha! Not a yarmulke.
MARCUS PARKS
Yarmulke, that's the skull cap that Jewish people wear.
BEN KISSEL
Oh goddamnit, I'm done. I'm done. See ya! Now one is religious gear and the other one is something Vanilla Ice rode in Cool As Ice. Yes, I know, a Yamaha.
MARCUS PARKS
Mike Rinder, like spinder, not Mike Rinder like grinder.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
BEN KISSEL
Perfect.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay. Now Mike Rinder went on the road almost immediately trying to squash any sort of criminal case or civil litigation that might come up in relation to Scientology. And it may not come as much of a surprise that that was a big job even then.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
See negative press was poison at this critical juncture in the church. Because even though David Miscavige had jettisoned most of Hubbard's adventurous romanticism-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We miss him.
MARCUS PARKS
We miss him every day.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm gonna play some of Ron's journals next week. I think you guys need to hear just him like ah yes, as you can hear the birds are chirping. And it's like because he's recording it from a motor home where he's hiding. You hear goat noises and shit. He's like ah yes, the goats are bleating, maybe for their performance.
MARCUS PARKS
Well even though he had jettisoned all that, Miscavige shared one of LRH's more practical obsessions, that of achieving tax exempt status for the church of Scientology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
The first big step to getting closer to god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, all you gotta do is not get taxed like a god.
MARCUS PARKS
And the first step along the road to tax exemption occurred in November of 1987 when the IRS confirmed that their investigation into the church had been concluded. Of course this was after they uncovered Operation Snow White.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, their full on invasion of the IRS.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that was Scientology's first clumsy attempt to achieve tax exempt status through infiltration and blackmail.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The cool way.
MARCUS PARKS
The cool way.
BEN KISSEL
I mean it's really bold.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It's the Ocean's Eleven version of trying to avoid taxes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes but done by dumpy brainwashed nerds. And again, that's what you need.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I would say in Scientology, I would say they're quite in shape. It's more skinny nerds than dumpy nerds.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Have you been to Clearwater?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I've been to Clearwater but that's more Florida than Scientology.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, that's not Scientology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, it's true, it's true.
MARCUS PARKS
That's not Scientology at all.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I will always remember when I was working at the Borders across the street from Flag.
BEN KISSEL
On the southern border, yes, I remember that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Yes, what a great guard you were.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Always. Because I always let them right through.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'd be like hey, not my problem. Whatever. But I remember the scientologists that would come in and the only way I would really describe them is as human teapots. And that the men that would come in, a lot of times you'd look and be like oh, that's a pair of binocular glasses. What call it?
MARCUS PARKS
Bifocals?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's bifocals if they became a person.
BEN KISSEL
Oh okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's nerds in jumpsuits with clipboards. And they show up and they don't blink. But I remember a woman that i was speaking with that definitely was Julia Sweeney in character as Pat. And her effort, the strength of her asking for the self help section was really interesting. She's like ah, I see the dianetics are gone.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah, I was wondering why would she need the self help section if she had Scientology. But she was looking for dianetics.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Basically they go in, it's a fucking that they go out and any single time that you have one of those books out there they buy it out so they show that it's still a bestseller.
BEN KISSEL
Well yeah, but other people can't buy it then or read it.
MARCUS PARKS
That's not really the point, now is it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is it?
BEN KISSEL
I suppose not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's about upping your status, dude. Because you're either up stats or down stats.
BEN KISSEL
I know you don't wanna be down stats. Also David Spade did clarify, It's Pat is a woman. That's what David Spade said.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that makes sense.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean I feel like-
BEN KISSEL
He would know, he was the one dating her.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is somehow even worse than when we said that we believe that the secret service killed JFK. I feel like it's one of those that the elder millennial audience is gonna freak out.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
You know who was in the Pat movie? Ween.
BEN KISSEL
Oh awesome.
MARCUS PARKS
Oddly enough, they had lines and everything.
BEN KISSEL
I love It's Pat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know, man.
BEN KISSEL
SNL used to be banging out the movies.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't even know how you recognize Ween. I just feel like if I saw Ween, I'd just be like well they're not vaccinated. I don't know what you could see if I saw Ween.
MARCUS PARKS
Dean and Gene, nah man, they're on top. They're on top, they're fucking on top of it, man.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
Don't be fucking-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm not!
MARCUS PARKS
Don't decry Dean and Gene.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I won't, I won't. I'm not coming for Ween.
BEN KISSEL
It's fine.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the conclusion of the IRS' investigation was a positive in the long run for the church as a whole. But it was bad for Miscavige personally because it meant that he could no longer hold those bags of cash he'd found in the walls in Pat Broeker's house over his head. Therefore Miscavige's number one rival for the position of heir apparent wasn't counted out just yet. See Pat Broeker was still telling everyone that he had those missing OT levels somewhere. And remember L. Ron Hubbard had named Pat and his wife Annie as loyal officers in flag order 3879.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that's where him throwing her under the bus came in is because it was definitely an article, That thing was written by Pat and he made himself loyal officer number one and Annie was loyal officer number two.
BEN KISSEL
Number two.
MARCUS PARKS
I thought it was written by L. Ron Hubbard but it was something else-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He never wrote it.
MARCUS PARKS
All right, all right.
BEN KISSEL
Interesting. Also I've been playing Atomic Heart, so let's refer to them as comrade.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ooh wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's getting based.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, you're getting real based.
BEN KISSEL
What if Russia, what if we listen to Putin?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh god, oh no. He got flipped! All it took was a game. Damn you, Steam!
BEN KISSEL
Yep. Coming up next, Staind. I don't like the music, I like their politics.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just like the name.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
So David Miscavige hired a team of armed private investigators and off duty LAPD officers to search Pat's house again.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean they just invaded.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Full uniform.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they broke in in the middle of the night. They literally showed up and Mike Rinder was put in a position where him and five other scientologists, Sea Org high end guys-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Were woken up in the middle of the night and were like we're doing a secret mission right now, get your fucking shit. They went in a van, they're like basically your job is to sit in this van and you're gonna wait until we call you. And then he sat in a van outside of Pat Broeker's home from midnight to 6 am.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then they got a call. COB, handle it. And it was like that's it.
BEN KISSEL
So it was actual LAPD officers?
MARCUS PARKS
Off duty officers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But they were wearing their LAPD gear?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're rent-a-cops.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. They were wearing uniforms that implied that they were police officers.
BEN KISSEL
Gotchu.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See that's the key.
BEN KISSEL
Steven Seagal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just the implication.
BEN KISSEL
Yes, gotchu. It's very scary. It's much scarier than a cop and cops are scary.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure. Well no OT levels were found but they did uncover a further $50,000 in cash under the kitchen sink.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cool.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean just tens of thousands of dollars everywhere hidden away, squirreled away in this guy's house.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Awesome.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cool.
MARCUS PARKS
Miscavige then whisked Pat's wife Annie to a private room for an interrogation that could have been charged as kidnapping very easily.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Miscavige broke a lot of laws that night. But she admitted that Pat kept a storage locker in Paso Robles and she said that if the new OT levels were anywhere, they were there. But when no OT levels were found in the locker or in the Broeker home, Miscavige came to the only conclusion possible. There were no new OT levels.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No!
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
But since it had been publicly announced that there were new OT levels and it had been announced at L. Ron Hubbard's memorial service no less, the church had to live with the lie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well what we know now is that they definitely had LRH's notes. And he did have a series of notes and he did plan an idea of OT, I believe it was like 8 through 15.
MARCUS PARKS
They think that he planned an idea.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He said that he thought that he planned. He did that thing where he was like I'm thinking, it's coming to me. You know what I mean? And it's like sure, sure, sure. And then they got all the notes and when they did find the notes it was the incoherent ramblings of a post stroke cult leader in a mobile home.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And so it was let's just say disorganized.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, less than inspiring perhaps.
MARCUS PARKS
Well like any good cult, Scientology doubled down and flipped the lie to their advantage. They claimed there's not just two new OT levels-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh no, no, no.
MARCUS PARKS
Pat Broeker didn't know what the fuck he was talking about.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You can't even believe. You wouldn't even believe. Two? I'm gonna come in there and I'm gonna fucking slap you, you fucking cocksucker.
BEN KISSEL
Wow, I was thinking there was only two.
MARCUS PARKS
There's 7.
BEN KISSEL
There's 7!?
MARCUS PARKS
7 new levels.
BEN KISSEL
This is awesome!
MARCUS PARKS
It almost doubles the amount of levels you have to go through to reach the end of the bridge of total freedom.
BEN KISSEL
More levels!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You get to spend more money!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Awesome!
MARCUS PARKS
However most defectors agree that those last 7 levels were never written. They think that only the concept of these levels exist as bait to keep rich fish on the hook until they've been drained of all their finances and influence.
BEN KISSEL
Is it safe to compare this to old and new testament? Is this the new testament of Scientology? Cause there are some Christians who are just like we stick with the old and the new sucks. And then others-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think that that is actually an extremely complex question.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because it's extremely complex because I think that is probably one of those things that professors debate about.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, what do they know?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
About the nature of the new testament.
MARCUS PARKS
I think it would be more like just Protestants vs Catholics. Or I would say probably it's more like the differences between Protestant denominations. Like one is a little chiller, say like Methodist, little bit chiller.
BEN KISSEL
Sure. Always fun, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, sure.
MARCUS PARKS
But then you've got the more intense ones like the evangelicals, like snake charmers and people who beat you and all that shit. That's David Miscavige.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well also this is very similar, I would position it closer to mormonism where you have the OG written words which unlike even Joseph Smith, LRH Was truly one of the most prolific, you can't say he's a great writer but he definitely wrote the most over a lot of people.
BEN KISSEL
That matters.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He wrote thousands upon thousands and thousands of missives and the hours and hours of his lectures that he filled up this world on. And so David Miscavige actually instead is kind of inheriting all of that shit and then now how do we keep using the same stuff in a way that moves us forward? Which is because as we talked about and keep talking about, David Miscavige doesn't have a single creative bone in his body.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
Also in the future if you don't have an answer to a question, no need to talk for five minutes. No need.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, that's called a true answer.
MARCUS PARKS
Now one might ask why someone else hasn't just written these new seven levels.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Or at least written one or two. Doesn't have to be David Miscavige, it can be any of them.
BEN KISSEL
Anyone.
MARCUS PARKS
I think it's because there's never been a scientologist who's been able to replicate L. Ron Hubbard's cult leader rhythm and his syntax.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, my milkshake brings all the clams to the yard.
BEN KISSEL
I love milkshaking clams.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, LRH was, I'm gonna say it man, again, not ironically very creative.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he's one of a kind.
BEN KISSEL
He was creative! Everyone can agree with that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Funny guy!
MARCUS PARKS
It's a one of a kind brain, it really is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
For good or ill. And that's the thing is that if the new levels don't match that syntax and rhythm perfectly, that spell will be broken.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
People will fall out of it, they won't keep going.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It definitely happened.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean it's like asking a gifted creative writing student to write a Shakespeare play that is in style, language, subtext, and meaning indistinguishable from Hamlet or Othello.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I'd just say make a bunch of naked chicks do it and now it's great.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean a human could write that of course and they have. But the level of talent and more importantly the level of emotion that such a task would require just isn't found in the church of Scientology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just think of Arrested Development season five, right. Just think about the fall off.
BEN KISSEL
I thought it was better than people said it was.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just saying the fall off is evident.
MARCUS PARKS
Precipitous.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
They just weren't in the same room while filming.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, they all shot... It was ridiculous.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Well put another way, the best writer Scientology ever had in their organization was the guy who wrote the screenplay for the notoriously shallow stinker Crash.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I hate that fucking movie.
BEN KISSEL
Crash.
MARCUS PARKS
Crash.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not David Cronenberg's Crash.
BEN KISSEL
Not the 90s?
MARCUS PARKS
2006. Not the cool Crash, the 2006 Crash with Ja Rule and Matt Dillon and Sandra Bullock.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That won the Oscar that everybody was mad at.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Because it won the Oscar. The one that Jack Nicholson read that it was the Best Picture and then he made like a face.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah he was like-
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he made a face. And it is panned worldwide as the worst Best Picture nominee or the worst Best Picture winner ever except perhaps Shakespeare In Love.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you.
BEN KISSEL
Oh do not do that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Coming for it. Coming for you, GOOP!
BEN KISSEL
I love Shakespeare In Love.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Coming for you!
BEN KISSEL
I love Shakespeare In Love.
MARCUS PARKS
Do you think it's a better movie than Saving Private Ryan?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh wow.
BEN KISSEL
Fuck Private Ryan. Fuck Private Ryan, fuck Tom Hanks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
BEN KISSEL
Gwyneth Paltrow spinning around until you see her beautiful supple tits-
MARCUS PARKS
It's just tits.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's just talking about her breasts.
BEN KISSEL
No, I also thought the jokes were quite funny.
MARCUS PARKS
And that's Best Picture?
BEN KISSEL
It's my favorite picture. Private Ryan, I like soldiers who weren't caught.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa! Damn!
MARCUS PARKS
Whoa. Whoa.
BEN KISSEL
Now who's the president? Now who's the president?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
He was never caught.
BEN KISSEL
Why the fuck did they have to save him then?
MARCUS PARKS
Cause he was trapped behind enemy lines.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was trapped behind enemy lines. And two brothers aren't supposed to be lost.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the idea, they're trying to save the other brother.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah because the other four got killed.
BEN KISSEL
I don't care. All I know is if I'm reliant on a guy who fucks a beach ball every time he's stranded, I'm gonna be pretty upset.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They didn't know that that happened to him.
MARCUS PARKS
First of all he didn't fuck it and second of all it wasn't a beach ball, it was a volleyball.
BEN KISSEL
I know it was a volleyball, it really doesn't matter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You don't think he fucked it?
BEN KISSEL
He fucked it, he fucked it. Yeah. You saw the last deleted scene where it's frowning.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well once David Miscavige figured out that the highest OT levels didn't exist, he finally had everything he needed to truly take over. In April of 1988, a little over two years following L. Ron Hubbard's death, Miscavige canceled flag order 3879.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's that easy. Because he also just figured out you can call people SPs.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We talked about last episode, once he figured out that special skill too that he could just say that you're an SP, it really worked for him. Also to place this in time, this is a time period when he has already been with Shelly Miscavige.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So him and Shelly have also been married and he's also shored up that way because I do believe that she was high up amongst the commodore's messengers. And there was something about him, because I don't think David Miscavige has like a horny atom.
MARCUS PARKS
Well just so everyone knows, Shelly Miscavige is David Miscavige's wife.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
She's been missing since 2007.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, she's been missing. Go over to Some Place Under Neith, they did a full series on it.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes they did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But basically that was also part of what he did to create a stabilizing force. He's like I need a fucking wife!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because they all have fucking wives! And then if you go and you realize what's weird is that Shelly Miscavige, I was watching a show that showed a picture of Mary Sue Hubbard and they were like sisters.
MARCUS PARKS
Really?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They could have been identical twins, they look so similar. It's really strange.
MARCUS PARKS
Miscavige knows optics.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes, he did that on purpose.
BEN KISSEL
All right. And what was the point of the thing that he canceled?
MARCUS PARKS
Well that was the order that declared the Broekers as loyal officers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Gotchu. Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
It was denounced officially as a forgery. It was like oh, Pat Broeker wrote it, L. Ron Hubbard didn't write it.
BEN KISSEL
Gotchu. So now he's officially kneecapped them at every level basically.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. Everybody is fucked.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, they're done.
BEN KISSEL
Gotchu.
MARCUS PARKS
Knowing that he'd finally lost the game, Broeker fled America. But Miscavige, who holds a grudge like fucking nobody's business, he still sent two private investigators after him. And they told Pat that they'd been hired by Miscavige and the church to follow and harass him for the next 24 years.
BEN KISSEL
24 years?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
24 years, $32,000 a month. There's a movie in that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Of the two private investigators that this was their whole job. Their whole job was to follow Pat Broeker and he knew it. But that was also a thing that LRH told people to do.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
One of the things he wrote on, one of his missives about how you properly bust down an enemy, which is you be open about it.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You don't sneak, you make them knock on the door and be like we're here to watch you, we're gonna go through trash, we're gonna listen to your phone calls. And they just did that. They just did it for fucking 24 years.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I hope you like all the liquid shit I've been throwing away.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Seriously. That's what this is.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, maybe it would be like when John Wayne Gacy, when he was close to getting caught and he made friends with the two cops that were tailing him the whole time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was very similar.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it could be. Well Annie Broeker meanwhile, she stayed in Scientology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
She was sent to a remote reeducation camp in southern California ironically called Happy Valley. This is considered ironic because it is a place called Happy Valley that is indeed sad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's very sad.
BEN KISSEL
Oh wow. Thanks for explaining that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's frown town.
BEN KISSEL
Frown town.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Happy Valley was a site that had existed since 1974 and it was run by a branch of Scientology amongst a veritable forest of branches called the Rehabilitation Project Force.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well that was another thing that David Miscavige specifically did was splinter all of these various governing bodies of Scientology into even smaller versions of things that looked after things. They basically said if you found the word micromanagement in the dictionary, David Miscavige, his face would be right there.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He destroyed... And also it made it so you never knew who was working for what, who was whose boss.
BEN KISSEL
Exactly. That's what I was gonna say. Wouldn't this be perfect for privacy and secrecy?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is. He learned from the US government.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. And that worked out so great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It worked out for them.
BEN KISSEL
2001. Something about September, I loved the way no one talked to each other.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Every day, every September 11th Dick Cheney still buys a slice of cake on Seamless and he's like we did it.
MARCUS PARKS
A slice of yellow cake, am I right?
BEN KISSEL
There you go! Hello!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you! Good work, comrade.
BEN KISSEL
Now you get it.
MARCUS PARKS
The RPF had itself been born from a Hubbard punishment group called the mud box brigade.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cute.
BEN KISSEL
Now I want to be part of that because that's fun. You get to hang out in the mud, drink soda.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's like the buttercream gang.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, that actually turned pretty violent.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, buttercream gang really... I mean ugh. Tommy Buttercream, because he was at the bottom of the barrel, you know what I mean? He used to play that find that barrel game.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I think it was the prequel to the movie Sleepers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Those kids were awake.
BEN KISSEL
That was bad.
MARCUS PARKS
But really the mud box brigade wasn't too bad, mostly concerned with the maintenance on Hubbard's many ships. These were the people who were in LRH's words really goofing up on the job.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Really goofing up on the job.
MARCUS PARKS
Really goofing up. Goofing up real bad.
BEN KISSEL
I just don't even, they use words that you would say but then they're scientologist leaders.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's truly, that's again, it's a feature not a bug. Where I was going back through the Scientology handbook, just kind of having fun with it and you have to like define all these words and there was one thing he wrote a couple of these words and I was like all right, I'll bite. I had the dictionary open as I was going. I was like oh, he's just making these words up.
MARCUS PARKS
As he's going, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, these are all just made up words. They don't have definitions.
BEN KISSEL
Creative.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
But when the mud box brigade was replaced by the Rehabilitation Project Force, it became more broad and more sinister. The RPF was made up of four groups all with appropriately scientological names. There were rocks slammers, ie people with hidden evil intentions.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You don't even know that you're evil. That's the worst part.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what Mike Rinder figured out when Shelly Miscavige told him that his son died, right.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So he was only there for the birds of both of his two children and then they were immediately scurried away and taken care of by, literally four days old, they were taken over by Sea Org nannies who watched them in a hotel room, right. Literally in discarded hotel rooms. And so when his second son died, when his kid died at 11 weeks-
BEN KISSEL
Oh my.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Shelly Miscavige cornered him and was just like hey, just so you know, your son dropped his body, your son chose to drop his body. And what Mike Rinder, he was so indoctrinated at that point, was like what were my hidden evil intentions?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What happened to me? And so what they do is they then drag you straight into auditing, they take you straight into a room and they make you run your grief until the needle floats.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So basically so you don't feel anything anymore.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's a healthy way to handle it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is.
BEN KISSEL
Perfect. Also any investigation into why the 11 year old, what, 11 day old-
MARCUS PARKS
11 day old, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
11 week old child. SIDS.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh. Yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that guy named Sid is a fucking mean bastard.
BEN KISSEL
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I hate him and his brothers.
MARCUS PARKS
There were rocks slammers.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Then you had repeated stat crashers, those were people who were responsible for a decline in productivity.
BEN KISSEL
Uh oh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Could see Mr. Casual Pants over here being a bit of a stat crasher.
BEN KISSEL
I wanna be a rock slammer.
MARCUS PARKS
Maybe a little bit of a stat crasher. There's overt product makers, those are people who produced work of poor quality, goofers as it were.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Goofers. I wanna start using stuff like this. I think goofers is a good word.
BEN KISSEL
Nice. Yeah, yeah. Goofer.
MARCUS PARKS
It's real good. Yeah, we got a big group of goofers running around here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, all you gotta say is it was handled by a bunch of goofers.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I do like goofers.
MARCUS PARKS
And then there were those who scored low on their personality test. Those didn't even get a name.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Although I would like to say be very careful using the G-word around comedians.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Goofers?
MARCUS PARKS
Goofers?
BEN KISSEL
Yes. That's a pretty offensive term for comedians.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah please. It is, it is. It's a little old school.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now concerning Annie Broeker, Miscavige probably put her in the rock slammer category because her actions had delayed his rise to the top for two years, which was indeed an evil intention from his perspective. Along with everyone else sentenced to the RPF, Annie Broeker was forced to study Scientology or audit for 5 hours a day, then she'd work 8 hours of physical labor and sleep for 7 hours. And all in all this is a comparatively weak reeducation camp when you compare it to some of the others we've talked about.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, she's not Otto Warmbier. But it also seems absolutely horrible.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's bad.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But even though it's not as bad as the worst that we've spoken of, years of it will wear you down.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And Annie spent two years at the RPF.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They did the same to Mike Rinder's parents because his parents were both high OT level scientologists. His mom was driving, got into a car accident, killed his father in the car accident. She was then punished because they viewed her as pulling it in, because that's what they call it-
BEN KISSEL
Pulling it in?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Pulling it in means that you've done something wrong, you have an overt or a withhold that we don't know and you're causing bad things to happen to you and to others because you're not doing the proper work.
BEN KISSEL
I feel like a bunch of people my size should have gone and bonked all these people on the head. I think everyone involved needs a bonk.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
BEN KISSEL
Bonk!
MARCUS PARKS
You know what? There's some bonks coming later.
BEN KISSEL
Are there?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh there's some bonks.
MARCUS PARKS
There's some bonks.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
Well after serving her two year sentence, Annie Broeker was sent to Gold Base which is the real headquarters of Scientology located just north of Los Angeles that we'll get into later.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But within an hour and a half of arriving at Gold Base, Annie Broeker fled. Now Sea Org members, the higher echelon of scientologists, they aren't let go as easily as the rank and file.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
And likewise, Sea Org members don't let go of Scientology as easily, even though they're treated the worst of all scientologists.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because of the sunken cost fallacy. The sunken cost issue, right, where you have given up so much.
MARCUS PARKS
Everything.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what Mike Rinder kept talking about. I'm always on the fence with him because of the things that he did. He was nuts.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But he gave up so much that by the time you've just realized that you've been cucked out so hard and you've done so many things, it's so hard to pull yourself out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It's what everyone's gonna think about Dana White when they realize there's no money in slap fighting because I watched that yesterday.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause kids can do it, anybody can slap fight.
MARCUS PARKS
Anyone can do that.
BEN KISSEL
Well it's quite dangerous, they're all going to die of brain aneurysms and things. But all of the families and everyone in the interviews of the slap fight league are like well when we make it big and I'm a millionaire, my kids are gonna love me. And I'm like buddy, I don't think there's money in it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No cause if you make even $10,000 you're gonna be like (garbled speech).
BEN KISSEL
They are all like that already.
MARCUS PARKS
Well more what I'm talking about when it comes to people like Annie Broeker is that it's the people who are raised in Scientology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Oh okay.
MARCUS PARKS
She was a Sea Org member from the time she was like 10.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She didn't know anything else. Same thing with Mike Rinder basically.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. But that's very difficult for them then.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Very much so.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
They don't have any idea what the non scientological world is like at all.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
And they've been told all sorts of shit about what happens outside of Scientology.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, I think I can use the term here-
MARCUS PARKS
I would say we probably shouldn't.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Don't use the real term?
MARCUS PARKS
No, don't use, yeah, the real term that's an insane racial slur in England? Don't use that one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. You're right. There's a term in Scientology for the world, right, outside of Scientology, there's a word that they use. But it's like that whole world is literally viewed as a-
BEN KISSEL
Scooterbutts.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, scooterbus. Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Scooterbutts.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The scooterbutt world is not cool.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it's filled with demons that will destroy you.
BEN KISSEL
Gotchu.
MARCUS PARKS
Well for most escaped Sea Org members, by the time they figured out something as simple as say a bus stop-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Scientology's security goons, they would already scooped them up. And also Scientology, most Sea Org members, most scientologists at this level, they don't even have driver's licenses.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
Of course they don't own cars. They don't even know how to drive a fucking car.
BEN KISSEL
Well yeah, that one woman didn't know how to drive a car. She killed her husband.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh you're talking about Mike Rinder's mother. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Mike Rinder.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was bad.
BEN KISSEL
Too bad.
MARCUS PARKS
But even if they did make it past security, escapees had to live with the knowledge that their friends and family would be interrogated and followed until the escapee was found and forced back.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
This was a big Scientology technique is that if you leave we will torture your family.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
In Annie Broeker's case, her escape was a big enough deal where Miscavige sent Marty Rathbun, one of his top goons, to go out and get her back. By the time Rathbun tracked Annie to Boston though, Miscavige nixed the plan and actually sent out John Travolta-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He came!
MARCUS PARKS
Flying one of his private jets to bring Rathbun back home.
BEN KISSEL
What?
MARCUS PARKS
Travolta meanwhile was free because he was at one of the lowest points in his career. This is still a whole year away from the premiere of Look Who's Talking.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Wow!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is early in Scientology history. But can you imagine calling up John Tra and just being like John Tra, you motherfucker, get your fucking gay ass on that plane. I want you to fly to fucking New York or I'm gonna tell the whole world what's fucking going on.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And then he said something about Kotter?
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ohyeah, John Travolta would be like oh, Mr. Miscavige, oh I mercury getting on the plane, Mr. Miscavige. Oh, Mr. Kotter!
BEN KISSEL
Nice. Character actor.
MARCUS PARKS
He really is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Pretty good.
MARCUS PARKS
Really it's incredible how he hasn't worked in so long.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fuck you!
BEN KISSEL
He's working now!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Technically this is work.
BEN KISSEL
We have him, Marcus. We have him for the next 5 years and then Hollywood can fucking have him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, god, they've been clamoring. And I keep saying no. My mother told me why did you say no? I'm still haunted by this.
BEN KISSEL
You know what-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
My blood pressure is not high! That is a fucking lie that these merchants of death are trying to sell me, I'm a thetan!
BEN KISSEL
I actually think maybe an E-meter might help you with just that. Just that one situation, just grab onto two steel poles, hold tight.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I will.
MARCUS PARKS
See even though Annie supposedly had documents that could hurt David Miscavige, I think that Miscavige figured it's more important to just let her go.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Because what Miscavige really wanted was to break her. But in the end this is what got him the top spot.
BEN KISSEL
Just a psycho.
MARCUS PARKS
Pat Broeker's in exile, Annie Broeker, she's out of Scientology completely. So Miscavige by 1988 is completely in control of Scientology.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Two years after L. Ron Hubbard died.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But the key is as long as they never say a single fucking word about Scientology, he'll let them go.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And the rest of them, cause there's like Jerry Armstrong, the guy that tried to steal the documents, and then they have other guys like that Bob Minton guy who wasn't even in Scientology, he just hated Scientology and he started paying out the ass and he was like a multimillionaire until they went deep into his finances and found out he did a bunch of sketchy shit. So that eliminate eliminated him.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it is really weird because he did let some people go.
MARCUS PARKS
Miscavige?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But then some people he just wanted to destroy them.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he really did. And Annie Broeker actually, she left Scientology forever. She died free in 2011, a non scientologist even though she was once in line to replace L. Ron Hubbard himself.
BEN KISSEL
All right. She wasn't squirrel busted?
MARCUS PARKS
No, she wasn't squirrel busted.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No. Because squirrel busting is for people that use the Scientology tech outside of Scientology. Whatever they learned, that's what a squirrel is is somebody that takes the private OT stuff and teach other people outside.
BEN KISSEL
Takes their nuts home.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Gotcha.
MARCUS PARKS
Feeling confident, Miscavige refurbished and launched a Sea Org ship called the Freewinds.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa!
MARCUS PARKS
It's time to return to the sea! Back to basics.
BEN KISSEL
That's great. Henry, you're gonna have to bring milk back to your diet. You're in charge of getting the sails to go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You got it!
BEN KISSEL
Yes indeed. It's the Freewinds.
MARCUS PARKS
Well there he could publicly work on OT 8, the highest existing level yet to be revealed. Also he could establish himself as the true heir. Now when L. Ron Hubbard died in 1986, OT 8 was known to exist but it had not yet been released to even the highest ranking scientologists.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He had written the bones of it and they went and they did manage to put it together.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And David Miscavige planned to change that with the maiden voyage of the Freewinds. There he planned to finally reveal OT 8 to the 300 some odd OT 7s onboard. But, and this is important, he did not reveal the original OT 8 that L. Ron Hubbard himself had written.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
What? It's a switcheroo!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was a flight of ideas.
MARCUS PARKS
I would say in its original form, OT 8 is a bit of a hoot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a hoot.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a hoot, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
See with each OT level new knowledge is revealed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah because he's always plumbing.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Plumbing and digging and gripping and ripping.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. You don't learn about Xenu and the volcanoes and the atomic bombs.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
You don't learn that until OT level 3.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. And that's like $250,000 in.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Wow. Jesus.
MARCUS PARKS
But at OT 8 in the original form, Hubbard revealed that he would eventually return from the grave as the antichrist to stop an alien invasion led by Xenu's galactic confederacy because Jesus Christ was a homosexual pedophile.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just glad somebody is finally saying what I'm thinking.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I have been waiting for it, I was like finally I feel seen.
BEN KISSEL
How did he scrap those plans? That's fascinating.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Hubbard further wrote that anyone who attempted auditing OT 8 without being properly prepared would spontaneously combust.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa!
MARCUS PARKS
And he strongly implied the OT 8 was the last level he'd publish. Which contradicted the extra levels lie. So there was a lot of bombs in this.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What's weird is though is that do you think that's what's causing my blood pressure is because I read the OT 8 rundown last night?
MARCUS PARKS
It could be, that might be why you have the highest blood pressure that the doctor has seen in he said a year?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
In a year, which really isn't that much.
MARCUS PARKS
It's not that long.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He rang a bell.
BEN KISSEL
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yean, it was really weird. And I was like do I get this for free? And they were like no. No, it costs-
MARCUS PARKS
It costs more for the rest of your life.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, they just love that you're a forever patient.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they like that.
BEN KISSEL
That's cool. It's a health sick system.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa!
BEN KISSEL
Health sick system. It's a sick care system.
MARCUS PARKS
Sick care system, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa!
MARCUS PARKS
Now this story, this OT 8 story about homosexual pedophile Jesus and Xenu coming back-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Go into that.
MARCUS PARKS
This upset the small group of scientologists who first heard about it before the big trip on Freewinds.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It didn't test well.
MARCUS PARKS
He did a test group. And it tested real bad.
BEN KISSEL
it didn't test? What? LRH is gonna come back, fight the aliens, pedophile Jesus is gonna come fight L. Ron Hubbard and then... I mean that's awesome! It's a comic book.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I do miss, do you remember Celebrity Deathmatch? I miss it.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause I would love to see a Claymation homosexual pedophile Jesus vs a super cut ginger LRH.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That would be incredible.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But that's the thing, after some people heard about OT 8, these are the highest level of scientologists, some of them left.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
They were like fuck this.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
And it was similar to when Hubbard released the level that introduced the Xenu mythology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wall of fire.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Couldn't handle it.
MARCUS PARKS
So before the Freewinds trip, OT 8 was rewritten without all the wacky shit and they actually rewrote it to lower the stakes, which is a brave move for a cult leader. It was also brilliant because it didn't require anyone to create anything meaningful in L. Ron Hubbard's style.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
And at the same time it was going to make Scientology a lot more money.
BEN KISSEL
Yay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. Because guess what they did?
MARCUS PARKS
Well the people on board the Freewinds, excited about the new revelations-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're like yes! Yes! Yes!
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, sweet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because you're on a boat too. Because you remember it's a big pomp and circumstance, you got the fucking Scientology band there, they're doing all this shooting fireworks off literally.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right. This is like a carnival cruise. We're not talking, this isn't an Essex style boat.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a nice yacht.
BEN KISSEL
Oh it's a yacht.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's a nice yacht. Well these people were told that OT 8 is actually a repeat of the 7 levels that you've already spent a million dollars reaching. And those 7 levels will be repeated in perpetuity until you're deemed ready for OT 9 which doesn't exist.
BEN KISSEL
What is he, Mr. Wonderful? In perpetuity?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So it's really interesting because I was watching a show with Mike Rinder and they asked him what inspired LRH. And I don't know whether he does not know or not but Mike Rinder was like I have no idea, he was a well read man, he was obsessed with philosophies, blah blah blah. Kind of very much boilerplate Scientology bio of LRH. Does not talk about the OTO documents, does not talk about any of the ritual magic shit that LRH-
MARCUS PARKS
And this is all stuff that we talked about in our Jack Parsons series.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. He did not talk about any of that shit which is really interesting because then OT 8, what it revealed was that... So in your time in Scientology-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're spent scanning all of the many lives that you've lived, that your thetan has been attached to for years and years trying to figure out the problems of your past. And what OT 8 reveals is that actually the body thetans that you've been quote unquote "getting rid of" all of this time, your previous lives were their memories. You're just you. So it strips you all down. OT 8 is supposed to be what he called the first real level which congrats, now you're just you. You're not even a thing anymore, you don't even have all that stuff. And we got to redo all of this stuff because it fucks you up.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But that's also the last level of the OTO.
MARCUS PARKS
Somewhat. Well the OTO doesn't say you have to start over but yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're your own god. But it's you're your own god, here's the creative abilities of a god but it's really about how you've been you, you've been god, now you're aware that you've been god this entire time.
MARCUS PARKS
Which is interesting because this OT 8 was not written by LRH. This OT 8 was written by David Miscavige two years after LRH died.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The bones of the tech were written. No, this was LRH's idea, the actual structure of it was his idea.
MARCUS PARKS
The doing it all over again?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. Well the doing it all over again was a fun David Miscavige kick around.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But the actual you're just you reveal, that was LRH.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. That makes sense.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
That makes a lot more sense.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Because I actually thought like that seems a little too creative for David Miscavige.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was.
MARCUS PARKS
There you go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He understood how to monetize it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And that's the thing that Scientology had always been a scam but this was cruelty on a whole new level. This is designed to create lifetimes of frustration and dashed dreams.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Repeat customers.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. It just seems like there was a lot of people probably going home that night and just looking at that bottle of whiskey they haven't opened in 20 years.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, no. Leah Remini's mother quit after the OT 8.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Because you gotta start all over again.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well it just showed that you've wasted... Because if you get to OT 8 you've spent about a million dollars.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
At least.
BEN KISSEL
And you just do it again.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're just done, it's like none of it counted. It's the snow globe reveal at the end of Days of our Lives.
BEN KISSEL
Dallas. Dallas.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dallas?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
St. Elmo's Fire.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is that what that is?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It was Dallas.
MARCUS PARKS
No, not St. Elmo's Fire. No, no, no. Hill Street Blues?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's all the same fucking shit.
BEN KISSEL
No, not Hill Street Blues.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just saying the idea, I hate when movies are a dream.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah. No, everyone knows that's the worse thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When they turn out to be a dream I'm like what have I been sitting here fucking doing? Oh none of this fucking happened?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
My blood pressure's not high.
MARCUS PARKS
It's the first thing you learn in creative writing actually.
BEN KISSEL
Nightmare on Elm Street.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's different, it's the function of the film. And the whole movie wasn't a dream. It actually happened.
MARCUS PARKS
The dreams are real though, that's the scary thing about it.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't that something?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's like the extra dreams are extra real.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. No, I agree.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where's my machine? Where's my blood pressure machine?
BEN KISSEL
I know buddy, you really need to calm it. So they just got the rug pulled out from underneath them.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And then some people were like well that was so fun, let's do it again!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And then some people were like let's get the fuck out of here.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, some people absolutely left and some of them had to convince themselves, that sort of thing where you go okay...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay, I think I get it, I think I understand.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's a plan here.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, there's a plan.
BEN KISSEL
It does remind me of that fucking jackass from the NXIVM documentary where he's like Keith Ranieri told me he knew a new kind of math. And I was like I know math and he knew a new math.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Rinder also says that he spoke with one of Keith Ranieri's crew because once you're out of the cult leader membership, then you get to talk to all the ex-cult leaders.
BEN KISSEL
The post-cult cult?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you get to go hang out. Ranieri openly copied Scientology.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And talked about he read what is Scientology, he openly did it.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah, we all recognized that when we watch the documentary.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cool though but we called it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
We did!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I was like yeah!
MARCUS PARKS
Hell yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Cults have very similar tendencies, don't they?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's why wait, you won't even see mine coming.
BEN KISSEL
I think we will. But I don't think... Stealth is not your accolade.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the idea. I let them see me coming. Let them see me not coming.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Well this new level of cruelty, it was actually just sort of what Miscavige was creating all along because he also introduced a culture of violence when it came to the inner sanctums of Scientology.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
And that's in addition to the emotional abuse that had been going on all throughout the L. Ron Hubbard years.
BEN KISSEL
So '88 was the year that they first got violent.
MARCUS PARKS
Well not necessarily. Miscavige had been violent for a long time but '88 is about the time that it started getting institutionalized.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, just into policy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Miscavige would take another 20 years for it to become really institutionalized.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well the truth is that he had an assistant, his communicator is what they call it in Scientology, his assistant, and she would always smooth things over. And David Miscavige's signature move was the full on sideways clothesline.
BEN KISSEL
I could see that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Full on airborne sideways clothesline. So what he loved was to jump over a table, this is his thing.
BEN KISSEL
I can totally see it, dude.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Clear a fucking table and hit you with his torso.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I get it because I do understand like watching him jump.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. And his favorite word was cocksucker.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. God, that's a move that Puck from Alpha Flight does.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sometimes as a little guy, your whole body's gotta be the attack.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. It's oh my god it's the fucking fast ball special, the speed ball special that fucking Colossus and Wolverine used to do!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is!
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You just fling yourself to the side. It's really hard.
BEN KISSEL
It's scary dude.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He did it to an old woman.
BEN KISSEL
Good for him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She should have got out of the way, obviously her reaction time wasn't up. She must have been down stats.
MARCUS PARKS
She must have been down stats, yeah. Had many overts and withholds she hadn't cleared off.
BEN KISSEL
She's an older woman so it's difficult.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well one member of the Church marketing unit said that during a board meeting they saw Miscavige get up, stand behind two seated executives, and bonk their heads together like a cartoon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Bonk!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He learned how to do it from Three Stooges.
BEN KISSEL
Oh man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But he mashing people's faces.
MARCUS PARKS
But he bonked them hard enough that one of them started bleeding out of his ear.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, dude. He did it to Mike Rinder.
BEN KISSEL
Dude, that's going to be a new fucking... Don't let Dana White hear about bonk fighting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, dude.
BEN KISSEL
Because that's next after slap fighting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Once you get into the Looney Tunes school of karate. But Mike Rinder, he had his office, right. But he had this balcony that he only had access to that he would go smoke on, David Miscavige. And Mike Rinder went out there, he would make you wait for him out there where you have to go wait on this balcony. And he said one time Mike Rinder, there's a series of bushes there, Mike Rinder came out and he's like listen to me, you fucking cocksucker! And then just jacked him in the chest with his elbow. He fell back in the bushes, he grabbed his head, literally was pushing his face into the bushes and pushing his face in the bushes, pull him out, pull him down on the floor. His face is bleeding, Mike Rinder's face is bleeding. He then goes inside, David Miscavige comes back out, gives him a glass of scotch and he says clean yourself up. He does that shit. Real intense.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Thank you for the scotch I guess.
MARCUS PARKS
Another time about 20 scientologists were summoned to the religious technology center headquarters. Of course everyone's in trouble. And without warning, Miscavige started slapping one of his subordinates open handed, got him at least 10 times.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
And this was horrible because it was one of the guys he'd already head bonked.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah dude. Because once you get head bonked, you're going to get slapped.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, he got blapped, he got bonked and slapped.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But then his secretary would go and be like David, you can't get him so mad.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're really riling him up.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, it's psychological torture 101. It's so easy to do this shit to be honest.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well another Sea Org member who left in 1990 which implies that this happened throughout the 80s, he said that he once witnessed Miscavige assault a staffer by punching them in the ribs so hard that you could hear his fist thudding against his victim's ribcage. And of course since shit rolls downhill, those that were attacked by Miscavige would in turn attack others both with and without Miscavige's direction. In David's view, beating others showed loyalty to him.
BEN KISSEL
So it's just part of the culture now, it's totally become ingrained.
MARCUS PARKS
Which never happened during LRH, never happened.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No because he viewed that as being serious about Scientology.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
And that's not to say that LRH Wasn't fucking horrible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And that's not to say that people weren't emotionally ruined and financially ruined during LRH, of course they were.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But it wasn't violent.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He sent his wife to jail. You know what I mean? LRH sent his own fucking wife to do the fucking clink. So yeah, he does bad shit. But yeah, he wasn't a physical type.
BEN KISSEL
He was not physical. You do have to clarify that, he was not physical violence and that's good.
MARCUS PARKS
That's good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's fine.
BEN KISSEL
The whole thing is horrible but I guess that's good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's where the bar is.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, that's where the bar is.
MARCUS PARKS
Now in 1989 the Supreme Court dealt Scientology a major blow when it was announced that Scientology services were not tax deductible because they were a quid pro quo transaction, ie I pay you for a thing and you give me the thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's a business.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
That same year the IRS again denied tax exempt status to the organization. Now Miscavige had actually learned a couple of things from Operation Snow White and this time he waged war legally and asymmetrically. He flooded the IRS With lawsuits, he engaged in a smear campaign against individual IRS agents, he took out full page ads in national newspapers targeting the IRS, and he created astroturf groups to ruffle the public's feathers.
BEN KISSEL
I mean to be honest that's fun.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean it's kinda fun.
BEN KISSEL
So that's where I'm just like now what's this guy all about and the next thing you know I'm getting bonked and slapped.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Exactly.
MARCUS PARKS
And this was only another battle in Scientology's long war that wouldn't end for another five years. That's what Scientology always referred to it as, the war.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The war.
BEN KISSEL
The war. So this is the 5 year war.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well actually it's the 30 year war.
BEN KISSEL
30 years!
MARCUS PARKS
That's what they called it, the 30 year war. They didn't call it the 30 year war but it lasted for 30 years and they called it the war.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But at the same time, Miscavige also knew to never take his eye off the ball when it came to corporate image.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Keep it tight.
MARCUS PARKS
See L. Ron Hubbard knew way back when that his personal image was essential to Scientology's acceptance as a mainstream religion, which was key to tax exempt status.
BEN KISSEL
So you heard that right folks, L. Ron Hubbard dressed like that on purpose.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. He was trying to hide, he had the long hair for a while which was pretty gross.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. The long hair, because it was the pageboy haircut, it was the He-Man haircut.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Cause he was fucking full penguin bald. And his hair, the long hair just started at the very back of his head.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. It's cool though.
MARCUS PARKS
Well LRH rightfully surmised that if everyone knew that the ruddy ginger taking readings from tomato plants, if they knew that he was a failed sailor turned sex occultist scam artist, they might not follow him as the leader of a religion that demanded all of your money.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know, I feel like that's the best sales pitch I've heard of him ever.
BEN KISSEL
For some. But they wanna get a wide net.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. So Miscavige got Mike Rinder on the case to make sure that everyone thought well of L. Ron Hubbard.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. Because David Miscavige, his favorite thing was to give people truly impossible tasks.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
To see how far you'd go.
BEN KISSEL
I mean the one thing we've learned about the past six years is you just put anyone's head on John Rambo and then they're just gonna be the next president.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah and they love it, people just love it.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well mainly Rinder was tasked with getting Hubbard a posthumous Nobel Prize for his discovery of the so-called purification rundown.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Can you imagine? I'll say it to Fernando. Can you imagine one of us dies and Marcus in a full on pill haze comes to you and is like you need to go get Henry a posthumous Emmy or I'm gonna beat you. Like I'm gonna literally beat you. Which just makes no sense.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because what did Rinder immediately find out?
MARCUS PARKS
Well he didn't immediately find out that this thing, he found it out later but we'll get to that here in a second.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Basically the purification rundown was a regiment of saunas, vitamins, oils, and niacin. All of that causes drug residues, quote unquote "drug residues" to sweat out of the body.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well that is the secret tech behind Narconon.
BEN KISSEL
Awesome. Sweating.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Secret tech.
MARCUS PARKS
This according to Scientology cured the patient of their drug addiction, which in their view was worthy of a Nobel Prize.
BEN KISSEL
That's what fucking Jordan Belfort talked about, every single morning he would go into a sauna to sweat out the drugs.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
And he's the Wolf of Wall Street.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean it was fake.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because all that is not real, you don't sweat that shit out, it doesn't work like that.
BEN KISSEL
I guess you might. I guess you might. I guess you might!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I can't do anything against that.
MARCUS PARKS
Well to make this Nobel Prize happen, Rinder spearheaded a magazine and billboard campaign touting the brilliance of LRH. This is where Rinder coined the infomercial tagline 'one of the most acclaimed and widely read authors of all time'.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
Dianetics.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dianetics.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa, cool. I've seen them at Comic-Con.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh god, they're at every single Comic-Con.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Every one.
MARCUS PARKS
We'll get into that a little bit later on the next episode. But yeah, I have never been to a Comic- Con where there was not a... It's not a Scientology table, it's not a dianetics table, it's an L. Ron Hubbard table.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Curious? That's the idea, the author, man. That's how you single it out. He still has a massive page on Amazon.
BEN KISSEL
Wow!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know, I'm just saying-
BEN KISSEL
A massive page on Amazon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just saying if you look at all of his books, it's crazy. They don't say Scientology really, it's all like incredible sci-fi genius L. Ron Hubbard.
MARCUS PARKS
Rinder also directed scientologists to purchase full volumes of Scientology materials and donate them to public libraries in a bid to spread the bullshit across America, which is by the way something scientologists still do to this day. Not the church of course, the church doesn't pay for these books.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no.
MARCUS PARKS
The scientologists themselves buy the books using their own money and then they donate those books.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So that's how you know they're loyal.
BEN KISSEL
I mean there has been a real uptick in people with mental instability, borderline homeless getting into Scientology because they're the only ones at public libraries.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well now they're also doing a thing where they're going to, in their words, third world countries because one thing that Sea Org does is offer free room and board. So that's a new thing is we'll chip you in which is what David Miscavige is getting into hot water for now.
BEN KISSEL
Chip you in?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, we ship you in.
BEN KISSEL
Oh ship you in, I see.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, ship you in and then you stay in a bunch of hostels where you're forced to do slave labor.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh that's so fun.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean you get $5 a week.
BEN KISSEL
$5 a week! Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa, what is this?
BEN KISSEL
Wow. They're just doing that again.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
There's more slaves in the world today than there was back in the day. Isn't that sad?
MARCUS PARKS
Would it be because there are millions of times more people than there were back in the day?
BEN KISSEL
Buddy, we'll talk about it later.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Rinder was successful in increasing sales of L. Ron Hubbard's fiction. Through a simple campaign of awareness, many people got curious.
BEN KISSEL
Oh no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Curious?
BEN KISSEL
Curious?
MARCUS PARKS
But after all that, Rinder finally discovered that Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that's the dumbest thing ever. It's the dumbest shit ever.
MARCUS PARKS
He did all of it, he did all of it. It was like finally, now I get to make my case. And then like we don't do that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We don't do that.
BEN KISSEL
That's the first question you have to ask!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. No, Mike Rinder...
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because he also says there are periods of time in his life that he doesn't even remember because he was so exhausted, like he was literally so sleep deprived.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But he was like yeah, it's really wild. I should have done that first. The defeat that he experienced...
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god, you don't give these to dead guys, huh? Our guy is dead.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But now you have to go tell your exacting boss that you couldn't do the impossible thing that he sent you to do.
MARCUS PARKS
And then Miscavige gave him an even more impossible thing to do. He said you go and you change the criteria that they use to give Nobel Prizes.
BEN KISSEL
So it's not the Guinness Book of World Records, we're changing it to the Michelob Book of World Records, okay?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's incredible.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Now in 1988, as a part of this whole public image push, Scientology was trying whatever it could to get its name out there. And someone decided that a solid avenue for new scientologists would be the world of race cars.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I could see it. I can really see this.
MARCUS PARKS
Like the high end, like the Indy cars?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, there's a lot of money in that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause there's not a lot of oversight in those ads, right? Can't anybody buy in it? Can't we sponsor a race car?
MARCUS PARKS
Of course we could.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That would be cool.
BEN KISSEL
We could get a NASCAR or an F1.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah but it's a cruiser, right. Slow. Like why are we rushing?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You want a slow car.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like a town car.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
That's the thing is that we'll get press because we'll be the slowest car on the track.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the idea.
MARCUS PARKS
Then they'll talk about it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We don't need your dumb awards, we just like to drive.
BEN KISSEL
Just go 35 the whole time. Okay. Fine, I like it.
MARCUS PARKS
Well in 1988 at the GTE World Challenge race in Tampa, Scientology sponsored a Porsche that had emblazoned on its side, larger than any other logo, a dianetics decal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Okay. It's kind of a cool decal to be fair.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And driving the car was one of the most famous race car drivers of all time.
BEN KISSEL
Marty Jannetty.
MARCUS PARKS
Mario Andretti.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah dude.
BEN KISSEL
Marty Jannetty was a wrestler. Mario Andretti.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah. I knew what you meant.
BEN KISSEL
Nice!
MARCUS PARKS
And you technically got it right. Because you got it right in your mind.
BEN KISSEL
I did.
MARCUS PARKS
But the thing is that Mario Andretti didn't actually know that he was driving a Scientology car until he showed up.
BEN KISSEL
He was driving a yarmulke.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Damn.
BEN KISSEL
I am on fire today. So right. Every time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Everything. Me too, absolutely. We only ever crush it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now Scientology figured that he wouldn't care one way or another but they didn't count on the fact that Mario Andretti is an extremely devout Catholic.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No way, an Italian race car driver is a Catholic?
BEN KISSEL
I don't believe it, someone who dies at work if he makes a mistake?
MARCUS PARKS
He refused to drive the car because he sincerely believed that the Pope would excommunicate him if he drove a car advertising another religion.
BEN KISSEL
He might get excommunicated. What I do love about this is Catholics are like you cute cult, you cute cult.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You cute little guy.
BEN KISSEL
Tell me when you have a fucking Pope and a country.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
So as a compromise, they removed the dianetics logo and put it on a lesser car owned by the same racing company driven by a guy who could give less of a shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it was not Mario Andretti.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was just like yeah, I'll fucking drive it. I beat my wife every night. What do I give a shit?
BEN KISSEL
No, he wouldn't do that.
MARCUS PARKS
To replace the decal, they instead advertised Bridge Publications which was the company that put out dianetics.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
And in the end Andretti finished 6th.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
His heart wasn't in it.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
Then Scientology continued sponsoring race cars for years with less discerning drivers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
The best was the Indy car that they had because you know the Indy cars have the big spoilers on the back.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, spoilers.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
They just printed just the word dianetics.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just want one that's just... It should be all LRH themed.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where you have his face painted on the hood.
BEN KISSEL
Make it fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And his arms painted on the side. And his butt painted on the back. Like it's him as a car.
MARCUS PARKS
No, you paint a van and you put that in the race.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's awesome.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah!
BEN KISSEL
That's fun. Also I believe that's what your doctors told you to get on, a dianetics.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What? Hey! It's a diuretic.
BEN KISSEL
Oh I'm sorry.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I'm already feeling it.
BEN KISSEL
Are you?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I gotta pee.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Miscavige seemed to hold on to the fiction that L. Ron Hubbard would one day either be reincarnated or he would simply show up back on earth at any time. And LRH did himself set somewhat of a timeline for this.
BEN KISSEL
I have a question truly and I don't know if it's answerable again, so just say no if you don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What do you mean? I was trying before to equate things.
BEN KISSEL
Do you think David Miscavige believes that? Is he a true believer in that sense? Do you think he believes in a tangible L. Ron Hubbard coming back?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do you know how some people are agnostic about god because they don't want to be wrong, right? Like the idea is more about I don't want to be wrong.
BEN KISSEL
I've heard that argument so much, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What if there is a god and I show up and he's like got you bitch! I don't know, right.
BEN KISSEL
Right. This says back door to 7 3 right here, Mr. Zebrowski. What was that?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh god. But David Miscavige I think did all of this because he thought that it might happen.
MARCUS PARKS
Maybe.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because of all of the dudes that were close to it-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I keep bringing it up because it was it was an interesting talk but Rinder talked about how there was probably at this point in time, there's maybe been 75 people that have directly been involved with LRH, right, that have actually been to the heart of Scientology and touched it.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And David Miscavige is one of those guys. But David Miscavige I think was held under sway still of LRH, in awe of him in a way.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And just more afraid.
MARCUS PARKS
Well I think it's a very convenient belief as well because he always has the fallback of well this is what LRH is gonna want.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Do you want LRH to come back and do you want him to see what a bad job you've done?
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
Do you want him to see your goofs?
BEN KISSEL
No, I don't want him to see my goofs!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You want him to see what kind of goofer you've grown yourself up to be?
BEN KISSEL
No, I'm not a goofer. Okay so both convenience and then also if he doesn't believe that, maybe in his mind he's a total fraud. But if he does believe it I guess in his mind he's not a fraud.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't think he cares whether he's a fraud or not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't think he gives a living shit.
BEN KISSEL
Oh okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Well from what scientologists deciphered from Hubbard's rambling lectures, he was supposed to return to Earth 21 years after his death. But unless they've been keeping him in isolation with Shelly Miscavige since 2007, I don't think he's coming back.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well he's not up to snuff now because he actually, he hasn't been doing the proper auditing. So yes, he's actually at the RPF right now scrubbing the floors.
BEN KISSEL
L. Ron Hubbard?
MARCUS PARKS
LRH is?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, LRH, yeah. He actually didn't really cover it. Actually I'm really curious because the 21 year clock that he started, because once they went through all of his writings because LRH, remember he set up the Sea Org and it has the motto 'we come back'.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because what he said is that okay, I got you for a billion years.
BEN KISSEL
So long.
MARCUS PARKS
You sign a billion year contract.
BEN KISSEL
I know, I signed it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We got you, right. You're Sea Org, we got your butt, right. The thing is so what he does is like okay, you dropped your body. What do I do now? Guess what? You get 21 years off.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So as a ghost you can go do whatever you want for 21 years.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, you can go to Saturn, you can go to Venus.
BEN KISSEL
Awesome.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whatever you want. You can go inside of the port-a-potty at a Bonnaroo festival.
BEN KISSEL
Oh mamacita.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You can do whatever you want.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, why'd that guy walk into the port-a-potty with a spork? I'm not disgusting, I use utensils.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, I don't wanna get my hands dirty.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, that's gross.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But LRH said after those 21 years you're back at work, we gotta get you back in step.
BEN KISSEL
So you got 21 years of reprieve and nonstop fun. Almost like what they do with the Amish community.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
A Rumspringa.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Rumspringa.
MARCUS PARKS
Rumspringa, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You have a little Rumspringa. So now David Miscavige thought that that might actually be real. And so that began a 21 year plan of what are we gonna do?
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How are we getting this all in shape for when LRH shows back up?
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Well regardless, Miscavige used Hubbard's impending return for years as an excuse to keep his foot on the gas. As I said, a convenient belief. See according to Hubbard, one of the biggest metrics for Scientology's success was book sales. So under the guise of this is what LRH's reincarnated form is gonna want upon his return, Miscavige continued printing new editions of the Scientology backlog. Then he ordered all scientologists to purchase every new addition like a college professor who uses his own book for his course.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He learned the way to make extra money within Scientology is to make me give me back the money I've just given you.
MARCUS PARKS
Now by the early 90s, Scientology was starting to get a bad enough wrap where the inevitable journalistic investigations began.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's unbelievable! It's fucking unbelievable!
BEN KISSEL
That's more of a Regis Philbin I think.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it is.
MARCUS PARKS
In 1991 Time Magazine published an article that detailed just how destructive Scientology had been to many people. Now Scientology had been somewhat prepared for this, having already hired a PR firm named Hill+Knowlton in anticipation of the inevitable hit pieces. But the Time Magazine article was so damning that the PR firm dropped Scientology rather than defend them.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which is kind of hard because you're my crisis management team.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm in a bit of a crisis, didn't I pay you money to handle this? And they're like not this one.
BEN KISSEL
I almost think that's kind of fraudulent on the PR team, to be honest. Because they were paid I would assume up to that point.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it was just so toxic. It's a cult.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So I think at some point you're like...
BEN KISSEL
Yeah but what did they think they were PR for?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think at first, well at first maybe you think maybe they're okay, people sign up for it, they volunteered to join Scientology.
MARCUS PARKS
You think they're kind of quirky, they're kinda kooky.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, kooky guys.
MARCUS PARKS
Because at this point nobody knows anything about Scientology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
There's no huge exposes, you might get a couple of articles in local papers but there's no nationally exposes, there's no national coverage at all. So you're thinking okay, are you a religion? And that's the other thing too is that I'm sure that whoever went in to talk to these PR people sold them an entirely different version of what Scientology was.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And even if he handled the call, because now you're looking at David Miscavige who is like we are simply a misunderstood religion, right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And we're up in the coming and people want to come for us because we have the truth and they're afraid we're gonna shock and destabilize the entire world.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then they go and they're like okay. And then they get the Time Magazine article at the same time as everybody else does and they're like oh no, what have we done?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
This article called 'Scientology: The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power', it revealed that the church had netted $500 million in 1987 alone.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
And those hundreds of millions were kept in secret accounts all over the world. This was also the first time anyone had publicly talked about the blackmail Scientology held over John Travolta concerning his sexual orientation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Poor man. I feel bad for John Tra.
MARCUS PARKS
I feel really bad. I mean we talked about it on Page 7 for many, many years. I'm very sympathetic for John Tra.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. Except for he let his son die. That's a whole thing.
MARCUS PARKS
Well I mean that's a whole thing. It's a whole thing.
BEN KISSEL
And that's his right as a father.
MARCUS PARKS
It also speaks very much to his intelligence and his naivete.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But not coincidentally and very sadly, John Travolta, after this article came out, he announced his engagement to Kelly Preston like two weeks later.
BEN KISSEL
We just went that road, huh? You got to.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But Kelly seemed lovely and she was hot and stuff.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah but that doesn't matter to him.
BEN KISSEL
Well he does have a wife.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He could work it, he got it in there enough.
MARCUS PARKS
I guess. You don't know that.
BEN KISSEL
I've seen it. I've seen him do it, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause you can do the thing where you just come on a chair and she sits in it.
BEN KISSEL
No, you can't do that. That's a Bill Hicks joke about weak sperm.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is that true?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, it's kinda funny. He says you look like you're weak sperm, looks like your dad came on a seat and your mom sat on it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow. It's all been done.
MARCUS PARKS
Best part of you slid the crack of your mama's ass.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Running down your mama's leg, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well this article also detailed the campaign of, and this is my new favorite phrase, vexatious litigation. Yeah. That prevented publishers from releasing critical articles about Scientology, that's why this is the first one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He learns that you just keep them in court and you drain them over time. You hit them with lawsuits til finally everyone is like you know what? I'm sick of even fucking dealing with these people, we'll shut up.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. If you got $500 million a year, that's where you're gonna spend it.
MARCUS PARKS
And additionally they also detailed the tactic of using private eyes to stalk critics, they framed people for crimes, they beat them up, they issued death threats. They have their own little private army.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's kind of fun to be a PI like that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's got to be kind of cool.
MARCUS PARKS
That's a crooked PI life.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's a crooked PI.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's evil. It's fun though.
BEN KISSEL
It's not right, it's not right.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the author of this article also quoted a member of the Cult Awareness Network saying that Scientology is the most ruthless, classically terroristic, and lucrative cult America had ever seen. Big takedown.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
But in response, Scientology began a years long attack against the Cult Awareness Network. They were bankrupted in 1996, Scientology bought the organization, and they rebranded it as a pro-Scientology front which it still is to this day.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa! It's like the Monday Night Wars when Vince was able to fight WCW.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. That is the most petty... David Miscavige is such an evil little fuck.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I'm mean that's a great day though when you buy-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's just Terry the Gnome is he was real.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. But when you buy your competition or buy the entity that makes fun of you, that's a great day.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, I fantasize. I fantasize.
MARCUS PARKS
You not only buy it, it's like you buy it, you kill it, you rip off its face and then you put-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You put your face!
MARCUS PARKS
Your face on it, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I got a couple of those dreams.
MARCUS PARKS
And then you have sex with it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah!
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
MARCUS PARKS
Now after the article was released, Miscavige declared war on Time Magazine. He publicly said that the Time editors and the writers were SPs trying to destroy mankind's only hope for salvation, ie Scientology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He wasn't wrong.
BEN KISSEL
I am pretty fucking annoyed with Time Magazine when they made us Person of the Year and they just put a shitty ass mirror on their cover.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I know, I know.
BEN KISSEL
I'm upset with Time.
MARCUS PARKS
You bring it up once a month.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It really does come up a lot.
BEN KISSEL
I know and I'm mad at Time and honestly as a magazine it has gone downhill.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I was looking on their dot com, not a lot of content there that matters.
MARCUS PARKS
Not really.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So they did their damage, didn't they?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Maybe.
MARCUS PARKS
I suppose. This was 1990 though. 30 years ago.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I remember 1997, it was yesterday.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the church then spent $3 million in a media blitz that included a three month long full page ad buy in USA Today. They also had a beef with the Man of the Year.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
They also had a beef.
BEN KISSEL
Who was the Man of the Year?
MARCUS PARKS
In 1938 Time Magazine called Hitler the Man of the Year.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See? That was their eternal endless gripe.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Wow. And I can't even believe it because everyone knows its Person of the Year.
MARCUS PARKS
True.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Additionally, Scientology got USA Today to write a story called, and this is the most Scientology title I've ever fucking heard, 'The Story That Time Couldn't Tell: Who Really Controls the News at Time and Why'.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a lot.
BEN KISSEL
That is a lot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't even know what they're talking about. Like are we talking about the magazine or are we just talking about the ethereal nature of time?
BEN KISSEL
I think they used Time twice there.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, they did. It's the story that Time couldn't tell.
BEN KISSEL
But also that's a pun.
MARCUS PARKS
Because time tells... What does time-
BEN KISSEL
That was a pun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm dying. I'm dying. The story that time couldn't tell, I don't even know. Oh my god, I'm falling apart. My brain is falling apart.
BEN KISSEL
Time tells you you're going to die.
MARCUS PARKS
But time tells... But that's the thing is that the clock is telling the time but... Ugh!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The map's not the territory. That's actually what you're trying to slide to is the map's not the territory. Yeah, cause sometimes its like yeah sure, it's 6:45, right. But what is it really? I'm having time with my family.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, exactly.
MARCUS PARKS
Interesting. And time can't tell that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Time can't tell that, time is just numbers.
BEN KISSEL
Time is just something they bring up in court to try to put you at a scene of a crime.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Always.
MARCUS PARKS
True.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And there are always cellphone towers and I've never even seen one.
BEN KISSEL
No, no, no. Leave your cellphone at home.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If you're gonna kill your family, yeah. That's actually really important.
MARCUS PARKS
Always. Unless leaving your phone at home ties you to the crime.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that's why leave your phone at your least favorite friend's house.
BEN KISSEL
Don't kill your family.
MARCUS PARKS
True.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whatever.
BEN KISSEL
There we go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay. Woke. You fucking woke ass guy.
BEN KISSEL
That's woke?
MARCUS PARKS
Well the main thrust of 'The Story That Time Couldn't Tell: Who Really Controls the News at Time and Why' was that Time was in the pocket of pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, makers of Prozac.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The only time they have been... Because they had balls. David Miscavige thought he could take on the pharmaceutical industry on the whole.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like he thought that we'll do it.
MARCUS PARKS
Well I mean that's the thing is that the pharmaceutical industry just ignores Scientology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
They're strong enough where they can just fucking flick them away like a fly on a rhino.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They did not care.
BEN KISSEL
Of course, they're very powerful.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But you had a little barking fucking shih tzu and then David Miscavige coming at you all day long.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I mean Scientology is of course anti psychiatry, that's sort of the point of the whole fucking thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But there are some barbs in there with the Sanger family and things like that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh no, no.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah, that's awful.
BEN KISSEL
So I think that could be an in for some people though that would be like I lost my child to opioids. And then it's like curious? And you're like I am.
MARCUS PARKS
Actually the latest issue of the Scientology magazine Freedom, the issue that is out right now, the front page, the front cover is all about opioids.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean that's exactly... And this has never changed.
BEN KISSEL
That's a universal like people are like that wasn't good and it's not good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're right and they were correct.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well the thing is about Scientology is that they had made multiple media appearances attacking Eli Lilly by saying that Prozac caused suicide and mass murder. Eventually Scientology would blame everything from Columbine to 9/11 to the Holocaust on psychiatry and psychiatric drugs. These claims are fully displayed on Scientology's Sunset Boulevard exhibit called 'Psychiatry: An Industry of Death'.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You know I'm actually just gonna say Hitler could have used a little therapy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly.
BEN KISSEL
Just a skosh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just a skosh. A little bit of a ketamine treatment.
BEN KISSEL
Just something where it's like I know they didn't like your paintings, Adolf.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I wanted him to relax, he needed to relax. We went to the Psychiatry Museum of Death, Marcus and I.
BEN KISSEL
Museum of Death?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It's called Museum of Death? That's what it's called?
MARCUS PARKS
No, It's 'Psychiatry: An Industry of Death'.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Industry of death.
BEN KISSEL
Industry of death, okay.
MARCUS PARKS
And it's actually pretty close to the Museum of Death here in LA.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's very similar.
MARCUS PARKS
It's very, very similar. It's a lot slicker. It's very, very slick.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah and then we put all your personal information into the member directory because they kept insisting to us, right, like go in the log books.
BEN KISSEL
That's nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So we wrote Benjamin Kissel, 656 Metropolitan Avenue from back in the day.
MARCUS PARKS
I guarantee you it's still there.
BEN KISSEL
That's nice.
MARCUS PARKS
Scientology materials are still arriving at 656 Metropolitan Avenue.
BEN KISSEL
That's great guys, thank you so much. Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
And the psychiatry museum, it's fun to peruse but it's dangerous. I mean when we were there behind us where three kids, three teenage girls that were all obviously raised in Scientology and they were looking around this place like they were visiting Auschwitz.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. They were very scared.
MARCUS PARKS
Terrified.
BEN KISSEL
So it's like a field trip. It was all true to them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is, yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that's also Mike Rinder's baby, he made that whole place.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well 'Psychiatry: An Industry of Death' is owned and operated in perpetuity by a Scientology front called the Citizens Commission on Human Rights. It was opened by a former psychiatrist hilariously named Tommy Szasz.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, Mr. Szasz. Dr. Szasz!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You call me Dr. Szasz, I didn't go to 19 years of funny doctor school to be called Mr. Szasz.
BEN KISSEL
Sounds like he's a goofer to me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He is, he is.
MARCUS PARKS
His name is Thomas Szasz.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Tommifer. It is Tommifer Szasz. We were joking last night because we were watching Battlefield Earth and Barry Pepper is in it and Natalie is like of course Barry Pepper didn't make it, his fucking name is Pepper. And I was just like he changed it from Barry Pepperoni cause he knew, he had an agent that was like I don't know who's gonna hire a Pepperoni.
MARCUS PARKS
Barry Pepperoni? Ugh. No, I'm not hiring Barry Pepperoni. I like Barry Pepper though.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think so.
MARCUS PARKS
Best bug eyes this side of Jake Busey.
BEN KISSEL
Barry Pepper.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I'm pretty sure Battlefield Earth destroyed his career.
MARCUS PARKS
Barry Pepper, you know what he was in? Fucking Saving Private Ryan. He was the fucking sniper, Ben.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Bring it back around.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah well...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You fucking asshole.
BEN KISSEL
I guess he was able to use his big eyes for that. Barry Pepper. Yeah, oh my! Yes. Canadian. Okay, gotcha.
MARCUS PARKS
But concerning Scientology's beef with Eli Lilly, they said that the drugmaker had pressured their PR firm to drop them as a client because what other reason could there be for a reputable company to no longer be associated with Scientology?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, why?
MARCUS PARKS
But you know of course after Scientology sued the PR firm, you were correct in saying that they had cause, they settled out of court. They also sued Time Magazine but Time Magazine, they had much deeper pockets back than they do now, they won the case.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yup.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now to massage Scientology's public image after the Time article, David Miscavige agreed to appear on Nightline with Ted Koppel in his first ever and his last public interview.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You should watch it, Kissel.
MARCUS PARKS
It's great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's very, very interesting.
BEN KISSEL
Do you wanna do a Ted Koppel off? Who can do the best Ted Koppel?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(muffled) I'm Ted Koppel.
MARCUS PARKS
(muffled) Welcome to Nightline, I'm Ted Koppel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(muffled) Hi, welcome. We have here the illustrious leader of the church of Scientology, David Miscavige.
BEN KISSEL
I'm Ted Koppel! I'm Ted Koppel, welcome to Nightline!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wait a second, Lorne is calling.
BEN KISSEL
Hello!
MARCUS PARKS
Now in this interview, Miscavige definitely went with L. Ron Hubbard's always attack, never defend strategy, even though David Miscavige does look significantly smaller than Ted Koppel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Even though Ted Koppel is only an inch taller than David Miscavige. Ted Koppel's 5'4"!
BEN KISSEL
It does prove your point from last episode.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's very compact. David Miscavige is 5'3" of pure sinewy muscle.
MARCUS PARKS
You're right but he's Wolverine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He has very little shoulders.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what keeps me from being big is smaller sloping shoulders. If I had bigger shoulders, I'd look like a bigger guy because my middle is wide.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, if you were completely constructed differently.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If I was bigger, I'd be bigger.
MARCUS PARKS
But then why don't I look bigger? Because my shoulders are very broad.
BEN KISSEL
He has the V.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You have a British ribcage.
BEN KISSEL
Yes, that is true. The Brits have large rib cages.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually viewed as more long than large.
MARCUS PARKS
More long than large, yeah. Long British ribcage. That's what the problem is. Okay.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what I'd say about what your problems are. That's what I'd say.
BEN KISSEL
That's one of them there.
MARCUS PARKS
So Nightline, they showed a brief segment before the interview detailing Scientology's many crimes against former members, but Miscavige said that all these claims came from the Cult Awareness Network.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah and he said the Cult Awareness Network can go fuck itself.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
MARCUS PARKS
He didn't say that on Nightline.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
He said on Nightline that the Cult Awareness Network was to Scientology what the KKK was to, in his words, the blacks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He also kept referring to, anytime he referred to a woman he's refer to them as a girl, he'd say this girl.
MARCUS PARKS
Always.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We know bc he made that statement when he was 19 when they were auditing him and he went to one of his instructors and he was like who lets all these fucking broads audit people?
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's very misogynist. But then Ted Koppel will be like you mean a woman.
MARCUS PARKS
Every time. And it rattled the fuck out of him. Every single time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, he got real sweaty.
MARCUS PARKS
Because that's the thing is that he knew that Ted Koppel had a point to correct him on because he couldn't argue with no, I call them girls.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
So he had to say yes to something. And then once he did that, Koppel had him by the fucking throat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Wow!
MARCUS PARKS
Put him on the defensive.
BEN KISSEL
Is this a Koppel get?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was.
MARCUS PARKS
It is a huge Koppel get.
BEN KISSEL
You got Koppel'd.
MARCUS PARKS
It's an hour long. It's a great fucking interview.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well he showed up thinking it was only supposed to be half the segment.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And Ted Koppel was very good because he was like no, we want to make sure everybody hears everything you have to say. So not only are we gonna air all your segments and the stuff you gave us, we're giving you a full hour.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
MARCUS PARKS
But that pissed David Miscavige off because he thought that if they had a full... He thought that they were setting him up which they were.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They were.
BEN KISSEL
Of course, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
They absolutely were. And so in order to kind of I guess bargain, David Miscavige demanded to see the 15 minute introductory piece detailing the accusations before he went on air. And that's never done. But when the producer stood his ground and said no, you can't do that, we don't do that, Miscavige grabbed him by the shirt collar, pushed him against the wall and said quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(HENRY QUOTE) "You what? You're trying to fuck me over! You handle this or we are all walking out!"
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You know to some degree, that is gotcha journalism and everyone should have the same amount of information going in. So I don't disagree, they should have showed it to him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But the problem is that he's an abusive cult leader.
BEN KISSEL
No, I know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If you showed him the stuff, he never would have showed up.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're just trying to get him in the room. They know all these things, you gotta get him in the room, gotta get him on camera.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's not like they're trying to fucking get Mr. Rogers here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa.
MARCUS PARKS
This is an evil, evil man.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. We don't know about Mr. Rogers' crimes.
BEN KISSEL
We do know about Mr. Rogers, he was fantastic.
MARCUS PARKS
THere's no crimes.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Absolutely zero.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know, he's the only one who ever got out clean.
MARCUS PARKS
He really is.
BEN KISSEL
He really did.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Mike Rinder said that this was the first time that he ever saw Miscavige physically manhandle a non scientologist. But it worked and the producer showed Miscavige the pre interview piece so he could prepare answers. Thing is though in the end, didn't fucking matter at all.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He prepped for weeks.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he still was just so... He would be like ask me a question like you're Ted Koppel. And the guy would go like (muffled) so, today...
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He would do the thing. And he's like that's not what fucking Ted would say. And he would berate all of them.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he just was bad at it.
BEN KISSEL
You don't have to prep for weeks if you're not a fucking liar.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's the nice thing is if you just tell the truth, maybe prep for like an hour.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Just get ready for it. Get your brain on.
MARCUS PARKS
It's something to get out of the way on the way to the grocery store.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. Get some stats right to prove your points.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
That's all you need.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the thing about the interview is that David Miscavige does not come off well.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
He looks crazed. Ted Koppel rattles him multiple times as I said and he asthmatically wheezes through the entire interview, even though he claimed in the interview that Scientology cured his asthma.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's very interesting because if you look at the difference between other scientologists on camera and David Miscavige on camera, same thing with LRH, they both suffer from real sweaty in an environment where they are not in total domination.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And David Miscavige is actually not a great public speaker when he's not in charge.
BEN KISSEL
Interesting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you're watching him, it's interesting especially for a scientologist because he's tripping over words.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's saying wrong things. He's saying stuff like...
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He looks real unsure, real unsteady.
MARCUS PARKS
And that's the interesting thing about his bad performance because scientologists, they're usually slippery little sphinxes when it comes to defending their religion in interviews.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
There's nary a high ranking scientologist under Miscavige whose goat gets got by a reporter.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Have you seen Mike Rinder on camera?
BEN KISSEL
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's terrifying.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yes, I actually have seen him, yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The hollow eyed, that face like a granite slab. There's something about it, it's intimidating. It's again non reactionary.
MARCUS PARKS
And it's also the bulldog look. It's that straight up, they have that sort of look where you think any moment they could snap and rip my throat out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Fun.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the reason behind this discrepancy is simple. Ironically, David Miscavige has probably never actually gone through the Scientology training that everyone else has.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We realized it-
BEN KISSEL
I'm gonna kill this guy. I'm literally gonna fucking kill this guy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was the ultimate boy clear!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he was declared clear at the age of 15.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
He's been in charge since he was 27. He's probably never been bullbaited or screamed at to the extent everyone else has. It is ironic because he is the leader of a cult and he has never actually done the training for the cult.
BEN KISSEL
That is ironic.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's really interesting because he didn't get trained, right. Because he was telling people that they were wrong. During the time period when they were trying to... There was a little opposition to Miscavige taking over and there was one guy that was like there is a potential trouble source here. We think that he's got some overts and withholds. Before he takes over everything, someone needs to make sure to reclear him.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because they do reclear all the time.
BEN KISSEL
Do a reclear.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And David Miscavige was just like no, I won't, I won't do it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they were like no one ever said no, I guess we can't do it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The power of his literally being like no, I won't.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I don't need to. I'm clear.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel clear.
BEN KISSEL
Well that's why he got Koppel'd.
MARCUS PARKS
And he also I believe, I mean what I believe he probably did is when people were trying to reclear him, I'm sure he gave some veiled threats or not so veiled threats of you just wait and see what happens when I get in charge.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The writing's on the wall, buddy.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah, man. And that's the thing is that Miscavige not doing the training, I think it's also why L. Ron Hubbard was also awful at interviews.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was bad at it. LRH was not... That one 45 minute... Because he also only has one public interview and he's just not... You see the twinkle but I'm not getting it. I'm not getting it from him.
MARCUS PARKS
He knows the technology but he hasn't done the training. But that's the thing is that it's also why both of them were and are highly successful cult leaders. As we've said before, you gotta be somewhat outside the sphere of belief if you truly want to lead the cult.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
And David Miscavige is the ultimate insider's outsider when it comes to Scientology.
BEN KISSEL
There you go.
MARCUS PARKS
For example, in an effort to rewrite history when it comes to scientological perception of the Ted Koppel interview, David Miscavige simply declared that it was the greatest interview ever done on the subject of Scientology.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's the best! I did it! Kobe! I'm taking this shit down!
BEN KISSEL
If only I knew anyone else that uses this technique.
MARCUS PARKS
Additionally, when Ted Koppel was awarded an Emmy for ripping Miscavige to shreds, Miscavige said that Koppel won because Miscavige was so good, not Koppel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. He made himself his own replica Emmy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he made his own replica Emmy and he put it in his office so he could say remember when I did that? Remember when I was the best interview ever?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let's all just face it, I'm a great get.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All right? People wanted me on there, I got passed, he's bringing me to the couch next time.
BEN KISSEL
That's awesome.
MARCUS PARKS
Well some people said that he kept it in his office, other sources said that he kept it in the lounge so everyone could see it all the time.
BEN KISSEL
Everyone could see his fake Emmy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It's an Emmie. It's E-M-M-I-E. It's a special Emmy. That's like Craig Ehlo being like yeah, I'm the reason Michael Jordan hit that shot over me. Without me playing bad defense, Michael Jordan wouldn't even be Michael Jordan.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I set him up for that picture.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause I saw the photographer being like this is gonna be a good one.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now around the time that Mike Rinder saw Miscavige assault a non scientologist for the first time, that would be the producer, Rinder began falling out of David's favor because he hadn't clapped hard enough at the announcement of a new edition of the What Is Scientology encyclopedia.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is true.
BEN KISSEL
God, he's just a more loser Kim Jong-un.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Rinder, he was kind of having a bit of a moment himself because he wasn't clapping was because Miscavige had told Mike that he was the one who was going to roll out the What Is Scientology encyclopedia. But at the last moment Miscavige had Mike's brother roll out the encyclopedia. So Mike was over there pouting because-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He didn't stand.
BEN KISSEL
I see.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he didn't stand, he didn't clap. And so he went to RPF.
BEN KISSEL
Uh oh.
MARCUS PARKS
First they sent him out there cleaning up the bowels of the Freewinds in an echo of the mud box brigade days. But after just a few days on the boat, Rinder was sent to live in isolation at the INT base, also known as Gold Base.
BEN KISSEL
Oh that sounds fun.
MARCUS PARKS
It's really fun for Tom Cruise.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He loves it.
BEN KISSEL
I love gold!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now at Gold Base is where the real dirty work of Scientology is done, where David Miscavige lived for many years and where the most elite members of Sea Org live and work. Located 85 miles north of Los Angeles, Gold Base is a heavily guarded compound surrounded by imposing bladed fences that keep people both in and out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's telling because the spikes at the top are pointed inwards and not outwards.
MARCUS PARKS
No, they're pointed both inwards and outwards.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
And when someone did actually ask them so why are they also pointed inwards? And their answer was they came that way.
BEN KISSEL
That's the way they were delivered, they were delivered that way.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They came like that. We said to the guy oh, this seems frightening.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he was like oh it must be a mix-up at the factory but these are yours.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, seems like you're pretty compulsively in control about everything but they just came that way?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ah! Ah!
BEN KISSEL
Oh god dang it.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Gold Base also has motion sensors around the perimeter. They have patrols, cameras. And Gold Base is where they have the palm tree that people pay $5,000 to run around.
BEN KISSEL
Cool!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Yeah it is cool.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
This is also where Tom Cruise goes to get audited. Actually one time Mike Rinder got beat by David Miscavige because Mike Rinder sent Tom Cruise to Clearwater to get audited.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Unbelievable.
BEN KISSEL
Oh that's not good enough for Tom.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly I would never wanna go to Clearwater.
MARCUS PARKS
No. Cause that's the thing, he's gotta fly into the Tampa airport and then he's gonna drive 30 minutes just to get to Flag Base?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I hate that tram. I hate that fucking tram.
MARCUS PARKS
The tram is awful. Why don't you just walk? It's like 100 yards.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know! I don't know!
BEN KISSEL
We just don't know, do we?
MARCUS PARKS
Additionally, Gold Base is also the location of a $10 million mansion built for L. Ron Hubbard.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the thing, it's built for LRH.
BEN KISSEL
Okay, so no one lives in it?
MARCUS PARKS
Well that's the thing. LRH never lived there nor does anyone live in the mansion now.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
MARCUS PARKS
But it is meticulously maintained. There's even clothing set out for L. Ron Hubbard in the sudden event of his return or reincarnation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well technically David Miscavige did live there for a period of time but now that he's kind of permanently on the run and probably will be so for a long time-
MARCUS PARKS
For the rest of his life.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
One of the options of it, it is a fully customized mansion that has every single bit of it, you can see a picture here of the... I'll show you, Marcus. This is David Miscavige's motorcycles flanked by him and Tom Cruise's matching motorcycles, right, that they bought together.
BEN KISSEL
That's nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I can't wait for next week, we're going to get into their relationship.
BEN KISSEL
Sexy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But these are the punishment chairs that he installed outside of his office, these two steel folding chairs that are built into the wall.
BEN KISSEL
Naughty.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So you know that you're in trouble when you're sitting in them. It's all custom lighting, all this kind of shit. He has a $20,000 desk made out of steel and leather.
MARCUS PARKS
Jesus.
BEN KISSEL
Steel and leather? Nothing more cozy than steel and leather. Hot in the summer, cold in the winter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's masculine.
MARCUS PARKS
Gold Base is also where some of the harshest punishments one receives in Scientology occur. And during the 90s, those punishments often occurred at the direct hand of David Miscavige. For example, after Mike Rinder spent a few weeks at Gold Base doing menial duties, someone arrived with written orders telling Rinder to report to the upper villas, which is the code name for David Miscavige's offices. Now Rinder wasn't a fan of the upper villas. The last time he'd been there Rinder had been merely standing outside a meeting when Miscavige burst through a screen door wearing only a terry cloth bathrobe. Without saying a word, he grabbed Rinder's neck, slapped him, punched him, and threw him against a tree.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah!
BEN KISSEL
Oh wow. All in a bathrobe.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah dude. That's real power.
BEN KISSEL
I guess.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Beating somebody else while you're naked is a strong move.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Bathrobes have had a very bad, bad couple of years. And I'm just gonna say this, it's not the bathrobe's fault that the people that wear them are very bad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no. He's talking about Harvey Weinstein.
BEN KISSEL
Every story has a bathrobe. Bathrobe, bathrobe, bathrobe.
MARCUS PARKS
Bathrobe, bathrobe. Yeah. You know what, that's the thing is that I didn't know but I knew that that's who you were talking about.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But is it weird I actually feel it's more intimidating to be in a bathrobe than to just be naked. I feel like if you're just naked, I mean obviously a lot of stuff is going on.
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
I actually think the bathrobe is to protect him. Because if you're naked you have a chance to really scrape him up.
MARCUS PARKS
I actually think that the bathrobe is a disadvantage because it gives the person a lot more to grab onto and then bring you down to the floor.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what I'm saying.
BEN KISSEL
Like a gi.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'd come out naked.
MARCUS PARKS
Naked.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Covered in soap, soaped up, right. Because that's what you gotta do too. You got the soap and then you've got the soap that you covered yourself in in two socks. You're swinging those around and all of a sudden you're a prison tornado.
BEN KISSEL
There you go, prison tornado Henry Zebrowski. Absolutely, until it's lockdown and you have to go bed and your roommate is David Miscavige and then he beats the living shit out of you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'd be afraid.
BEN KISSEL
That would be scary, dude. Cause he would fit well in prison. David Miscavige at 5'3"?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, he's perfect for prison.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He can't wait.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well covered in mud with a bleeding lip, Rinder was led to the Gold Base officer's lounge by David Miscavige. Again he poured him a glass of scotch said, this is gonna make you feel better, then he just turned around and walked away.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was his little thing. He liked to smooth over. He used to do this thing, he'd beat the shit out of you and then act like it didn't happen. And then again, it's all abusive techniques.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god, just choke this little guy out.
MARCUS PARKS
Dude, he's so strong.
BEN KISSEL
I know. I mean he's still 5'3", you could choke him out, you could kill him.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know, man.
BEN KISSEL
You could kill him, Marcus. I guarantee you would beat him.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He has goons.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's not doing this by himself.
BEN KISSEL
No, I know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's got goons next to him that are there to jump as well.
BEN KISSEL
Marcus, you're surprisingly strong, you grew up on a ranch.
MARCUS PARKS
I am.
BEN KISSEL
You could pick up a pig!
MARCUS PARKS
I can pick up a pig.
BEN KISSEL
You could pick up David Miscavige. You could pick him up and break him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know. I don't know if you could deal with it.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't think so, man.
BEN KISSEL
I think you guys are giving him too much power.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just saying reaction time.
MARCUS PARKS
Could you pick up a bowling ball and break it with your bare hands?
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay then.
BEN KISSEL
I would bowl with it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I would love to see the fight.
BEN KISSEL
That would ruin the entire night.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I would pay legit money to watch you physically fight David Miscavige.
BEN KISSEL
I'll have to train.
MARCUS PARKS
If you put David Miscavige against like Kane.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh that's a good fight, dude.
MARCUS PARKS
It's an incredible fight.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause he's jumping off the ropes, ah! Cause he loves the flying fucking clothesline.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know, he's still 110 lbs.
MARCUS PARKS
He's too small to grab though.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he's sneaking around your big swollen ankles.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You can't even get down and get him.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
It'd be like catching a mouse with your bare hands.
BEN KISSEL
It's difficult.
MARCUS PARKS
It's gonna be tough.
BEN KISSEL
I know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A hard little mouse.
MARCUS PARKS
But while physical violence came at the hands of David Miscavige often, it was constantly rationalized by senior staff as necessary. In their view, the person on the receiving end must have done something terribly wrong to make David so angry. Because Scientology is built on the principle that everything bad that happens to you is your fault and your fault alone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You pull it in.
MARCUS PARKS
Now although Scientology eventually came to be seen as an unstoppable and terrifying monolith, it was almost felled in 1993. That year a tax bill of $1 billion came due.
BEN KISSEL
Billion.
MARCUS PARKS
Because Hubbard had decided in 1973 that if the church wasn't gonna be granted tax exempt status, it was just gonna stop paying taxes.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I tell you, it does work for a while.
MARCUS PARKS
For a bit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But they ask for the money, the come for the money.
BEN KISSEL
You didn't pay taxes because you didn't realize you were gonna get a refund.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well I just couldn't figure out how to do them.
BEN KISSEL
When we were too stupid not to pay taxes, technically we could've gotten money back.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But then the bill for those taxes showed up the moment I received a real paycheck.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which I also found oddly coincidental.
BEN KISSEL
Weird. Weird, it's like they're watching you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What? Don't. Don't, I'm good now. Now I'm up.
BEN KISSEL
I love the IRS!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm current.
BEN KISSEL
I love the IRS!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm current, damnit!
MARCUS PARKS
We're current, we're current. We're all current! All three of us.
BEN KISSEL
I'm clear.
MARCUS PARKS
Well at the time Scientology only had $125 million in the reserves.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
I say only comparatively to $1 billion.
BEN KISSEL
What happened to all the money?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Spent it.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean it's a lot of cash.
BEN KISSEL
It's all pilfered and stolen.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're spreading all over the world, there's a lot of stuff going on.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then he also became really obsessed with live shows and putting up extravagant-
BEN KISSEL
Did he really?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. Every year, Ron Miscavige talks about it in the book about how eventually they were
doing so many special events and they were a nightmare. Because he'd have to be in control of every single thing. But videos had to be shot, music had to be recorded, things had to be written, all this kind of stuff.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he was just dumping money into it.
MARCUS PARKS
Well since Scientology owed a billion dollars to the IRS and they only had 125 million in their coffers-
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Miscavige escalated the war against the IRS for the final time. Now Miscavige's strategy for taking on the IRS was fairly boilerplate when it came to litigation, especially corporate litigation. He continued bombarding them with lawsuits from Scientology proper but he also got individual scientologists to bring 2300 more suits against the IRS.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Miscavige also ran ads using images of John Wayne and Willie Nelson to remind the public that the IRS attacked beloved icons on the regular.
BEN KISSEL
You better leave Willie alone. John Wayne, who cares?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fuck John Wayne, but yeah, exactly.
MARCUS PARKS
John Wayne was a nazi, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
My grandfather Herbert hated John Wayne because he said he's just an actor.
MARCUS PARKS
Well he is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well he wasn't a cowboy, your grandfather wasn't a cowboy either.
BEN KISSEL
No. But that's why he didn't like John Wayne because he was just an actor, he was a fraud, he was a phony.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He always was an actor. You never should have thought he was a real cowboy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
No, he didn't think he was a real cowboy, he just thought he was a fraud.
MARCUS PARKS
Well he was.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's an actor.
MARCUS PARKS
He's an actor.
BEN KISSEL
Fraud!
MARCUS PARKS
Well in addition to that, Scientology also ran ads offering huge rewards for IRS whistleblowers.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
But what went over the line was when Scientology hired private investigators to dig up dirt on IRS employees. This information was used to launch a magazine still going today called Freedom.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Freedom!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
That's the one that I talked about earlier that had the opioid cover.
BEN KISSEL
And of course the IRS investigator was Irwin R. Schyster!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa!
MARCUS PARKS
I remember him!
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, remember that wrestler?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, IRS.
BEN KISSEL
IRS. You get it. He was a heel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I remember.
MARCUS PARKS
And that's the thing is that Freedom, those early issues, they were filled with salacious stories about IRS agents drinking and fucking like animals.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Man.
BEN KISSEL
That's what I want to hear about.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But they wish. I would be like yeah, sure, I hope he's sucking dick.
MARCUS PARKS
Accountants get down.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I hope he has a fun side life.
BEN KISSEL
Hey Peggy, it's not the external revenue service, okay? It's the internal if you know what I mean.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let's get it up in there.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well after they printed these magazines filled with salacious stories about the IRS, they then handed out the magazines in front of the IRS.
BEN KISSEL
And then the IRS is like why do we have all these new recruits? They said that they want to come and have a good time?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they say they're here for the eternal party.
BEN KISSEL
What?
MARCUS PARKS
Additionally, Scientology changed their logo to make it look more like a religion. You know how Scientology has that cross?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
They added this in the early 90s to help them get tax exempt status. There's nothing about crosses or Christianity anywhere in Scientology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
None. Nothing.
MARCUS PARKS
And the Cross, if you'll notice, is much more prominent in Scientology centers in the bible belt.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's very smart.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, the one in Nashville is gigantic.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You see that crucifix and you're kind of like oh that's an S.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, the one in Nashville is huge. The one in Indianapolis is fucking gigantic. I've seen a surprising amount of Scientology centers during our travels around America.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
They're everywhere.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Every city. They did a good job.
BEN KISSEL
In that way I suppose so.
MARCUS PARKS
But it did help people to think of Scientology as a religion. And some religious scholars began publicly comparing them to Buddhists or Catholics in increasingly strained ways.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's because they had to.
MARCUS PARKS
They had to. And that's the other thing too is that if you're a religious scholar, you're getting asked to be on TV-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just do whatever.
BEN KISSEL
You're gonna do whatever.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're gonna get out there and be like yes, Jesus was gay. He was a pedophile, yes.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's in the writing, do the reading.
MARCUS PARKS
But when it came to the private fight though, Miscavige personally and allegedly extorted a top government official. In a meeting with the IRS commissioner, Miscavige allegedly said that all the lawsuits would stop and the fuck stories in Freedom magazine, they'd all go away.
BEN KISSEL
They'd all go away.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It'd all just go away.
MARCUS PARKS
If and only if Scientology got tax exempt status.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it's so hard to tell the government you're not gonna give them money anymore. They get salty.
BEN KISSEL
They get sad.
MARCUS PARKS
And really the IRS did try holding out despite the fact that their funding was being rapidly drained in trying to defend all those lawsuits. And they might have made it if not for the massive government fuck up involving the Branch Davidians at Waco.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, Waco.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Waco. It changed the entire game.
BEN KISSEL
We got the Ruby Ridge and then Waco and then the FBI and the CIA. Well I guess the FBI was just like let's not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well was it really about... Because Ruby Ridge was more about get off of my lawn.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Sort of government overreach type shit. Waco, the reason why Waco was important was because it was a religious movement.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the idea, it's a fringe religion that the US government came down and killed a bunch of people, right.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
76 people.
BEN KISSEL
It was the ATF and the FBI, right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It was those two, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
That happened 1993.
BEN KISSEL
Janet Reno.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Janet Reno. Of course. And this is right in the middle of the Scientology fight. And it became a very bad look for the government to be at odds with any fringe religious movement.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Bad PR.
MARCUS PARKS
Additionally, Bill Clinton, he had a roommate in college who was a scientologist. And according to Bill Clinton, that guy was pretty all right.
BEN KISSEL
He was pretty all right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is literally him just being like (raspy voice) I feel that maybe these scientologists, they may not be as dangerous as one thinks. Cause I'll tell you what.
MARCUS PARKS
Tell you what?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(raspy voice) He gave me the dictionary I needed in order to impress Hillary Rodham. And allow me to press my body on hers.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
How long you wanna keep this going?
BEN KISSEL
Can you say the sentence everyone does?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(raspy voice) I did not have sexual relations with that woman.
BEN KISSEL
Really, really good. Darrell Hammond, everybody. And impression of an impressionist doing Bill Clinton.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm gonna buy 30 Rock, I'm gonna buy a wrecking crew, I'm gonna knock it down. I'm gonna rebuild it as Henry Zebrowski's Re-Education Center. You're gonna love it.
MARCUS PARKS
Well in order to just get Scientology out of the federal government's hair, the IRS granted them tax exempt status in 1994.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The war is over!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Seriously? That's a big fucking win, dude.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what David Miscavige said.
BEN KISSEL
A billion dollar win!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. He announced their victory at a gathering in Los Angeles in which 10,000 scientologists attended, standing on a ridiculously large stage in a tiny little tuxedo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A little boy's tuxedo, absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS
Little boy's tuxedo.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. He probably shops at that 5'8" and under store that is also really short.
MARCUS PARKS
The one over on Ventura?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Did that close down?
BEN KISSEL
I hope not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it came up short in the budget this year.
BEN KISSEL
I'm gonna kill you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, David Miscavige has his clothes made custom.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he has to.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He literally has to.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. It's like when you see a squirrel in a little suit on jet skis.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Technically David Miscavige is the original boss baby.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Same size.
MARCUS PARKS
Well in this gathering he declared that the 30 year long battle for tax exempt status was over!
BEN KISSEL
All right!
MARCUS PARKS
They set off fireworks, all the fucking streamers came down. And then he continued talking for another two hours.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa, well okay. We celebrated but now we have to sit here and listen?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Very much so.
MARCUS PARKS
It is a three hour long presentation. He spends an hour on a powerpoint presentation preparing everyone for the moment, talking about every single thing that they've done leading up to that moment. He said the war is over! The fireworks go off and then it's two more hours of powerpoints.
BEN KISSEL
They must have felt like the South Park boys taking acid at the Oscars.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Being like I didn't know this thing was so long.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now we would play a clip of that if Scientology wasn't so gung ho about keeping it off the internet. But the reason why we don't have a lot to fear from Scientology other than that is because of the very medium on which this podcast is being distributed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
We are on the internet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The true Freewinds of thought.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
And the internet-
BEN KISSEL
Demonetized on YouTube.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So fast.
BEN KISSEL
So fast. Demonetized.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow, we got kicked off Twitch in 13 minutes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We did a good job though! Now we're back on.
BEN KISSEL
13. That was good, yeah. 13, that's not bad.
MARCUS PARKS
13 minutes isn't bad.
BEN KISSEL
12 minutes longer than I thought we were gonna last.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But the internet has been more than anything Scientology's biggest achilles heel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah because David Miscavige discovered through Mike Rinder that all of the secret teachings of the OTs were immediately leaked to the internet.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god. Dude.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then his job became David Miscavige being like you're going to eliminate all traces of our work off the internet.
BEN KISSEL
Have fun, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. And it was very difficult.
BEN KISSEL
That is one of the ultimate ironies here as well. A tech-based cult didn't predict the internet was gonna have all information and knowledge?
MARCUS PARKS
Well in that you're misunderstanding the usage of the word 'tech'.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right, cause they do make believe tech.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Cause that's the thing, when they say tech they're talking about-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Gobbledygook.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, these ethereal-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Actor's exercises.
MARCUS PARKS
They're talking about techniques, not technology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So LRH called it technology because it was fun for him to say that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
But that's the thing is that the fucking OT levels, they went on the internet in 1994.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Very, very early on.
BEN KISSEL
That is dial up.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, the Xenu story.
BEN KISSEL
Way dial up.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah. The Xenu story, the galactic overlord shit, the atomic bombs, all of that. They were released to the internet to great ridicule. And this was when the internet was mostly sci-fi nerds.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
The release of this material shook the faith of some scientologists at OT 3 and above because Hubbard had always been explicit in the claim that people could become ill or even die if they weren't properly prepared to learn about Xenu, the wall of fire. Additionally, scientologists working their way towards OT 3 were also shaken because, you know, what the fuck?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Holy fucking shit. That's it?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what we're doing here?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
This of course set off a never ending string of lawsuits against the internet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. Everybody they could get a handle on.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
The only person to beat the internet was Hulk Hogan and that's because of Peter Thiel.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And that of course prompted an even stronger response from the internet. Every time Scientology came at them, the internet came back fucking harder because every time there were more people on the internet.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, Mike Rinder called it a game of whack-a-mole from hell.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, that makes sense.
MARCUS PARKS
And eventually Scientology, they gained the ire, they drew the attention of 4Chan.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Because if you'll remember, the first target of the hacker collective Anonymous was Scientology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Hell, me and my buddy McFarren, we actually went out to some fucking 4Chan Scientology protests.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I remember that.
BEN KISSEL
Really?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, we went out there, there were all these guys in Guy Fawkes masks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The Guy Fawkes shit.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah. It was really fun.
BEN KISSEL
the Guy Fawkes mask, by the way, you can buy in the toy section at Target now.
MARCUS PARKS
It's cool!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They figured out how to fold it in.
BEN KISSEL
Fold it in.
MARCUS PARKS
Fold it in. But all that is to say that Scientology can never come even close to purging the internet of Scientology material or negative Scientology press. And the more they try, the harder it gets and the worst they look. So when they saw that the rise of the internet directly correlated to a fallen membership, scientologists began isolating themselves even further.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well now we're just gonna play to the crowd that will have us.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because other people can't handle it. So now we're just gonna keep to the people that already here.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Keep them here and make them have children so there are more people there.
BEN KISSEL
I mean it's interesting because it's against one of their paramount principles, they should have more internet, they should have more dot coms, they should have flooded the internet.
MARCUS PARKS
They actually do. If you look look at scientology.org-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's thick.
MARCUS PARKS
It's very thick.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And of course there's so many other front webs. They have so many fronts.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's why that's why it's so difficult to research the subject to get into it is because there's so many avenues of information and also you don't know what's real and what's not real.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's stuff that's flooded. And then I go to various pages, like bulletin pages and that kind of stuff where you have people talking about it openly, forums talking about this stuff. That's interesting but again you get one side of Scientology propaganda and then you have defectors and they're also gonna be super mad.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So you try to put it all together. It's a miasma.
MARCUS PARKS
Well this eventually led to the policy of disconnection being used as a punishment for scientologists who leave the church. Because once you leave Scientology, everything about Scientology is available in seconds in a thing that's in your fucking pocket.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Consequently, a culture of captive scientologists was created in which people remain in the church not because they believe but because they don't want to be separated from their families. Famously this is what happened between Nicole Kidman and her children when she left Tom Cruise. They fucking cut her off.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
The kids disconnected, they consider her an SP to this day.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They got to the kids.
MARCUS PARKS
She doesn't speak to them.
BEN KISSEL
That story with Suri Cruise, that was really scary. That was happening in New York.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
When they were hunting down her and I'm actually blanking on the name of the actress now.
MARCUS PARKS
Katie Holmes.
BEN KISSEL
Katie Holmes. But that was all over New York.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah, I remember that too. Now the reasons why Scientology has been able to survive for as long as it has are twofold. One, Scientology never has been at any point in their existence a sex cult of any kind.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It really does make it cleaner in a way.
MARCUS PARKS
Well I mean that's the thing, you don't have any big crimes attached to you.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But that's not to say sexual abuse doesn't occur there but no more Less than what happens in any organization made up of humans.
BEN KISSEL
And they're also known to protect predators as well.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh of course, yeah. Danny Masterson, we'll get into that next episode.
MARCUS PARKS
Absolutely. But perhaps more importantly, Scientology has never been successfully tied to a death. But that's not for lack of trying.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. What about that one woman that's been missing since 2007?
MARCUS PARKS
There's no death, she's still missing. That's the thing.
BEN KISSEL
If you just disappear, isn't that like death?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean it depends. For us, because we're hams.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But some people like it. You know, you look at Heber Jentzsch, Heber Jentzsch who is the other dude, the former actual quote unquote "president" of Scientology. He used to be the face.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He used to be the spokes clam for Scientology because they felt that he looked old and like-
MARCUS PARKS
He's grandfatherly.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's grandfatherly and stuff. And eventually what they did is they removed him.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he went into more of a voluntary hiding than Shelly Miscavige is currently involved in. We don't know quite what the level of what Shelly's mindset is quite like.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But we know for a fact that Heber just took it and is still alive in isolation and not talking.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, go hang out in the woods.
MARCUS PARKS
Do we know he's still alive because he was an old man when he went away in like '98.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We know he's not dead.
MARCUS PARKS
How do we know that?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They say that we'd know if he was dead.
BEN KISSEL
All right. There you go.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the closest that it ever came to Scientology being attached to a death was in the case of Lisa McPherson. In 1995, McPherson had a psychotic breakdown. But instead of being taken to the hospital, she was quote unquote "treated" using scientological techniques for 17 days. She died on day 17 from a thromboembolism caused mostly by severe dehydration.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There is no way-
BEN KISSEL
So this is their version of an exorcism.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, this is this Anneliese Michel, absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There is no way that this is the only time that this has happened.
MARCUS PARKS
God no!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's no fucking way. Because their policy was LRH said to "fix" quote unquote a psychotic person-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Was to put them in isolation because he said the only thing that can help their spirit is their own spirit. But the thetan has to talk to itself.
BEN KISSEL
It's really wrong.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It makes no sense.
BEN KISSEL
That's really wrong, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But there's no way this is the only person that died this way.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because also they only believe in doctors for like broken bones.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They think that everything else can be healed using auditing.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And they also only ever take people to doctors who are also scientologists, who also won't treat you for the things that scientologists won't treat you for.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And during her autopsy it was found that she had been comatose for up to 48 hours before she died. She was covered in bruises and her body was covered in cockroach bites. That was of course from being left alone in I think a Scientology hotel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, these bullshit Florida little motels that they bought.
BEN KISSEL
Jesus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That they turned into essentially boarding houses that are just awful, deregulated little shitholes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I thought they had a bunch of money.
MARCUS PARKS
Well they do but not for their members.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Now during the initial investigation, Mike Rinder was involved in conducting phone interviews to see what everyone knew. And the whole time Miscavige was right there next to him listening in on another phone, directing what to say, and gesticulating wildly when anyone made a misstep.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Can you imagine being on the phone with that little man, just being like (angry whispering) now tell them this!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now the stakes here were incredibly high because if Scientology was found to be legally culpable in the death, they'd be in danger of losing their already shaky tax exempt status. They'd only gotten tax exemption like the year before.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Scientology itself was indicted on two felony charges in McPherson's is death, although charges were recommended against individuals. But all this happened in Clearwater, Florida.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The bastion of freedom.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. Flag Base, the official headquarters of Scientology. This meant that Miscavige was playing on his home turf and since so much was at stake, they dispatched their biggest, creepiest, toothiest smile to charm whoever he could.
BEN KISSEL
Who?
MARCUS PARKS
Well a political consultant who had close connections to the attorney who filed criminal charges against Scientology for Mcpherson's death, she was quite suddenly hanging out with who else but Tom Cruise.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah!
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They brought in the big guns.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Many guns.
BEN KISSEL
He does his own stunts.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. This is the thing is that-
BEN KISSEL
He does do his own stunts which is kinda cool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He does.
MARCUS PARKS
He does.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But he's not a good guy.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
I'm just saying the sentence-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's not a good guy.
BEN KISSEL
I'm just saying he does his own stunts.
MARCUS PARKS
He does.
BEN KISSEL
That's all I'm saying.
MARCUS PARKS
Well TC had flown down to Clearwater where he hosted a series of dinners with this consultant.
BEN KISSEL
I can't say it would be relaxing to be honest.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, I know people that have met him and have been in his circle and he is not a relaxing human being.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's friendly.
BEN KISSEL
Yes, friendly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But very scary.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. He not only told her stories of how Scientology changed his life but he also showed her clips of his upcoming movies. And if you look at this timeline, most likely she saw early footage of Mission Impossible.
BEN KISSEL
Wow!
MARCUS PARKS
I mean that makes you feel super cool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Right?
BEN KISSEL
Wow!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're sitting there, you're hanging out with Tom Cruise. He's like look at this picture. Who's Lisa McPherson? Oh, you don't remember, right? Look at this here, this is me having lunch with Steven Spielberg.
MARCUS PARKS
Now of course TC wasn't the only deciding factor in this case. TC, Tom Cruise.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think the audience knows.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I got that one. Yeah, Tom Cruise there, sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Really we only mention it to drive home the fact that Tom Cruise is not an innocent bystander when it comes to the nefarious sides of Scientology.
BEN KISSEL
He does his own stunts.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So does David Miscavige.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ah!
BEN KISSEL
Huh!
MARCUS PARKS
Really the deciding factors were more in Scientology's efforts to pour millions into local charities and in the smear campaigns they ran against McPherson's family, branding them as gold diggers. Of course they also contributed quite a bit to political campaigns as well. Overall scientologists spent between $20-$30 million trying to defeat this case.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But don't worry because the US government just gave them that money back.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So they had plenty.
BEN KISSEL
Right, right.
MARCUS PARKS
And in the end they did defeat it. Four years after McPherson's death and four months before the case went to trial, the medical examiner very suddenly decided to change her ruling to say that McPherson's death was not undetermined, which is key to criminal charges, if it's undetermined, it could be homicide, it could be any number of things.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh sure.
MARCUS PARKS
But she changed it just before the trial to accidental which means nobody was responsible.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just wanna say we finally went through all the materials and we looked at it and we found a banana peel.
BEN KISSEL
Yup, yup.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And so we're pretty certain this is a goofer moment. This is a goof.
BEN KISSEL
Goofer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She was a bit of goof in the moment.
BEN KISSEL
Oh she was a goofer, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
McPherson's family then settled for an undisclosed amount in the ensuing civil trial and that was that.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But even though Scientology won, Marty Rathbun said that the trial changed David Miscavige. When it was ruled that Miscavige could be added as a defendant before he made the whole thing go away, Miscavige allegedly had the quote "explosion of all explosions".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(screaming)
BEN KISSEL
Whoa! By his standards, that's a big explosion.
MARCUS PARKS
It was. And that's the thing is that after that it was said that Miscavige became progressively more violent, more antagonistic, and more irrational. But while irrational could certainly be used in conjunction with David Miscavige when it comes to personal interactions, there was nothing irrational about his creation of a brilliantly devious initiative called Ideal Orgs.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is where you could put David Miscavige in the Hall of Fame of scammers, right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like of all the things, because you know LRH, obviously the tech, that's the invention of the entire fucking thing. But the Ideal Orgs is what like really is David Miscavige's legacy within Scientology.
MARCUS PARKS
This is why we're going to be hearing the word Scientology for the next century.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
See in the year 2000, the city of Buffalo refused to authorize the construction of a Scientology mission in their city with good reason. Scientology then sued for religious discrimination and they won. And the door was open for Scientology to play the same game Catholicism has been playing for centuries. The game of real estate.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Big boy! Big boy time!
BEN KISSEL
Islam didn't even get a fucking temple five miles away from the site of 9/11.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man.
BEN KISSEL
Scientology was able to get a place in Buffalo because of religious freedom?
MARCUS PARKS
Yep.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Big boy games, buddy. They're finally in the mix, they're doing it like real religions do it.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Scientology could now buy whatever building they wanted, wherever they wanted in America. And of course if you can buy whatever you want in America that goes a long way towards buying shit anywhere else.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
And this initiative helped turn Scientology into a global real estate empire of empty rehab centers, empty tech centers, and empty headquarters.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because the key is also buy historical buildings. You buy buildings that the government's already protecting wherever you're buying them. And they don't have the same regulations. They can't get torn down.
MARCUS PARKS
Nope.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They can't get taken from you because now you're lording over these important historical resources.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
I think they own something like five or six buildings around Times Square.
BEN KISSEL
Oh wow.
MARCUS PARKS
They own shit everywhere.
BEN KISSEL
They might own the TGI Friday's.
MARCUS PARKS
They might own Bubba Gump.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They might own Bubba Gump.
BEN KISSEL
Bubba Gump has changed.
MARCUS PARKS
To what?
BEN KISSEL
I don't know, they've changed the name though.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No way.
BEN KISSEL
Yes they did.
MARCUS PARKS
The one at CityWalk at Universal, CityWalk is still Bubba Gump.
BEN KISSEL
Sir! Sir!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm look at Bubba Gump Shrimp Factory, okay.
BEN KISSEL
No, Bubba Gump Shrimp Factory name change.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All right, Bubba Gump Shrimp... Oh they changed it to company.
MARCUS PARKS
Bubba Gump Shrimp Company?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, what is this? A fucking MLM? Am I selling shrimp to my aunt?
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know, man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do I have to buy a pallet of shrimp and then move the shrimp and then have her sell the shrimp down the line?
MARCUS PARKS
I went and saw a movie at Universal CityWalk like two weeks ago and I walked right past Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, my friend.
BEN KISSEL
No, it's less emphasis on shrimp.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they're saying here they're moving towards the less shrimp world.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Good luck.
BEN KISSEL
Good day for the shrimp.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're gonna have to change a lot of signs.
MARCUS PARKS
You really are. Bubba Gump Company.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's the Bubba Gump Insect Pulp Company.
MARCUS PARKS
Well this some believe is where the majority of Scientology's money is kept today, in real estate.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Makes sense.
MARCUS PARKS
And it's believed that it's pretty much the only reason why Scientology still exists at the visibility level that it does, especially considering how much its historically low membership numbers have put plummeted since the internet. I mean at most they've ever had was 30,000 I think has been surmised.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
That's the most members Scientology has ever had.
BEN KISSEL
That's it, huh?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. Well I think they might have had bigger numbers in the beginning.
MARCUS PARKS
Maybe.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But next week I'm going to do more of a current rundown.
MARCUS PARKS
Cool. Now Scientology has always been an organization of punishment for the people who they feel have wronged their organization, both internally and externally. But around the mid 2000s, right before David Miscavige's wife went missing-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
He turned up the volume internally when it came to the physical and mental torture. See around 2004, David Miscavige quite suddenly declared one of his top guys, Marty Rathbun, an SP.
BEN KISSEL
No!
MARCUS PARKS
In fact David Miscavige had been declaring a lot of the top guys in Scientology SPs, saying that all of them were actively trying to destroy the church from the inside. This included Mike Rinder. Therefore these people had to be punished. That's when David Miscavige created the Hole.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
And that's where we'll pick back up next week with both the tortures of the Hole and the tortured fish-fucking celebrities whom Scientology has caught in its web.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah! Got 'em! Got 'em!
BEN KISSEL
Fish-fucking is a stunt!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know.
BEN KISSEL
And he does his own stunts.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he does his own stunts.
BEN KISSEL
Wow, all right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This story fucking drives me nuts. David Miscavige is fucking quite the villain.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he's getting worse and we're gonna see what happens.
BEN KISSEL
Well it's just where is this woman? Where is this woman?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, where is this woman?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She's in Big Bear. She's upstate, two hours north from now. She's in the Church of Religious Technology I believe it's called? Or maybe it's the Center of Religious Technology? It's where the plates are.
BEN KISSEL
You know what, I'll tell you this. Little Ben Kissel advice. If it takes too many words to explain your ideas, they're not good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You see that's a Richard Feynman idea.
BEN KISSEL
Limited words.
MARCUS PARKS
You know what drives me nuts? Dog butts.
BEN KISSEL
All right, well there we go. Thank you all so much for listening.
MARCUS PARKS
Dog butts drive me nuts.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dog butts!
BEN KISSEL
Dog butts do drive you nuts. I'm going to say the sexualization of corgi butts is disgusting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I don't like it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah it is.
BEN KISSEL
I actually don't like all the talk about dog butts.
MARCUS PARKS
As the owner of a corgi, I don't like people talking about corgi butts. I just remembered there was a book at the groomer's where I used to drop off my corgi to get her butt squeezed-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Quite the groomer.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I know.
MARCUS PARKS
Quite the groomer, yeah. Well it's copper town, you know all about copper town. And they had a book that they left at the reception area called Dog Butts Drive Me Nuts. And it was just a book full of dog butts.
BEN KISSEL
Well maybe you shouldn't be a fucking groomer then. If there was a kindergarten teacher that said that kindergarten kids drive me... I don't even know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Kindergarten kids make me hard. Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be really bad.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, you don't get to be a teacher anymore.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not anymore, no. I saw a dog with a shaved pussy at The Americana.
BEN KISSEL
Well that is disgusting. Okay. All right everyone, thank you all so much for listening.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is true.
BEN KISSEL
That is so gross.
MARCUS PARKS
It's awful.
BEN KISSEL
All right, we're not gonna talk anymore.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We've got, all right, Australian dates.
BEN KISSEL
WonderCon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
WonderCon is coming March 21st.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, WonderCon.
BEN KISSEL
It's soon.
MARCUS PARKS
Out in Anaheim. We're gonna be there at least Friday and Saturday I think.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Signing at the Z2 table.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's gonna be sweet. March 8th we've got Classy Night Out we're gonna be doing in LA, I'll put up those dates on my socials. We got April 8th, I'm gonna put that link, that's live Side Stories. And we'll be in Australia August 2-12. And obviously we're gonna harangue you with a bunch more stuff for the rest of your lives.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. All right everyone, thank you so much for listening and thank you for the great response for our livestream, it was back February 21st.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're back, baby!
BEN KISSEL
And we're back every Tuesday at 8pm PST. So we're gonna have a bunch of strange videos and a whole bunch of fun banter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's so fun. I love being back.
MARCUS PARKS
I didn't get plastic surgery, just the lighting was weird.
BEN KISSEL
Why do you only find... I didn't hear anyone say that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Can you imagine thinking you had plastic surgery?
MARCUS PARKS
People, that's what they've been saying.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You just look young.
BEN KISSEL
Who? Who said that?
MARCUS PARKS
They said it on the chat, like Marcus looks waxy, he looks like he had plastic surgery. I didn't have plastic surgery.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Can you imagine...
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is because you're next to the most rapidly aging me within two miles.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And so you just look super young next to us.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't age rapidly.
BEN KISSEL
They said waxy?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Waxy, yeah. Like I had work done. I haven't had work done. I look the same.
BEN KISSEL
If anything it's a compliment to be honest.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let's be honest, all right. You got your penis shortened.
BEN KISSEL
He did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know that.
MARCUS PARKS
Unfortunately I did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's just because Carolina kept complaining about her guts.
BEN KISSEL
Very nice. Okay everyone, thank you all so much for listening. Hail yourselves!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hail Satan.
MARCUS PARKS
Hail Gein.
BEN KISSEL
Megustalations everybody.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hail Carolina's guts.
BEN KISSEL
Yes, that was the surgery, okay.
MARCUS PARKS
All right, hey, okay, all right. Over the line, buddy.
BEN KISSEL
Over the line!
MARCUS PARKS
Over the line!
BEN KISSEL
Over the line, Smoky!
MARCUS PARKS
Over the line.
BEN KISSEL
Over the line, Smoky.
MARCUS PARKS
Over the line.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm pulling it in.
MARCUS PARKS
Pull it in.
BEN KISSEL
Pull it in.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I did it to myself.
BEN KISSEL
You need a thetan check.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And the only work that I have had done is when I went to the haircut lady that you recommended and she ripped out all the hair in my nose.
BEN KISSEL
That's not plastic surgery. It's not plastic surgery.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's important.
MARCUS PARKS
With the wax. It was a big wax.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She does that for me too and she does my top of the line of my back.
MARCUS PARKS
It's fun.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my goodness. Hollywood has changed both of you.
MARCUS PARKS
She did mine for free.