Holiday Realities Inside Scientology - Scientology Secrets #22

A holiday shouldn’t require a stopwatch. We open up about what Thanksgiving and Christmas looked like inside Scientology’s Sea Org—15-minute meals stretched to 45, staged fireplace photos mailed home as “proof of life,” and a steady drumbeat that family time was off-purpose. While most people are baking pies and booking flights, we were filing petitions, dodging “PTS” labels, and watching “important” church holidays turn into sales marathons dressed up as celebrations.

We break down the difference between civilian Scientologists and Sea Org life, from catalog-driven “gifting” and CD Walkmans to the annual wave of winter illness used to justify investigations and denied leave. You’ll hear how “beer and cheese parties” shrank into warm soda and crackers, why big events like Hubbard’s birthday and the IAS anniversary outranked Thanksgiving and Christmas by design, and what it does to your sense of money when a $100 bonus feels like oxygen and disappears in a single sweater at an outlet mall.

Then we pivot to rebuilding: hosting sprawling Thanksgivings, creating photo books full of candid chaos, teaching our kids that dinner together is normal, and finding joy in small traditions that don’t need permission. We also share practical, low-drama ways to reach relatives still inside—letters that avoid triggers, steady updates, standing invitations—plus why consistency matters even when you get no reply. If you’re navigating disconnection or planning your own exit, you’re not alone. The Aftermath Foundation and survivor networks have your back.

Listen to reflect, learn, and maybe rethink what you want your holidays to mean. If this resonated, subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help more people find the show. Your support helps us keep telling the stories others try to hide.

Chapters

• 0:00 Live Check-In And Community Shoutouts
• 4:55 Today’s Focus: Holidays In Scientology
• 8:24 Sea Org Thanksgiving: Fifteen Minutes To Forty-Five
• 16:30 Civilian Scientologists Versus Sea Org Traditions
• 22:19 Christmas Without Christ: Catalogs And Control
• 30:05 Disconnection And The Holiday Season
• 38:40 Getting Sick, Labeled PTS, And Denied Leave
• 46:08 Money, Bonuses, And The Outlet-Bus Trips
• 54:20 Parties You Work, Not Enjoy
• 1:01:45 Scientology’s “Important” Holidays And Sales Events
• 1:08:22 Rebuilding Family Traditions After Escape
• 1:16:40 How To Write Loved Ones Still Inside

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:26

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Blown for Good, Scientology Exposed. I'm joined today by my lovely wife, Claire.

SPEAKER_04: 0:34

Hey, hey, hey. Good to see everyone this fine Sunday.

SPEAKER_01: 0:38

We um we've got a lot of um fun videos that are gonna be coming up in December, but most of them are gonna be prerecorded because I'm not gonna be here on Sundays for a few weeks. So um we've got that coming up. We've got um Claire's gonna do some interviews. I did uh uh a video, and um, so that's something uh different, fun and different that we have to look to look forward to.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06

Yes, and of course we have Thanksgiving coming up and Christmas.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10

Um we have Serge Obolensky visiting us for Thanksgiving. We'll post some pictures on the community page to show the festivities.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19

Yeah, that's it's always fun when he gets to come and uh hang out with uh us and the boys. Um we've got uh as we normally do, we we give a few minutes for people to get in to the uh video when we're doing the live. We've already got almost all of the people that I normally accept as the threshold when we start.

SPEAKER_04: 1:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 1:40

So if you want to jam through some of these real quick, we can do that.

SPEAKER_04: 1:44

Sure thing. Um I'll just put them up and you can Brian, hi from Misty Portland, Oregon. We love our SPs. Yay. December Topez 22, happy Sunday from West Virginia. Janine, hi from a cold and snowy Netherlands. Yeah, we're very distraught here in Colorado at the moment since we've not yet had our first snow of the season.

SPEAKER_01: 2:06

Here, where we live, where we are.

SPEAKER_04: 2:08

KP6541, hi from Tempe, Arizona. Angel Cat, hi all from Sunland, California. Trevinon, good evening from the Netherlands. Good to see you. Cinderboots, hello from Bend, Oregon. Nice Sherry, hi Mark and Claire, and chat from Minnesota. Hi, Sherry. Cher, hello from the Netherlands. Boom, pet Betsy Sue, greetings from Cameron, North Carolina. Music Maven333, hi from cloudy cold Rhode Island. Poodlebone, hello from New York City. Katrina, good evening, guys and gals. Watching with Becky tonight here in cold writing. All right. Hello, necessary trouble in the house. Hello, everyone, from the last warm day in eastern Montana. Winter starts tomorrow. Uh old Techie, hi from Nebraska. Hey, hey. Katherine Olson, hello from the beautiful silvery skied Willamette Valley.

SPEAKER_01: 3:08

Willametta.

SPEAKER_04: 3:10

It's Willamette, dammit. Becky, big brother fan. Hello, everyone. Have a great Sunday from Reading, UK. Nice. Magda, hi from Washington.

SPEAKER_03: 3:22

Nice.

SPEAKER_04: 3:23

Yes. Aline, good to see you from Philadelphia. Kathy, hi from Maryland. I hope all of us are doing well. Yes, we are. Folksmasher, evening from Folkestone, UK. Firebirds Child, hey y'all. Hey from Philadelphia. Good to see you. Deborah, happy Thanksgiving from Wisconsin Dells. Yes, happy Thanksgiving. Grace Case, hello from Austin, Texas. Hookham. Meredith Rowe. Hi from Parker. All right. There you go. We know where that is. Yeah. Jacob Harky. Hello, Mark Clare in chat watching from Monrovia, California.

SPEAKER_01: 3:59

Nice.

SPEAKER_04: 4:00

Critically Lau. Bonjour from Montreal.

SPEAKER_01: 4:03

Bonjour.

SPEAKER_04: 4:04

Bonjour. Mario Von Motz. Hello to all from Germany. Nice. Hi, Mario.

SPEAKER_01: 4:12

Awesome.

SPEAKER_04: 4:13

There you go.

SPEAKER_01: 4:15

As always, if you do uh tell us in the comments where you're watching from at the end of the video, we'll do a giveaway. We're going to give away one of these uh little Davy dolls. Fake Navy Davy, Captain Space Davy, whatever you want to call him. Damn it, Davy doll.

SPEAKER_03: 4:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 4:32

And um, yeah, comment. You get automatically uh entered in to win. Everything there's at least one person who's gonna win one of those things.

SPEAKER_04: 4:41

Yep, for sure. Courtesy of the SP shop.

SPEAKER_01: 4:44

Nice, yes.

SPEAKER_04: 4:45

We love sticking it to the labels.

SPEAKER_01: 4:47

Yeah. Sticking it to the labels.

SPEAKER_04: 4:51

Sorry, you had to be there. They know what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_01: 4:54

Okay. If you say so.

SPEAKER_04: 4:56

Yep, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_01: 4:58

Um, okay. You ready for we're gonna do our our thing today?

SPEAKER_04: 5:02

Yes. So, oh yeah, I don't need two of me. Yeah, so we figured that given that we're coming up on the holidays, um, it would be interesting to talk about the various different iterations of holidays in Scientology. Obviously, there's civilian Scientologists, there's staff, uh, and then there's members of the C organization. And the holidays look very different for all of those different segments of the Scientology population.

SPEAKER_02: 5:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_04: 5:30

But we get asked this a lot because it's like, well, do Scientologists believe in Christmas? Yeah. Do they believe in this? Do they believe in that?

SPEAKER_01: 5:38

Yeah. Awesome. Okay, well, let's do it then.

SPEAKER_04: 5:41

Yes. Do Scientologists celebrate Thanksgiving?

SPEAKER_01: 5:45

So there's a picture of us up on there.

SPEAKER_04: 5:48

I know. So we we included some of the photos. It's funny to me that we have in 14, 15 years that we were there and we were married, we have about 14 pictures, one for each year. We don't actually maybe we don't even have one for every year.

SPEAKER_01: 6:05

We don't.

SPEAKER_04: 6:05

We don't.

SPEAKER_01: 6:06

But they do this thing. We where we were in the C organization was at this place called the International Base or the Int base or the Gold Base. And that's uh in Gilman Hot Springs, California. And at that property, you the the Sea Org members there might not see their families for years and years and years, or even decades for some of these people. So what they do is they have um they set up like a set in the dining hall uh with the fireplace as the background, and they have some chairs set up there, and they encourage the C org members to go and sit down and they can take a photo of them, and then they will print those photos. They have a whole uh film processing laboratory at the base, so they can process the prints, and then you you have to buy, you have to pay for all this. Correct. It's not free.

SPEAKER_04: 7:02

And also, this would be done on a Sunday, usually in early December, because on Sundays no. Saturdays, I guess. It didn't matter.

SPEAKER_01: 7:13

It would be on Saturdays because we would be in civvies on Saturday. Yes, after you do renovations during the day, you wear grubby clothes. Then you go home and change for dinner after renovations. Right. And usually SeWork members will put on something um a little nice. Yes. Sometimes people just wear a t-shirt and jeans, they don't really care.

SPEAKER_04: 7:35

Yeah, but you were supposed to dress up a little bit. And especially on this day, they would say, Okay, we're doing fan, you know, Christmas photos, so you can maintain good roads and fair weather with your families who you haven't seen in decades, but you can send them a picture that shows Christmas. Yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 7:55

So we would do that, and we'd send them to my dad, and we'd send them to my mom, and we'd send them to your parents, and that way they can see that we were still alive.

SPEAKER_04: 8:06

Right. And um, I don't think a photo c technically counts as proof of life. Sure it does. It was at least a gesture at best. Sure it does.

SPEAKER_00: 8:16

You can't send a photo to somebody if you're dead.

SPEAKER_04: 8:19

Well, yeah, but you know, it's not like in that moment.

SPEAKER_01: 8:23

Yeah. Either way, um, in terms of celebrating Thanksgiving, we would normally in the Seorg at the Amp Base, we would have sometimes a 15-minute meal break, and sometimes we would have a 30-minute meal break.

SPEAKER_04: 8:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 8:42

But on Thanksgiving, we'd have a 45-minute meal break. Sometimes I do remember one year I think we had an hour Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_04: 8:53

I wasn't there for that.

SPEAKER_01: 8:55

Anyway, I could have just I could have just been missing.

SPEAKER_04: 8:58

Sometimes if you've been eating meals for uh if you've been having 15-minute meal breaks for like a year, yeah, 45 minutes can feel like an hour.

SPEAKER_01: 9:08

That's true. That's true. But we would have on Thanksgiving, we would have turkey and we'd have stuffing and we'd have ham and we would have, you know, as close to a Thanksgiving dinner as could be made for, you know, 600 people at once.

SPEAKER_03: 9:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 9:26

It was a, you know, it was a still a chow line, and you'd still go get a platter of food. And we would almost always just dish it up exactly the same. It'd just be different ingredients for that one meal.

SPEAKER_04: 9:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 9:38

And um, but that is it. There was no we never gave thanks.

SPEAKER_04: 9:44

No.

SPEAKER_01: 9:45

We never it was just you just had a you just instead of having 15 or 30 minutes, you had 45 minutes. It was like that was the thing.

SPEAKER_04: 9:51

That was a slight blip in the mundane existence of life on the imp base, right?

SPEAKER_01: 9:56

Yeah, that was the celebration, an extra 15 minutes. That's how they treated it. Now, I do want to say, for all of you out there saying, well, I used to be in Scientology and we had a big well, yeah, if you're just a regular Joe Schmo Scientologist and you're not in the C organization, then your Thanksgiving is very different.

SPEAKER_03: 10:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 10:16

And I would say probably a majority of Scientologists do celebrate Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_04: 10:22

Definitely. When we first arrived in the U.S., when my family moved to the U.S. when I was 13, um, that first Thanksgiving, we went to other Scientologists' house and they had a giant Thanksgiving spread.

SPEAKER_01: 10:36

Is it the Stolers?

SPEAKER_04: 10:37

No, it was the Sorfs. Sue Sarf.

SPEAKER_01: 10:40

Drew Sorf. Yes. Oh, yeah. I know them. They're I want to say they gave um they did gave some serious money to uh scientists.

SPEAKER_04: 10:47

Yeah, I didn't I never knew them really very well, but they were like friends of friends, and and I just remember distinctly because coming from England where you don't do that massive spread. Yes, we have Christmas, but it's just not the same as an American style, and the food coma that hit me was just god-awful.

SPEAKER_01: 11:08

Yeah, that's what football's for. You eat all that food and then you just watch some football.

SPEAKER_04: 11:14

Yes. Um I did want to mention though, uh a funny Thanksgiving memory that I have from when we were at the headquarters.

SPEAKER_01: 11:22

Yeah. So in I'm gonna switch back over to this if you're gonna yap all the time.

SPEAKER_04: 11:26

Oh well, thanks. So July 99 was when I broke my leg and almost lost my foot in a motorcycle accident. And, you know, that was a whole saga, which is not the point of this story. But fast forward to Thanksgiving of that year, so 90 1999, I had to do physical therapy to learn to walk again. And so Jocelyn, the medical person, would drive me to um town to do physical therapy with Dr. Trent White randomly. And um, so the when I went there at right after Thanksgiving, the conversation was so awkward.

SPEAKER_01: 12:05

Oh, because he was like, hey, what did you do?

SPEAKER_04: 12:07

He's like, hey, so what did you do for Thanksgiving? Oh, um, I had a nice dinner. Oh, did you see your family? Nope. Oh, what did you do the rest of the day? Ah, I worked. I wasn't very like uh didn't didn't put on a good short story in that instance.

SPEAKER_01: 12:30

That would have been amazing if you would have said, Oh yeah, we had a 45-minute meal break instead of a 15-minute meal break.

SPEAKER_04: 12:37

Right. Would have been like, he was also the guy that asked me, like, hey, I heard rumors that they have machine guns um buried in the Golden Era golf course. I'm like, oh yeah, people make up all kinds of crazy stories about where we work. That was it.

SPEAKER_02: 12:54

Nice. Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 12:57

So so did you celebrate Thanksgiving with your family before you joined the sea organization?

SPEAKER_01: 13:07

I can't remember. I don't ever remember. You know, it's really weird. I don't ever remember sitting down at a table and having a dinner. We never we never really had a dining room anywhere we lived.

SPEAKER_04: 13:22

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01: 13:22

We just we lived in apartments or we lived in we lived with uh another my mom's boyfriend. We lived with him and his daughter for a while in Venice Beach. And we didn't really have a dinner table. We had a table in front of the TV, and that's where we would usually just eat dinner. We would just eat dinner and watch TV. So when the I don't remember if we did anything for Thanksgiving. We might have had a like a Thanksgiving meal, but we didn't sit at a table and you know talk and do all that. That's a very, that was a very, very foreign concept to me. And since we have kids and we've uh had a family, we tried for many, many years to always, no matter what, if we didn't, because you know, you're working, I'm working, I'm not usually around during the day, but then at dinner I'll come home. And we always try to have a a family dinner at the table at least once a day for dinner, and then um and we go out and we do stuff like that. But um, yeah, I don't really even when I live with my dad, we didn't we had um my dad had this apartment in Hollywood across from the Celebrity Center in uh in California, and he and when we moved from Kansas City, my mother used to work at a fast food restaurant called Hardy's, and they were renovating the restaurant, and she got some of the tables from the old restaurant, these four mica um like uh chairs and and tables, and it's all bolted into a steel frame. And when we moved to California, my dad had that in his apartment. That was our dinner table. We had a Hardy's booth.

SPEAKER_04: 15:18

Wow. That's memorable.

SPEAKER_01: 15:20

Two benches, and it had a table, and it would fit four people, and it was usually only just me and my dad. Sometimes my sister would be there, and that was our dinner table at my dad's apartment. And then I really can't ever remember having like a uh every night having a meal when I was ever with my mom at her place. She was super, super hardcore Scientology. My dad was, he didn't wanted none of it. So it was a little bit, you know, back and forth.

SPEAKER_04: 15:51

But um we we were not so in the years that I was technically a civilian Scientologist, so from when we arrived in the U.S. at when I was 13 until 16. So just those three years, uh, we were not allowed to have a TV in our house.

SPEAKER_01: 16:07

Yeah, my mom never we I don't think we ever had a TV at my mom's house. When when she moved in with the guy in Venice, um, he was all about he had movies and TV, he had a VHS collection that was, you know, hundreds and hundreds of tapes and all kinds of stuff. But um, but we would watch TV all the time when we lived there.

SPEAKER_04: 16:29

Yeah, I'm sure. We my stepdad was the the head of the Beverly Hills mission.

SPEAKER_03: 16:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 16:34

And they had one of those combo units, like the TV with the the thing. So he would bring that home on Saturday and rent a uh video from Blockbuster, and then that night we would get to watch one movie and then he would take it back the next day.

SPEAKER_03: 16:50

Wow, that's hardcore. Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 16:53

Uh anyway, yeah. All right. Uh do Scientologists celebrate Christmas? Um, they don't.

SPEAKER_01: 17:01

Well, they do.

SPEAKER_04: 17:03

But they don't so celebrate to me. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01: 17:06

They don't believe in the the origin story of Christmas.

SPEAKER_04: 17:11

In fact, David and Shelly Miscavige both would often say that all of those types of holidays were heathen or pagan, uh pagan, I think was the word they used. Pagan holidays. Why are you guys dressed in civilian clothing? Oh, because it's uh, you know, blah blah blah holiday. That's we don't we so and yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 17:36

Celebr uh Scientologists celebrate the receiving of gifts and the buying of Scientology things for other Scientologists as those gifts. So every I want to say every October or November, Scientology comes out with a Christmas catalog of all of the things that you can buy from Scientology to give somebody. And um, I saw a post, gosh, I want to say it was from apostate Alex, that they're still selling the Scientology CD Walkman's.

SPEAKER_04: 18:14

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01: 18:15

Because all of L. Ron Hubbard's lectures are still only available on cassette and C D. So they sell a Sony Discman, which which I still have one of those.

SPEAKER_04: 18:28

Yeah, I think I I I I brought mine.

SPEAKER_01: 18:30

That's the one I have.

SPEAKER_04: 18:32

Oh, well then that's mine. Yes, we have one, honey.

SPEAKER_01: 18:38

Yeah. Well, it's at my shop.

SPEAKER_04: 18:41

Okay. Well, lots of my stuff is at our shop.

SPEAKER_00: 18:51

Um anyway.

SPEAKER_04: 18:54

But I also wanted to say on a just stepping back for a minute, because and again, this is part of why I thought we should talk about this today. Um, to me now with our family, yeah, Thanksgiving and Christmas are both, regardless that you know, what your beliefs are, yeah, to me and us, it's so much about family.

SPEAKER_01: 19:15

Totally.

SPEAKER_04: 19:16

And you know, and that's that's where like Phil and I talked about this a couple of weeks ago on the Foundation channel. At this time of year, it can be what the because of the evil practice of Scientology disconnection, it can be very, very hard for a lot of people who have gone through that. And the stories about that are just they never cease to be heartbreaking and devastating.

SPEAKER_01: 19:40

Yeah, and there are a lot of staff in the C organization that do attempt to go home for the holidays. Like if they were raised in a family that did celebrate all these, then they joined the C organization, they will they will petition, they will write a what's called a CSW, completed staff work to be able to allow, uh be allowed to go visit their family.

SPEAKER_04: 20:05

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 20:05

And I want to say at the AMT base over the years, I maybe only saw a handful of people that were approved to go do that. It was very, very rare that somebody would would take off for Thanksgiving or Christmas to go see their family.

SPEAKER_03: 20:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 20:21

And then there's another interesting fact that this happened every single year at the AMPase.

unknown: 20:26

Uh-uh.

SPEAKER_01: 20:27

If you are in the C organization and you get ill uh for any reason, then you are uh labeled uh PTS, a potential trouble source. And one of the things that they often look at is your family. Who in your family is trying to get you to leave or to come for Thanksgiving or a Christmas? And and so if you do get sick, then you get investigated on who it you if you're PTS in Scientology uh policies and and bulletins that Hubbard has written, then that means you have somebody in your life that you're connected to who is a suppressive person. Yes. That is the only reason you go PTS is if there's an SP that you're connected to in some way.

SPEAKER_04: 21:17

Yeah, and that label came with punishments too. For example, you wouldn't be allowed to drive if you could drive in the first place. If you could drive in the first place.

SPEAKER_01: 21:25

But then you were there would be a certain other restrictions that could be imposed on you if you were PTS. Yes. If you were labeled a potential trouble source.

SPEAKER_04: 21:33

But historically Including that your completed staff work would be denied.

SPEAKER_01: 21:38

Yeah, oh yeah, 100%. If you're that's true. If you're sick, you can't leave.

SPEAKER_04: 21:43

No.

SPEAKER_01: 21:43

Because that means you're connected to an SP, and likely you're going to meet up with one of those SPs. That's right. So it's that's if you had a squeaky, squeaky, clean record and your statistics were up and everything was perfect, you probably had a 1% chance of getting approved to go.

SPEAKER_04: 22:02

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 22:02

But if you were PTS, it that went down to zero for sure.

SPEAKER_04: 22:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 22:06

But the thing that I was gonna say is that traditionally and historically over all the years that we were there, Sea Org members tend to get sick between November and January. Absolutely. And people are sent to isolation, and it's a whole big thing. Yep. And sometimes you could have 30 or 40 people out sick.

SPEAKER_04: 22:29

Um there there were actually a few times during those months on a it didn't happen every year, but I remember a couple of instances where ISO, isolation, which was the designated area for sick Sea Org members, which was like anyone would get sick just walking in that door. Uh it was nasty. It was packed, like, and they had to set up overflow space and uh like there were that many sick staff.

SPEAKER_01: 22:56

Yeah. It doesn't don't don't mind the fact that it's flu season at that same time.

SPEAKER_03: 23:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 23:03

But in the C org, they attributed it to C org members want to leave and go be with the suppressive family members. So that's why they get sick during Thanksgiving in that Christmas season. And so it was It's really sad thinking about it now. Well, I know, but it was almost sort of if you wanted to go to go for Thanksgiving or go for Christmas to see your family, it was almost like, what's up with this guy?

SPEAKER_04: 23:33

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 23:34

He's there's something going on with that guy that he wants to go see his family. Who cares about your family? They have they're not doing anything for the world. You know, they they're you're on a mission to save humanity and you want to go eat turkey and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_04: 23:48

Yeah, it's off-purpose. Quote, other fish to fry.

SPEAKER_01: 23:51

Yeah, so I think they treat Christmas very similarly because it's just like, who cares about this? This has nothing to do with anything.

SPEAKER_03: 24:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:02

And so at the and I want to specifically stress this isn't the sea organization where we were at at the Amp Base.

SPEAKER_03: 24:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 24:10

But you would work a hundred, 120 hours a week all year long, and sometimes we didn't even get Christmas off.

SPEAKER_04: 24:20

Yeah. Well, I was gonna say, so this picture here of me with Jupiter, yeah. Um, this was in like I want to say 92, 93. Those in those early years, I think two or three of those years, we actually got to have a day off at up at Big Bear, California.

SPEAKER_02: 24:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_04: 24:39

For the day. And then we had to be back at work the next day. But in later years, there was none of that, especially because we're it was jamming right into the New Year's event. So of course, everybody had to be laser focused. And there would some some of those years there would be like, well, if we get everything done and approved for the event before Christmas, yes, then you can have Christmas. But that never happened.

SPEAKER_01: 25:06

Yeah, and I also want to say there would be this funny thing where we were in um Gilman Hot Springs, California, which is very close to Hemet and San Yacento. The nearest place that you could just go shopping was in Hemet. There was a Walmart.

SPEAKER_03: 25:24

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 25:24

You could go there.

SPEAKER_03: 25:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 25:26

You could also um that's when we lived in town, though. That's when we lived in the apartments in town. It was a they made it a lot harder for people to do that once they all moved to the property.

SPEAKER_04: 25:38

Yeah, and and to be fair, we moved basically adjacent to the property in 2000. So the last four years that we were there, we didn't live in town anymore. We lived on Sublet Road. No.

SPEAKER_01: 25:51

If anything, we got to Jack and the Jack in the Crack. That was about the that was the main uh main uh destination just because it was really, really close to to Gilman Hot Springs. Like it was like a five-minute motorcycle drive. Um but so what would happen is uh maybe a week or two before Christmas, you might be able to sneak off to Walmart on Sunday morning.

SPEAKER_04: 26:18

Well, actually, some years um the staff would get a bonus.

SPEAKER_01: 26:23

Well, that's what's gonna I was gonna lead to that. So that was sort of like if if anything, you you the least you could do is you could go to Walmart and you could buy a card.

SPEAKER_04: 26:32

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 26:33

Or something like that. Because we didn't have a lot of money.

SPEAKER_04: 26:35

No, we did not.

SPEAKER_01: 26:36

But then some years we would get like a hundred dollar bonus for the year, yes, which is two whole weeks of pay in one go.

SPEAKER_04: 26:46

And they would send so it's kind of sad and bizarre in thinking back on that. Yeah, how much a hundred dollars feels like when you've been getting$46 a week if you're lucky or nothing. That's what I'm saying. Like$100, you feel you like the the normal, you know, real world um concept of money is uh like a C a member of the C organization just does not have that at all.

SPEAKER_01: 27:14

Totally. But then so some years, and that was this is mostly in those early years as well, they would get a bunch of all the buses that took us to and from the base every day. We would all get into those buses.

SPEAKER_04: 27:29

And anybody who was approved to go, if you weren't in any trouble, and you weren't on the restricted list, meaning you weren't even allowed to leave the property, even if you lived in town, you had to sleep on the property.

SPEAKER_01: 27:40

Yeah, if you weren't on any of those lists and you were good to go, you they would drive us to this place that was called the Cabazon Outlets. And it was it was just like an outlet mall. I want to say it was off the 10. Yeah, the 10 freeway.

SPEAKER_04: 27:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 27:56

I uh interstate 10. Yeah, and it was out near um, like I guess on the way to Palm Springs or I think so. It was like an hour from the property, I want to say.

SPEAKER_04: 28:06

Yeah, 45 minutes.

SPEAKER_01: 28:07

Yeah, and um, and I remember the first time we went, we got our bonus, and I was like super excited. And I walked into a store and I I wanted to get you something, or I wanted to get my dad something. I couldn't remember, but after I bought you one thing, I was that was it. I was tapped out. I was like, oh, this is a really nice uh shirt or sweater or something, and then I'd go and I'd be like, Oh, that'll be eighty-nine dollars, and I'd be like, eighty-nine dollars for a sweater?

SPEAKER_00: 28:38

Yeah, and then that would be like, I guess my dad's getting a card. And I didn't even have enough to get a card after that.

SPEAKER_01: 28:44

Yeah, because we would also, we would be out in the wild.

SPEAKER_04: 28:48

Oh I know that's what I was gonna ask you about. So I remember in the early years that when we were married, that maybe two or three times you and I got to go there together. But after that, I didn't get to go anymore because I was on a different schedule. So I had to go on a different so I didn't get to go with you.

SPEAKER_01: 29:07

That's right, because they only had a certain amount of buses. They couldn't take the entire base on one day. So they would take like maybe Golden Era would go on Saturday and then RTC and CMO Int and Exec Strata and all the other places would go on a Sunday. Yeah. So and you couldn't i i it it's it's funny now that I think about it because you it would in in anywhere else in the world, it'd be like, hey, uh, is it okay if I just go tomorrow when my wife goes with her people? Yeah. And any other company in the world would just be like, yeah, whatever nobody cares.

SPEAKER_00: 29:40

Um it's also it was this was on a Saturday and a Sunday. Right. So typically not work days in the room.

SPEAKER_01: 29:46

But when we would go, there would be food.

SPEAKER_04: 29:51

Oh my gosh, that's what I was gonna say too. Like I think I remember the complete and utter sensory overload sensation of Like, like and also thinking back on it now, I like O to be a fly on the wall watching that happen at Cabazon, you know, like just watching all these like people that look like they're dressed from the 70s and the 80s get out of these buses. Like, were these people in is this they just come through our teleportal? Are we being pumps?

SPEAKER_00: 30:17

Why is there a guy with a fur vest walking around?

SPEAKER_04: 30:24

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01: 30:25

It was pretty, it was pretty awesome. We would go and similarly, you'd be like, oh, there'd be all these restaurants and little food stands and all that, and you'd buy something and you'd be like, oops, there's 10 bucks, that's gone.

SPEAKER_00: 30:38

And then you're like, Wow, I gotta really figure out what I do with my money here. I don't have a lot of money to be buying.

SPEAKER_04: 30:45

You have three hours to go shopping. Oh, yeah, that's right. That was the other part. I totally forgot about that.

SPEAKER_00: 30:50

It was like, we're gonna drop you off at 10, and you need to be ready to go at one o'clock.

SPEAKER_04: 30:56

Yeah, which to be fair at the time seemed like, wow, that's a lot of time, especially when you have a hundred dollars.

SPEAKER_00: 31:03

Yeah. I'm gonna milk this hundred. It's gonna, I just gotta make it last for three whole hours.

SPEAKER_04: 31:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 31:11

Um, yeah, but as far as um in the later years, it got to the point, and I even I think I mentioned this in my book. Um, they have in the Sea Org on the original ships that L. Ron Hubbard ran in the ocean, in the sea, um, they would have this thing called a beer and cheese party.

SPEAKER_03: 31:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 31:35

And there were probably three or four of those over the years, the 15 years that we were there, where we actually got to drink beer, and we there was actually cheese, and it was like a real thing.

SPEAKER_04: 31:48

But I never drank beer, but okay.

SPEAKER_01: 31:51

But I'm just saying, if you're gonna have a beer and cheese party, there's at least two things you need. Yeah. The last year that we were there in 2004, because we left in January of 2005, they had a beer and cheese party, and it was sun-kissed soda and Ritz crackers and no cheese. And it was like, and I was just I just remember sitting there and it was just a table.

SPEAKER_04: 32:19

So it was a soda and cracker party, basically.

SPEAKER_01: 32:22

No, it was just soda and crackers because there was no party, it was just a table with some cheese, with some uh Ritz crackers and some sodas on it. And I was like, anybody here.

SPEAKER_04: 32:33

At that point, it was just a token gesture because Hubbard had talked about having bear and cheese parties on the ship for the sea organization. So that's the only reason even there was even an attempt at a minimal gesture. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 32:48

Anyway, so yeah, they weren't really big on um they weren't really big on parties at all there. No, there was not a lot of parties over the 15 years.

SPEAKER_04: 32:58

Like that's right.

SPEAKER_01: 32:59

In your in the the course of a year, you might go to two or three parties. It just regular. We go to a Halloween party.

SPEAKER_04: 33:06

Oh, you mean as a person in the real world?

SPEAKER_01: 33:08

A Christmas party, a Thanksgiving party, a birthday party, birthday party. You might go to a handful of July 4th party.

SPEAKER_00: 33:15

Well, yeah. Now we I mean we pretty much use anything as an excuse to Friday night party. Making up for lost time.

SPEAKER_04: 33:23

When it comes to August and it's our anniversary month, I always tell Mark, I'm like, Well, honey, we didn't get to celebrate our anniversary for the first 13 years. So sorry, August is our anniversary month.

SPEAKER_01: 33:35

Yes, we do uh we do live it up these days.

SPEAKER_04: 33:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 33:39

But um, but yeah, in the C organization, you might, if you're do if your organization is doing really well and there's a Scientology holiday, which is March 13th, I'll run the anniversary of El Ron Hubbard's birthday, or May 9th, the anniversary of the publication of Dianetics, or you know, the IAS event, the International Association of Scientologists, those you're allowed to uh be at the party. Yes. But most of the time, if you're a C org member, you're working the party. So if you work at Golden Air Productions, you're putting on the event. If you work in an organization, you're selling things, you're selling courses or materials at that party. So even then, it's a party, but it's a working party. You're you're the you're the staff of the party, you're putting on the party, you're not there to partake in the party.

SPEAKER_04: 34:31

Yes, for sure. And also before we move along from this, fundamentally, I would say that Hubbard was anti-other religions. He wrote many things that were derogatory about Jesus Christ, Christianity, religion. 100%. 100%. So from that perspective, uh, do they celebrate Christmas, maybe to put on a show to the people around them?

SPEAKER_02: 34:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 34:55

But do they respect other people's beliefs or any of that? Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_01: 35:01

It's funny that you say that because while they tolerate Christmas and they tolerate Thanksgiving, that's it.

SPEAKER_04: 35:09

That's right.

SPEAKER_01: 35:09

You're not, you're not light, you're not spinning a dreidel or uh or or having any kind of Hanukkah stuff at the international headquarters or a Scientology organization. That is silliness that they're not gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_04: 35:23

Yeah, like so much so. And granted, my upbringing was way more insulated than some other people's. But like the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02: 35:33

Insulated.

SPEAKER_04: 35:34

Insulated. Uh the whole concept of Hanukkah and all of that was completely foreign to me when I when we got out. And I had to learn uh what that all was.

SPEAKER_01: 35:45

Oh, yeah, me too. Yeah. We were very ignorant of things outside of the stuff.

SPEAKER_04: 35:53

Embarrassingly so. Yeah. Yes, like cringy.

SPEAKER_01: 35:56

It's taken years for us to like be like, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04: 36:00

Get on our Google five.

SPEAKER_00: 36:03

Okay. I don't know what that's all about. And then you're gonna be like, oh, there's 12 million people do this.

SPEAKER_04: 36:08

Yeah, exactly. Okay, didn't know that. T I L.

unknown: 36:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 36:14

Um, all right. Is there more? I think so.

SPEAKER_04: 36:17

Yeah, there's a couple more. So again, this is just one um, this is one photo of us that this was taken in the dining hall, Massacre Canyon Inn. Um, and it was on it was at the the 30-minute Christmas dinner that we had. I I want to say this was 97 or 98-ish. Um, but yeah, like it was a miracle that we were even in the same room at the same time to take a picture for that Christmas.

SPEAKER_01: 36:45

Well, during this time period, you had been in Florida for many years.

SPEAKER_04: 36:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 36:50

And I had been in Denmark, Jean Bonague, Copenhagen. Um, and um, and then even when I came back from Denmark, I was then in Los Angeles for many, many months, or on location when we were shooting films.

SPEAKER_03: 37:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 37:12

So I want to say from about ninety five to about ninety-six or ninety-seven, we saw each other a handful of times.

SPEAKER_04: 37:22

94 until 90.

SPEAKER_01: 37:23

Yeah, 90, yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_04: 37:25

94 until 90, yeah. Mid-97.

SPEAKER_01: 37:28

Yeah, it wasn't a lot.

SPEAKER_04: 37:29

Nope.

SPEAKER_01: 37:30

And and even if we excuse me, even if we did see each other, it was just for a few minutes here or there. Right.

SPEAKER_04: 37:35

It wasn't like we weren't staying in the same room that night.

SPEAKER_01: 37:38

Yeah, we weren't. It was like, hey, remember me?

SPEAKER_04: 37:42

I know.

SPEAKER_00: 37:43

Remember this guy over here?

SPEAKER_04: 37:44

Oh my gosh. I really yeah, I there was definitely architecture in place that was designed from the get-go to absolutely destroy our relationship.

SPEAKER_01: 37:55

Yeah, so this thing says, does Scientology have important holidays? So, like I said, the important holidays in Scientology are Elron Hubbard's birthday, March 13th.

SPEAKER_04: 38:06

Yeah, well, starting at the they do celebrate New Year's Eve.

SPEAKER_01: 38:09

Sure, but that's at the end of the year.

SPEAKER_04: 38:11

Okay, yeah, depending on your perspective. I see what you're saying.

SPEAKER_01: 38:14

Well, we're celebrating it on December 31st.

SPEAKER_04: 38:17

So that would make no, I associate it with January 1st. It's okay. Woo-suck. Get easy.

SPEAKER_01: 38:24

Woo-suck.

SPEAKER_04: 38:25

All right then, move along, kind sir.

SPEAKER_01: 38:27

March 13th. I'll run Hubbard's uh anniversary of uh Hubbard's birthday, May 9th, which is the anniversary of the publication of Dianetics.

SPEAKER_04: 38:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 38:37

Then you have in June, they have uh no, did I say March 13th? Yeah, March 13th, May 9th, June 6th, with which is the maiden and the anniversary of the maiden voyage of the flagship uh free wins. Free winds, the their uh little tugboat cruise ship that they have. And then you have Sea Org Day, which is in August.

SPEAKER_04: 39:01

Right, which that is celebrated only by members of the Sea Organization, of course.

SPEAKER_01: 39:06

And then you have Auditors Day, which is in September, and then you have the International Association Oh no, there's yeah, Auditors Day in September, then you have the International Association of Scientologist Anniversary, which is in also Oh, it's in October. October. Yep. And then New Year's.

SPEAKER_04: 39:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 39:28

December and December.

SPEAKER_03: 39:29

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 39:30

And they they all the New Year's event is always on a like a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, so that they can justify doing it.

SPEAKER_04: 39:38

Yeah, originally it used to be on the 31st.

SPEAKER_01: 39:42

Always on the 31st.

SPEAKER_04: 39:43

But then in the last few years that we were there, somebody, you know, David Miscavige was like, well, if we do it on the 27th, then we'll have time to get it out to all the organizations. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 39:57

So those are the holidays that they celebrate. Those are the main ones. There might be other silly things.

SPEAKER_04: 40:03

On a scale of one to ten, those are a ten, and Christmas and Thanksgiving. Uh Christmas is probably a two, and Thanksgiving is a one on on an important scale. If they're even on the thing.

SPEAKER_01: 40:15

They might both be just point fives.

SPEAKER_04: 40:19

True, true. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 40:21

And um and you know what? It's okay to have a party on those days. If you're the Scientology organization, because you want to get people to come to that to spend money and buy courses and that sort of thing. And that's the only reason, and and and uh as well, that's the only reason they have those events.

SPEAKER_04: 40:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 40:44

Those events are sales events.

SPEAKER_04: 40:47

Correct.

SPEAKER_01: 40:48

They um almost always are releasing a new course or some new auditing counseling that they retooled that's been around for 25, 30 years.

SPEAKER_03: 40:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 40:58

Or there's a new set of lectures, L. Ron Hubbard lectures, or there's something that they want you to buy at that point.

SPEAKER_04: 41:07

You know what? You make a really good point because ref let's reflect for a moment. For example, on L. Ron Hubbard's birthday.

SPEAKER_02: 41:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 41:15

Okay. Was this celebrating the man? Was it celebrating his birthday? Was it singing him happy birthday? Uh, no, none of that. It was all about how much expansion have Scientology organizations attained.

SPEAKER_02: 41:30

Totally.

SPEAKER_04: 41:31

That's all it's about.

SPEAKER_02: 41:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 41:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 41:34

Okay. Yahoo. What else we got?

SPEAKER_04: 41:38

All right. How are holidays impacted by disconnection? So, this is a photo, probably actually the last photo that we have of you with your sister Stephanie.

SPEAKER_01: 41:48

That's you as well. It's me and you and Stephanie.

SPEAKER_04: 41:51

Oh, I know. Everybody knows what you and I look like.

SPEAKER_01: 41:53

I don't know. Those pictures are pretty old.

SPEAKER_04: 41:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 41:57

Pretty look how skinny I am in there.

SPEAKER_04: 41:59

Same. And I have my Nextel phone radio on my belt. Like a dumbo.

SPEAKER_02: 42:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 42:07

Uh, because I had to answer the phone right away if anybody called. Uh yeah. Um, holidays, how are holidays impacted by disconnection? Yeah, as we've been saying, to me anyway, this is it's it's bittersweet. It's the hardest time of the year from the the perspective that it's impossible not to think about our family members who are trapped inside that cult and reflect on the time that they've missed with us, and you know, our our our parents have never met our kids and all that. That's hard. This the sweet part of it is that our kids love this time of the year, and we've made such special memories despite that. So, you know, that's where I'm grateful that we got out together and we've been able to build that. But I also my heart goes out to anyone that doesn't have, you know, that that this time of year just spotlights that.

SPEAKER_01: 43:02

Yeah, and I don't think since we've left, we haven't had a Thanksgiving. We we weren't with at least 20 or 30 family members.

SPEAKER_03: 43:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 43:12

During like we actually had a Thanksgiving dinner and we hung out, and we maybe I played football with some of the cousins' kids.

SPEAKER_04: 43:20

And you just reminded me of the time that we first came to Colorado to meet all your family. And of course, we'd been married 13 years, and I had never met any of them.

SPEAKER_02: 43:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 43:31

And um, it was so moving to hear, like, oh, um, we're so grateful to have you. We've had you on our prayer list. I mean, that really hit me. Yeah. That really, really, I mean, I know it hit both of us, but then also your family were just so sweet. Like, we love you, it's so nice to meet you. Please just don't wait 13 years to come visit again. Yeah. I'm like, oh, don't worry, that's not a problem.

SPEAKER_01: 43:56

And we have since 2005, we have had a Thanksgiving every single year.

SPEAKER_04: 44:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 44:04

And we and for a lot of for many years, we did it at one of my family's, one of my cousins' houses here in Colorado.

SPEAKER_03: 44:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 44:12

And then a few years ago, we then started hosting it. And then they come to our house now. And I think this is gonna be like the smallest Thanksgiving we've had this year. Yeah. And it's gonna be only like 20, 25 people. Yes.

SPEAKER_04: 44:28

That's gonna be just a small and by the way, folks, we do not live in a giant mansion of a house. So when we had, I think the most we had was like 50 to 60 people, and literally we had to m clear out the entire first floor of our house and just set up um folding tables. Folding tables and chairs, but it didn't matter, you know. We we decorated and everyone loved it. It's always been amazing, yes.

SPEAKER_01: 44:52

Yeah, I think most of my family did think we were a little crazy for having that many people show up.

SPEAKER_04: 44:56

Yeah. Oh, and you know, the other thing, yeah, for sure. But the other thing that you reminded me of doing.

SPEAKER_00: 45:02

Yeah. So but Thanksgiving people for Thanksgiving. We had two ovens going.

SPEAKER_04: 45:08

We had it was like Is there anybody you didn't invite?

SPEAKER_00: 45:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 45:12

Um, we invited the entire town. No, but also it reminded me too. Remember in the first few years that we were celebrating Thanksgiving with your family, to us it was so special, so cherished, so uh just so much joy.

SPEAKER_01: 45:28

Oh, we would look forward to it for months.

SPEAKER_04: 45:30

Yeah, and not only that, but we blew away your whole family when for the first like three or four years, we would give everyone cameras and get everyone to take photos, and then we would make a whole photo album We made a book of the entire few days of Thanksgiving making with captions and and they were like I would give cameras to the kids and say, take as many pictures as you can.

SPEAKER_01: 45:57

And so they weren't contrived at all because the kids were just taking pic they would literally take thousands of pictures, yeah, and then we'd pick the best ones, and there would be funny stories attached to some of the pictures, and um anyway, so yeah, I I do have to say this is the because there is one really hilarious one, which is of course, I knew I knew you were gonna go there. Which is my cousin, my um one of my nieces took a picture.

SPEAKER_04: 46:24

And she was about ten at the time, by the way, just for context.

SPEAKER_01: 46:26

She was young.

SPEAKER_04: 46:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 46:28

She took a picture that they had in of a picture that they had in their basement. And it was of this just majestic eagle soaring through the air.

SPEAKER_04: 46:38

Over the mountains.

SPEAKER_01: 46:40

Well, whatever. It was in the sky. But she took a picture of it with she took a picture of a picture.

SPEAKER_04: 46:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 46:47

And then she potted off as she was just outside in the backyard and she saw an eagle and she took this picture.

SPEAKER_04: 46:52

I don't remember that part.

SPEAKER_01: 46:54

Oh, I do because I was I was just like, are you kidding me? Like, you took this picture, and she's like, Yeah. And I was like, Where was it? She was, it was just in the sky. And I was like, that's amazing. Anyway, and then I think somebody knew that there was a picture of an eagle in the basement of their house.

SPEAKER_04: 47:14

Because we made that photo, the front cover.

SPEAKER_01: 47:17

Yes, we made it the cover of the book to celebrate this whole thing. But somebody brought up, they said, Yeah, I'm pretty sure she took that down to the basement. I was like, why? And he goes, Because I have a picture of that eagle in my basement. Uh anyway, we had tons of fun. We've had tons of uh great, and now those nieces and nephews, they all have kids that are almost the age she was. Yes, you know, they're in the they've got toddlers and yeah. Anyway, lots of fun stuff. Okay. Is this um what's going on here? Oh, 2002. Oh, I didn't see that. She had a little map there.

SPEAKER_04: 47:54

Yeah, so disconnection. You want me to just read this real quick for anyone that doesn't know the sev severance of all ties between a Scientologist and a friend, colleague, or family member who is deemed to be antagonistic towards Scientology. Or in our case, we weren't even antagonistic to Scientology. We were just declared suppressive people because we escaped.

SPEAKER_01: 48:15

Well, escaping. Escaping is antagonistic. You're attacking them by leaving them with less resources than they had the day before you were.

SPEAKER_04: 48:23

That's a stretch.

SPEAKER_01: 48:24

I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_04: 48:25

I mean, come on, we didn't we didn't attack them. They attacked us. They ran you off the road for crying out of the city.

SPEAKER_01: 48:30

I understand, but I'm just saying, in the I'm not forwarding their bullshit in the mindset of a Scientologist, you are betraying them and abandoning them.

SPEAKER_04: 48:38

In their mindset, yeah, exactly. Okay. But yeah, uh, and to me, it is worse worse than shunning, and it's worse in so many things because um I remember the the times that we were living in Los Angeles and our son was born. So my mom's first grandchild, I remember we would go to my sister's softball games.

SPEAKER_01: 48:59

This is when we were out.

SPEAKER_04: 49:01

We were out after we had escaped. But we would go to my sister's softball games because she was a college student just to watch, because we're like, hey, what harm does it do to go and watch a softball game?

SPEAKER_01: 49:13

And also it was like, you can't stop us from going to a softball game.

SPEAKER_04: 49:17

Right. But then, but remember how I I just have very distinct memories of sitting there just being completely gobsmacked that they were sitting three rows back from us, 100% ignoring us. Like we didn't even exist.

SPEAKER_01: 49:35

You're saying your family, yes. Yes, sorry.

SPEAKER_04: 49:38

My mom, my stepdad, you know, my brother, my sister, and my sisters playing softball, and they're and I I'm there with their grandson, and it's like we literally don't even exist. We may as well have been superhumans with invisible cloaks.

SPEAKER_01: 49:55

Yeah, I did, I did push it a little there because I was like screaming, Go curst it. You know, I'm I can I can scream really loud and uh yell really loud, and I'm you know yelling at her name and go cursten, yeah. And then everyone's looking at me and they're like, and but her family, just straightforward, they wouldn't even turn, they wouldn't even give us a little side eye, not a thing. No, and I think they were mortified that we were there because and so they should have been. And because they were like, Why are you here?

SPEAKER_04: 50:28

We're like, Yeah, because we're we're because we love her and she's my sister, and we came to cheer her on.

SPEAKER_01: 50:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 50:34

Like, anyway, it it gets my brain. Disconnection.

SPEAKER_01: 50:37

Yeah. So the the other thing I did want to mention is if you have a family member, there are a lot of people that watch this channel that have family members that are in Scientology, or maybe they once were in Scientology and then they left, but they still have family that are in Scientology. If you write them a letter or you try to call them or anything like that, writing a letter is probably the most effective thing you can do because they don't really accept a lot of phone calls, depending on where they work. If you're in Columbus, Ohio, you might be able to take a call. But if you're at a Sea Org base, that's not that's not likely going to happen.

SPEAKER_04: 51:14

But yeah, I heard a story recently of somebody's somebody whose son was calling to them, they worked at the headquarters, and the son called every day for years and never once got a call back.

SPEAKER_01: 51:27

Yeah. That's that's a that is a common occurrence.

SPEAKER_04: 51:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 51:32

But if you write them a letter and you don't say anything about Scientology, you just say, you know, Aunt May's doing good, and your sister just got a new job at the college, and just give them good news and just let them know that you're there. If they ever, if if the thing you can and you can say this, you can say, if you ever when you get your next vacation, um, you could come, you're welcome to come and stay with us, or if you're ever in the area, you're welcome to stay with us.

SPEAKER_04: 52:04

If you ever need anything, we're here for you.

SPEAKER_01: 52:06

Yeah, if there's anything you ever need, we're always here for you, and we're very um supportive of whatever you want to do. Yeah, then they it might give them a little bit of an inkling that if they did decide to leave, they could come because that I want to say that is the biggest hurdle in a Sea Org member's eyes, is when they don't want to be there anymore, then they kind of reflect on the fact that they've never been, they haven't had any time or spent any time with your family anymore. Right. And in Scientology, they're constantly trying to like erase that part. You don't need any of that.

SPEAKER_04: 52:46

There's no and isolate you further and further and further from your family.

SPEAKER_01: 52:50

That's right. So even though you may be welcome welcoming them with open arms if they decided to leave, they don't think that's the case. That's right. Even when when we went to go leave, and I called my dad and I said, Hey, I left, and the cops just helped me and all this, and he's like, Well, what are you gonna do? I said, I want to come there if if if I can and maybe stay with you. And he was like, Of course. I've been waiting for 15 years for this day. And to, but to me, I was I was surprised.

SPEAKER_04: 53:20

Yeah, no, I know. I can I can remember feeling jealous, not that I ever acknowledged or let those thoughts even be verbalized in my head, but having a feeling of jealousy when I would hear of somebody who escaped to a family member who was never in Scientology, because I was like, Well, I don't have that. I knew if I ever escaped, the only person that I even knew where they lived or or that was even in the US that I could think of was my mother, and I knew she would just turn me right back over to them. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 53:51

So that's another kind of aspect of this. If you can just let them know that you're there, and it's completely acceptable within the C org member if some if your family does send you just a a letter during the holidays or on your paper.

SPEAKER_04: 54:08

Hi, how are you doing? Thinking about you, love you, miss you. Yeah. We'd love for you to come visit sometime, and I'd love to hear about how you're doing and what you've been up to. And it's only been about 15 years, so it's about time, Sally, that you come visit your old ma.

SPEAKER_01: 54:23

But but what I'm saying is that that wouldn't necessarily raise a red flag with internal C organization people, because they're like, oh yeah, it's his mom's mom's just writing him to let him know how everybody's doing and all that good stuff. But I would say that that is key, even if they're not writing you back. That's the other thing.

SPEAKER_04: 54:42

Exactly. Don't take it personally.

SPEAKER_01: 54:43

My dad wrote me, my dad wrote me on my birthday, Christmas, you know. He would write a lot, he would write to you as well. Just not he would just write to you. But the amount of times I answered him was very rare. Or I would just write, you know, like thanks, and then I'd never mail it. Anyway, so yeah, it's it's a bit much. Don't you have to kind of you have it just it you have to understand what's happening on their end.

SPEAKER_04: 55:15

That's right. Yeah. So if you if you if you haven't walked in those shoes, so just just to keep the important thing is to just keep that line open, yeah. Um, because that's huge for somebody in that level of isolation, that is a big deal.

SPEAKER_01: 55:31

Yeah, but if you say, Hey, what's up with you never being able to leave that place and what's going on, uh not only are they not going to be writing you back, they're not gonna pass your letters on to that person anymore. You're gonna immediately get be like, okay, we got somebody who's antagonistic towards Scientology.

SPEAKER_04: 55:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 55:54

And that's the end. Those letters, those letters will never get to that person.

SPEAKER_04: 55:59

That's right.

SPEAKER_01: 55:59

Ever. Forever, for the rest of time. They're not they're not handing your letters over. Because they don't want to upset the C org member.

SPEAKER_04: 56:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 56:08

So you got to play nice if you're on the outside.

SPEAKER_04: 56:12

Um and also to just before while I think of it, yeah, for anyone watching who is impacted by disconnection at this time of the year, please consider reaching out to the Aftermath Foundation. The support group program that we are now um have now been running since July has been flourishing. It's doing amazing. We just started a second group. So for anyone hurting at this time of year and who um is impacted by this practice, please do reach out. You are not alone.

SPEAKER_01: 56:42

Yeah. Okay, what do we got next?

SPEAKER_04: 56:45

How do holidays compare now that we're out? Yeah, we we talked about this.

SPEAKER_02: 56:49

So we talked about Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_04: 56:51

Yeah. So again, these two photos on the right and the left, you can see how staged it is, right?

SPEAKER_01: 56:59

It's like I love, I always love this one of you with the gold stage.

SPEAKER_04: 57:06

Oh my god, this is my worst photo of the of ever. Because I had had maybe two hours of sleep for like the the week prior. I could barely keep my eyes open. Um, I had lost a lot of weight because I had no dining privileges at this time.

SPEAKER_00: 57:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 57:26

I was surviving off of tiger milk protein bars because I wasn't even allowed to I think they're called tiger's milk. Whatever.

SPEAKER_01: 57:35

Whatever.

SPEAKER_04: 57:36

They don't even exist anymore.

SPEAKER_01: 57:38

They don't?

SPEAKER_04: 57:38

No. I don't think so. I know, me too. Anyhow, the point being that this photo to me is like it looked so bad.

SPEAKER_00: 57:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 57:48

And that other one is a close second, pretty bad. Because I we had done um renovations down by the G units, which is where Tom Cruise had stayed, and we had to cut down all these massive bushes, and I had a massive I got all this stuff in my eye and a massive scratch, so my eye swelled up so much so that Greg Wilhel asked me if you'd punched me, and I was just so insulted. I was like, Yeah. You think I'm because my eye was closed shut, the one eye.

SPEAKER_02: 58:16

Yeah, anyhow. It's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_04: 58:18

Yeah. So and then the one in the middle is me with my two half sisters. I think that's the last picture I have with them.

SPEAKER_01: 58:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 58:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 58:26

Sad.

SPEAKER_04: 58:27

It is sad.

SPEAKER_01: 58:28

But we do, we not only do we have a uh a banger of a Thanksgiving. Yes, but we kind of go all out for Christmas with these kids too. These kids are. I I would I would argue that our kids are they are on the edge of spoiled with the amount that we try to course correct what we we try to flop to the complete opposite of what we yeah, that's so so much so that even their friends are like, wow, your family eats dinner a lot together.

SPEAKER_00: 58:58

Yeah, that's right. Your family eats dinner a lot together.

SPEAKER_04: 59:02

You guys do a lot of things together. Yeah, we're like, whatever. We we know we know we treasure every every single minute with our kids, especially because you travel for work, so when you're here, we do a lot. Somebody asked in that gold shirt picture if that's my hair. Yes, my hair was down past my butt.

SPEAKER_01: 59:21

I used to cut her hair. You know, I was talking to somebody else the other day, and because David Miscavige did not want to look have bad makeup on stage, he brought in a makeup artist and uh and uh stylist that did, I want to say Clinton and uh and George Bush. Uh he did their makeup.

SPEAKER_04: 59:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 59:51

And so he taught the makeup crew what the things to do and all that. But because at that time I was over the makeup area. I was also participating in these things. So I did actually learn how to cut hair and do very, very professional makeup.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:10

I also went to a bunch of makeup classes and I learned about seasons and all these other different things. I know.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:15

When you started being like, hey, you know, you should change this and this and this, I was like, who are you? It's like, well, I've been doing makeup classes. I was like, oh, wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:25

You're really more of an autumn. You shouldn't wear these spring colors as much. Like, what?

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:31

Yeah, but but yeah, for for I think three or four years, you were cutting my hair.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:36

Just uh anytime I would see you when we were both at home together during our CSP time, our two hours to clean our apartment, clean ship, clean our room. I would stand in the bathtub and you would just cut it and be like, okay, good to go.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:51

Yeah. No split-ins here.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:54

Whoa, wah, wah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:56

Okay. Um, photo contest.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:58

Yeah. So let's answer some questions.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:00

Well, no, I wanted to tell everybody about the photo contest. You gotta send us some pictures, and we're gonna pick three winners: a fan favorite, Claire favorite, and a Mark favorite. Yep. And you can you can win a Mike Rinder or a Lib Leah bobblehead. And if you want to submit those photos, you can go to the Blown for Good website and go to the contact us page.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:20

And it will allow you to send a photo to us. And you can also just go on X and tag me or share the photo or DM me or whatever you want on X, and we can get it that way. And then we're gonna pick just in the next week or so, we're gonna go through all the November entries and we're gonna award some three people are getting bobbleheads.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:43

Yep, exactly. We may end up doing that as a community post. We'll see. We'll keep you posted. But either way, if you hit subscribe, hit that bell notification, you should be good to go on finding out. And by the way, someone said you can get tiger's milk bars on Amazon still.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:58

I knew it. You were such a propagandist. Oh my propagandist?

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:03

Wow, you knew harsh words.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:05

Tiger's milk, they don't make them anymore. You crushed my dreams for a second there.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:11

All right. L E Y 67. Question: if everyone in the room is OT4, can they talk about it? No, definitely not. No.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:20

You're not allowed to even discuss any of the confidential operating Phaeton levels.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:28

And in fact, by the way, before you go on though, this is true of all levels. You're not allowed to discuss your case with anybody, no matter what level they are, no matter what level you are, you can only discuss your case, meaning your progress on the Scientology counseling side of the bridge to total freedom, with an auditor in session, holding the cans of the e-meter. That is it. Anything else is actually a suppressive act.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:57

That's right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:58

You're it's called coffee shop auditing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:01

Well, remember? They don't want people, they don't want people comparing notes. Comparing notes, because one person might say, Yeah, I finished uh I finished OT5 yesterday, and they'd be like, Well, how long have you been on it? I'd be like, two weeks. Yeah. And then they'd be like, Oh, it took me four years to do that, and I had to pay like a hundred and eighty thousand dollars at the flag land base in Clearwater, Florida. And so they don't want anybody comparing.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:30

No, they don't.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:31

So that's forbidden. They don't want it them to get even more disgruntled than they already are by being like, what are you talking about? But like even it's funny because if you're if you've basically if you've done anything past OT level three, you know about the aliens.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:51

Correct.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:52

There is a guy, an actor, his name is Jim Meskiman. And I want to say when we were there, he was on like his upper OT levels. And he was he was he had been uh uh he found out about the aliens. And he did an interview and somebody asked him about the aliens, and he said, I think it's horrible that people I mean, people really think I believe in flying saucers. What the hell are you talking about? And it's like even when they are directly asked about the aliens, they will deny they believe in the aliens.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:29

I mean, it's the perfect example of literally in real life how Scientologists will lie. Yeah, but this is the best part because it's an acceptable truth.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:38

The ones that don't know about the aliens yet, they obviously will deny it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:43

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:44

Because they don't know about them yet. They haven't paid that much money.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:47

The only Scientologist that will ever admit to the existence of Xenu is an ex-scientologist. Is not a Scientologist.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:56

Or someone who's about to be an ex-scientologist because they got in trouble for talking about the aliens.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:01

Right, exactly. That's one key differentiation between because a lot of people say, well, you get you know, there's a lot of religions or cults or whatever groups, uh organized uh philosophical groups. Yeah, different systems of belief that have crazy origin stories. Correct. But they they stick to them. They they embrace them and they're like, yeah, like the Mormons are like, yeah, we got aliens. Sure, there's a spaceship up there we're getting to, you know, whatever it is, or Adam and Eve, or you know, Christmas. These things are they embrace them. Scientologists deny them and hide them because they know if they come out with that as the pitch, you're gonna be like, what the hell? Right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:55

You know, I'm not signing up for any Area 51 religion. Right. Come on.

SPEAKER_04: 1:05:59

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:01

Okay, here we go. What's this one say?

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:04

All right, Lex 4E. When are the Mark and Claire bobbleheads coming?

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:08

Well, I I'm gonna tell you, it ain't until the old ones are sold. Somebody made that one for us. That's just a one-off one. Um but um which which I actually kind of dig. I think it's fun. Um but uh you kind of look like Shania Twain, I think, uh I don't know about that.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:31

Tell us what you think, folks.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:32

Yes. Man, what is it? What is the song? I don't know.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:37

Man, you I feel like a woman or something like that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:40

Yeah. Man, I feel like a woman.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:44

Maybe, I don't know. Um, but either way, um we still got a we don't have a lot of Mike Render bobbleheads left.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:51

No, but we um and we have we don't have a huge amount of Leah bobbleheads, but we have a bunch.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:57

Yeah, but we're not gonna sell, we're not making any more bobbleheads unless we sell out of every single Davy doll and bobblehead that we have, just because I need the space in my shop.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:08

Yes, we've been uh very slammed on real estate of late. All right, Northern True.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:14

Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:14

Okay question Did you guys miss each other when you were apart, or did it not even occur to you to indulge those feelings? Oh no. We did.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:21

We wrote we wrote, we used to get those, you know, those little cards with the little they're black and white, but they have one little element of them that are like pink or yeah, and it's a little boy and a little girl.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:33

Yeah, like we always used to send those back and forth with, and you would uh we would always write I love you always and forever.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:43

It was a song Donna Lewis. Donna Lewis.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:46

I love you always forever.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:49

Anyway, that was our song for a while. It was okay, yeah. We we we messed up.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:56

Does Mark still cut the hair of the entire Headley family? I suspect he would if they let him.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:02

No, that was only during COVID. During COVID, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:05

And no, he doesn't cut my hair anymore. He's far too busy, and I prefer a little more uh, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:12

Well, my my styles are from the 90s when I was taught.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:17

Yeah, he wasn't great at layers and you know, some of the more complex aspects of women's hair. No offense, honey. You didn't cut my hair for four years.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:27

Yeah, and uh and to be fair, I've only cut one woman's hair in my life.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:32

Yeah, right, exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:34

So um yeah, no, I don't do it anymore. My I'm and also the boys' hairs, that's uh that's a clippers with you know, would you want a number one or a number two? Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:45

Yeah. All right, Magda. Now that you can now that you can celebrate holidays however you want, what's your favorite tradition you've embraced? We have a lot of them to be fair. Um we always do the huge Thanksgiving spread, all the trappings. Mark and I, we love cooking together.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:06

Right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:06

Yeah, we make we're this year. I'll give you the menu. We're making Yorkshire pudding, okay, which we have a baller Yorkshire pudding.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:17

We have been we we usually do roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for Easter.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:21

Um, and again, that's another one that we uh have typically started celebrating since getting out and having a huge big spread.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:29

Yeah, we don't normally do Yorkshire pudding at Christmas, but the kids love it, and also a lot of our my family now love it. Yeah, because they've come to our Easter parties.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:40

Well, that's true. We do do a big Easter party too.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:43

We do, and we do a huge July 4th.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:46

That's true. We do have massive. That's like 60, 70 people for July 4th.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:50

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite. We um not Mark doesn't, but the boys and I run the turkey trot 5K in the morning, and then we come and cook the rest of the day, and it's a really fun like we've been doing I've been doing turkey trot. Oh, I don't have my metals in here anymore, but for like Yeah, you do.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:09

There's one right there.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:10

It's the it's even a oh it's a no, it's a July 4th. Yeah. It's not a turkey. There's a turkey under there.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:16

Anyway, either way, the point is. Claire's got Claire has I've been doing it since 2015, I want to say.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:22

But that's not the only thing. Claire has literally 50.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:29

She has 55 Ks and the Spartan range.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:34

She has trail trail races, so many of these things. Fight for air climb. I did a bunch of those running up the 52 flights of um stairs, the tallest skyscraper in Denver.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:47

Yeah, she does a lot.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:49

So yay!

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:52

Anyway, so yeah, we have tons of traditions. We started cruising with the boys, they love that. That has been a really memorable time. We basically, you know, we work so hard as small business owners. My perspective is that we only have this small amount of time with our children while they're still children. We never got any of that with our families. So we literally treasure every minute of every day that we get with them. And even if we're having a rough year, we still figure out how to make those memories for our kids.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:29

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:29

This is a good one for me.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:31

Trevin on question: how does this SP suppressive person thing work if you're the only person in your surroundings who knows anything about Scientology? Am I a potential trouble source to myself or am I a potential trouble source to you guys? We've actually joked about this. We're like, well, wait a minute. If Mark is declared a suppressive person and I'm declared a suppressive person, and if I get sick, then who am I PTS to?

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:58

Yeah. There, there, there, there are a lot of loopholes in Scientology's PTS and SP technology. Yeah. Because that's a good point. Yes, if you don't have if your parents have passed away, right, and you have they have no brothers and sisters, you have no other people in your life except for in Scientology. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:12:18

And that and that is where I I firmly believe that the whole potential trouble source suppressive person is more about controlling and keeping the person in Scientology than it has anything to do with the person themselves. That's just what where I've arrived at on it. Because it is about control and leverage and also destroying that fundamental foundation of family connection, unconditional love, all of that. It is intended to destroy that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:50

Yeah, and I think the your family members are the ones that you might be PTS to is just a good, like a regular interval that where they can kind of scrub you down and get rid of any ideas that you're getting out of here and that you're ever going anywhere.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:08

So it's even convenient for them to be like, no, you can't go to Thanksgiving because you got uh you had a cold two weeks ago.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:17

But you also reminded me of another spin on that, which is that if you were like, Well, I want to go see my family for Christmas, well, why? Who cares? Well, my family, uh, I don't want them to think that I don't care about them. Oh, well, a UPTS to them then.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:36

There's no real good way. That's why I'm saying it was very, very rare that people would do it because even if somebody did it, it would be like, geez, what's happening? And sometimes, and this is where they would give they would they would give it a little bit of leniency. If your if you were in the Sea Org and your parents were mega donors, oh, for sure, then you got to go every year.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:00

That's right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:00

And it was crazy to me. Yeah, the flashback girls were going to Thanksgivings all the time.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:05

And I was like, somehow their completed staff works were m miraculously approved. No problem.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:11

They had been in trouble for trying to escape.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:13

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:14

They still got to go. And it was just like, and a lot of times they would get sent with another person, or they would go together.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:22

Because then they could watch each other. But either way.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:25

And and it's funny, sorry, you just triggered a memory. Um, because one time I was talking to your cousin's wife, and she was like, Yeah, we were like, wow, you guys can just never even come visit even for Christmas. And I and it just hit me because you know, having been in that world my entire life, I never had the perspective from the outside looking in.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:49

And it just hit me like a ton of bricks. Like, yeah, how, how, what, like, and and anyway, what were we doing that was so important that we couldn't take one day crazy?

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:00

Good point, Trevanon. We like that. Was a good question.

SPEAKER_04: 1:15:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:03

Okay, what do well what else we got here?

SPEAKER_04: 1:15:05

All right, boomerang Beck. Do Scientologists tell their kids, maintain the magic, about Santa? Yes, my mom did. Uh I mean, I believed in Santa even in the cadet org. I think I knew it was bogus, but I just held on to any glimmer of any kind of speck of joy that I could find anywhere. That's uh, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:30

I I didn't believe in Santa. I don't think it passed like nine or ten because I couldn't understand if Santa Logistically. No, no, not logistically. Santa's a baller.

SPEAKER_04: 1:15:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:45

So why ain't I getting baller gifts from Santa like all my other friends are?

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:49

So I'm like, Santa seems to be broke like my parents when it comes to Christmas. The worst Christmas ever was the first year we moved to to Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:03

This is in your book.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:05

I got a brown bandana that was filled, was tied like a like a hobo sack, filled with unsalted shelled peanuts. And I didn't wasn't like a big fan of peanuts. Brown is my least of colors that I enjoy.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:21

Yeah, I've never seen you wear brown.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:23

And I don't wear bandanas on the regular either. So I was sort of like, Santa, you really screwed up this year. And that was it. That's what I got. And it and I found out later, it was actually from my grandmother. She sent that because she knew I was probably not getting anything else. And I to be fair, I do want to say that my parents got me a sheet of these little plastic things that you would put in the oven.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:49

You would color them and oh yeah, I remember those.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:52

I think they were called shrinky dinks or something.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:54

Yeah, it was like it you you would color it and then you'd bake it in the oven at a shrink, it'd become like a clear glass ornament or something like that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:01

Something like that. But I think my mom got me like a a package of those from Pick and Save, which I think is like uh big lots, is the is the equivalent of pick and save or five below.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:12

Not even five below.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:13

Uh the dollar store, dollar tree.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:15

Pick and save is the bottom.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:18

Okay, all right, fair enough.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:19

Anyway, but uh yeah. Yeah, fun, good times. Okay, I think we need to do the um we need to do the giveaway. Let's see what we're doing here. Get down to this giveaway page here. There it is.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:30

All right, here we go.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:32

Um, let me get over there. We uh we gave you guys lots of time. We're drawing. Here we go. We're doing it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:39

We're doing oh, weren't you gonna play the music?

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:41

Uh here we go.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:43

Watch this. I'll it's too late. I got here.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:46

Elizabeth Barrett, 7591. Congratulations. There we go.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:54

I didn't uh yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:55

That was the best.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:56

Yeah, in terms of my timing, though.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:02

You know what? We're here, as we always say, discussing a lot of heavy crap. Yeah, you gotta find some humor here and there to just lighten the mood in the room. Just a tad. Congratulations. Anyway, congratulations. Send me an email, Claire at Balonforgood.com with your address, and you will be the proud recipient of a fake Navy Davy doll.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:23

Yeah. Oh my goodness. Need not oh, ho we go.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:30

Uh love and life, not to start a war, but pumpkin or sweet potato pie. Pumpkin. Pumpkin. Definitely unanimously. Good job.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:37

Yeah, come on. Yeah. My uh it's mainly because of the kids.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:40

It is.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:41

The kids love a pumpkin pie.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:43

They do. And we've done we've done all variations. We've done homemade, we've done the epic Costco, we've done the local bakery. I I do really like baking a pumpkin pie, though.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:55

Yeah. Um, let me just see if there's any other good ones we needed.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:58

Uh I I'm trying to Oh, you got Gumby in there now, too, huh?

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:03

Oh, yeah. Oh, I totally forgot. I was cleaning up and I found this little gum Gumby dude.

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:08

And by the way, yes, that is the big friendly giant that uh somebody commented about that. You said it was a troll. It is the big friend friendly giant. Oh BFG. Catherine Olson, I love how Mark added Gumby to the pile. There you go. Yeah, I just noticed the same thing, Catherine. I was like, oh, wait a minute, what's the green dude doing there?

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:26

What?

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:28

Claire looks fabulous. But Mark looks like he just woke up from a nap. Right now? No, this was at the start. I saw this comment at the start. Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:39

Well, golly.

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:40

It's the weekend, folks. We we try to take it easy, especially because Mark's coming up on a very busy time soon.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:46

Yeah, I was watching a game. I was watching the Chiefs and the uh Well, I know, but they started catching up.

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:53

I know. I don't even know what it is.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:54

Probably sorry, Kansas City, but we want the Chiefs to lose because we don't need them in the playoffs with us at all.

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:02

Nope, nope, nope, nope. Sorry, Grandpa Bernie, rest in peace. We're sorry. We normally root for the Chiefs on your behalf.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:08

They won the Super Bowl for him. He's good to go. Okay. Um is there anything else we get?

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:15

If we missed a whole ton of questions, then I'll do them on a QA when you're gone.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:20

Oh, that's a great idea.

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:21

Yep. Anyway. That's a perfect idea, actually. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:24

That's a good video to do.

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:26

Okay. Well, I think we had a fun time. We did. We had a great time. Yes. We try to make these a little bit more conversational and just a little bit more informative because so you guys can feel or find out what we were feeling or what was happening, or like some of the things that we get a lot of questions from people who have relatives that are in Scientology or in the C organization. And so we try to sort of fill that vacuum of what could be going on with that person at their local facility.

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:57

Yep. And you reminded me, in case you missed it, I did put up a community post asking for your questions about Mark's book. And we've gotten so many great um comments there so far. But if there's anything that you that, you know, questions about characters or this or that, whatever, you can look, go, go to the community post and you'll see some of the examples there. Great, great ideas. So probably end of the year, we'll do a wrap-up and we'll cover those questions. That's my suggestion.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:27

Okay, that's a good idea. I like that. We could do, we could even do two videos. We could do one end of the year.

SPEAKER_04: 1:21:33

Well, we're also gonna do a foundation fundraiser year-end wrap-up where we're gonna cover all the foundations.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:39

That's where we're gonna have our special guests.

SPEAKER_04: 1:21:41

Yes, we're gonna have our special guests talk about all the huge accomplishments over at the Michael J. Render Aftermath Foundation. Um, we have had an incredible year.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_04: 1:21:51

Best ever.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:53

Best ever on a lot of fronts.

SPEAKER_04: 1:21:54

A lot of fronts, so much activity. Oh my goodness, makes it all worthwhile.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:59

It is.

SPEAKER_04: 1:22:00

We have been having so much success with getting people out, getting them back on their feet, building an incredible team of people to support the people we're helping, and you can just feel it by the momentum ramping up of literally like there hasn't been a week that hasn't gone by in the last three months that we haven't been actively helping a new person out right then and there. Like that much momentum gained, which is really fulfilling.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:31

Yeah, it is it's it it really is amazing to see it kind of start to snowball. And now we find out there's a lot of people that in Scientology that know about the aftermath and they're seeing the billboards. Yep. That's another thing. The billboards have had an amazing impact.

SPEAKER_04: 1:22:48

Yes. So if you are getting out of Scientology in any way, shape, or form, please reach out to the Aftermath Foundation, whether you were in the C organization, a civilian Scientologist, whether you've, you know, whatever it is, please reach out. We could because we have so many resources and programs to help you succeed.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:09

Yeah. Awesome. Yes, that's a good ending.

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:12

Yes, there we go.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:13

Okay, guys, thanks a lot. Thanks for joining us. Uh, we will see you. We're still gonna try to do a video every Sunday.

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:20

Whether it's live or pre-recorded, we are gonna try to do a video every Sunday.

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:25

For the for for the for all of December.

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:28

Yes, correct. But just know that it will be a little bit before we're back here again.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:33

Yeah. Well, you could be down here.

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:35

Well, I know, but you know, I don't like it when people make comments about how I Thanks for watching.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:41

If you'd like to help support the channel, feel free to check out the merch store link in the description. We have Hail Xenu. Xenu is my homeboy and BFG branded mouse pads, shirts, mugs, all sorts of other stuff in there that helps us to bring you new content on a regular basis. You can also pick up a copy of my book, Blown for Good Behind the Iron Curtain of Scientology, in hardback, Kindle, and Audible versions as well. There's also a link to our podcast, and you can get that on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you'd like to watch another video, you can click on this link right here, or you can click on this one here, or you can click on the subscribe button right here. Thanks a lot, until next time.