Secrets, Surveillance, And Survival At Gold Base - Secrets of Scientology LIVE Q&A

Secrets don’t just hide in the shadows at Scientology’s international headquarters—they’re baked into the rules. We open the door on life at Gold Base: the mail opened before you read it, the addresses laundered through Hollywood to disguise location, and an internet “filter” that blocks anything critical while flagging your clicks for review. From the first days on the EPF, autonomy is stripped away in favor of orders, and a snitch culture ensures everyone polices everyone else. The result is a sealed system where control feels normal and dissent looks dangerous.

We dig into the question people ask most: why do members stay when they’re unhappy? The answer stacks up fast: family inside, marriages on the base, jobs tied to Scientology employers, and years of indoctrination telling you anyone who doubts must be cut off. Add sunk costs and a fear of disconnection, and leaving can feel like losing your entire life overnight. We share the moment the façade cracked—visiting “booming” ideal orgs that were nearly empty—and how that gap between sales pitch and reality became impossible to ignore.

This conversation goes beyond exposure; it’s a guide to rebuilding. We talk through practical first steps for a safe exit—private communication lines, non‑Scientology employment, independent housing—and why no one should be bullied into staying or leaving. Reclaiming identity takes time, curiosity, and community: reading widely on trauma and recovery, questioning “ethics” narratives, and replacing fear with facts. We also separate myth from reality at the top, contrasting the image of principled leadership with stories of luxury, selective policy enforcement, and rewards for outside contractors while staff go without.

There’s real hope here. Membership is shrinking, public awareness is stronger than ever, and decompression times are shorter thanks to accessible information. People still inside are finding quiet channels to learn, plan, and step out on their terms. If you’ve wondered how control really works—or how to help someone find a way out—this episode lays out the mechanisms and the map.

If this resonated, subscribe, share with someone who needs it, and leave a review. Your support helps more people find clear information and

Transcript

Welcome And Viewer Q&A Plan

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Hey guys, welcome back to the channel. Welcome to another episode of Blown for Good, Scientology Exposed. As usual, I am joined today by my lovely wife, Claire.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Hey, hey, hey, everybody. Happy Sunday. Thanks for joining us today. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

And so we're going to uh we've taken questions from YouTube, X, Facebook, wherever emails, wherever we get comments, questions, those are the questions we're going to be answering. And if you want, if we if we jam through those uh in it with enough time, then if you have other questions that we didn't answer, go ahead and put those in the comments and we'll try to get to some of those as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Yep. And even if we don't, we'll save those for the next time we do one of these QA's. It's good to just circle back around on questions people have. So that's why we're here today.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Okay. Well, there's no time like the present. I guess we just get to it, eh?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Sounds good.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Here we go.

Life At Gold Base: Control And Isolation

SPEAKER_00 1:32

All right. What is something about life at Goldbase that people outside would genuinely struggle to believe?

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Um I think just the amount of restrictions you have, like you're not allowed to go anywhere without permission. You're not allowed to call your family without permission.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Um You're not allowed to receive a letter without it being read first.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Yeah, your mail gets opened uh on the way in, and your mail gets opened on the way out. Or you leave it open, you don't seal it. If you write a letter to your family or anybody, actually, in that matter, um you leave it open so security can read it. And when they're done reading it, then they will close, they'll seal it and then mail it, or not, depending on what you wrote in the letter.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Right. And that was even true when I was in Clearwater, Florida, and you were in California, even our correspondence had to be read.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Which is kind of crazy if you like you would send me like these little uh postcard letters and stuff like that. And to think that they're reading every single one of those is kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Yeah. And uh that we were not even allowed to I wasn't even allowed to talk to you on the phone during that time. Anyway, but yeah, I think also at that property specifically, the level of isolation and so if you think about in in real world standards now for me looking back, most people in the real world know how to drive and they have a car and they have a general sense of geographical orientation.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Which surprisingly, like if I were it even when we went back there one time um with a film crew, I I had no idea where how to get to birthing, you know, even though we made that bus ride multiple times, you're so exhausted and so we just sleep on the bus. Right, exactly. It's not like you're paying attention to turns and and everything else. So it just the I think the level of isolation, um, as we've commented before, it's more extreme than Supermax.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Yeah. And this is particular to the international headquarters, 19625 Highway 79, Gilman Hot Springs, California. Um at that location, even if somebody wrote you a letter, they weren't writing you a letter at that location. They would send it to the what the basically the int base would get the mail from Los Angeles. So if somebody was writing to Golden Air Productions, they'd write to 6331 Hollywood Boulevard, and that would go to gold, Golden Era Productions. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

That's if they were writing to you at Golden Air Productions. If they're writing to me when I was in Religious Technology Center, it went to 1710 Ivar Avenue.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Yeah, which is just the other street that the HGV is on.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

It's the same physical building. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Just a different door. And then that and so all of the people that were at the international base, they all had an LA address.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

And so if someone was writing to you, they'd write to that address. And when you wrote them back, you would write it from that address.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

And it would be postmarked in Los Angeles. The mail would get sent down to Los Angeles and then mailed in Los Angeles from the post office there. So the postmark was from Hollywood, not from Gillan Hot Springs, California.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Yeah, exactly. So how old were you when you first were posted at the Imp base? Okay. And did your mom have to sign over guardianship of you?

SPEAKER_01 5:18

No.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

No.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

I was 16 when I joined, well, I was fifteen when I joined the C org. I turned 16 at Abel International, and then I turned 18 when I or 17, like while I was on clearance lines when I was getting my security interrogations to be able to go to the international headquarters. That's actually when I had my birthday. And then like a week after that, I went to uh Gilman Hot Springs. So I got there in late May of 1990.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Okay. But your mom, of course, was not allowed to know physically where you worked.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

No. My no no nobody in my family was. Because my sister wasn't at the AMP base either. It was just me. My sister came uh a bit later, and then my mom ended up joining the Sea Org after that.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah, way after that.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

And so and she never knew she never knew where where we were. Yeah. Which is kind of silly because you could just look up, you could just Google Golden Era Productions. Yeah. And it'll just tell you right where it is. There's even now if you search Ant Base, you don't even have you can say Ant Base, Gold, Golden Era Productions, The Hole. You can look up all of those things and it'll tell you exactly where it is.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yeah, the beauty of the internet. But yeah, so I was 16 in 1991. And for me, my mom and my stepdad did have they were required to sign over guardianship of me to Leonora Adam, who I had never met.

SPEAKER_01 6:45

I think it was Adams.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

No, it was Adam.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

You sure? Leonora Adam? Adams. Somebody out there who knows. Back me up. Leonora Adams.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Adam. I'm sticking to my sticking to my memory of it. Anyway. She was your guardian.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

You had no idea who she was.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Never met her. No. And yeah, you know, I was introduced to her and the I mean I thought Gelda was your She was more of my guardian in reality, but she wasn't my legal guardian.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

She was just watching out for you.

unknown 7:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

A little bit.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Or, you know, smacking me around. Whatever. Okay. Oh, look at that. Catherine says, Claire is right. Music to my ears.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Thank you, Catherine.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

This is the first time for everything, babe. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Yeah, not for that though.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

When did you realize that obedience was being valued over truth?

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Yeah, yeah.

Teenage Recruitment And Guardianship

SPEAKER_01 7:44

I think you learned that when you right when you get do the Sea Org uh EPF, you learn you basically when you're being recruited for the C organization, they tell you all these tall tales about what you're going to be able to do, and that's going to be awesome, and you're going to do this, and you can do that. And then once you get into the C org and you do what's called the EPF, the Estates Project Force, you do it's there's a course, there's many courses you have to do as part of that. Um study Scientology C org courses. But one of them is called Welcome to the Sea Org. And in that you basically learn whatever the Sea Org wants, the Sea Org gets. It's not about you anymore. You're now part of this group that you you you have no autonomy anymore. You're gonna you're gonna operate on orders and you're gonna be told what you're gonna do, and you're gonna do it. Whether and it there's even a thing, no matter what job or what location you're assigned to, it's your responsibility to do that job. So if they say, hey, guess what? You're going to Denmark, you're going to Denmark. If they say, hey, you're going to Canada to work at the CLO, the Continental Liaison org in Canada, you're going to Canada. It doesn't matter. You have no choice.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Or even, oh, guess what? You're going to be assigned as an electrician. You're like, I know nothing about electricity. Don't care. Make it go right. Do your job. Get hatted.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Make it go. Right?

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Yeah. But my answer to that is I learned that when I was four years old when my mom joined the C organization.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Um, because you know, you know when when you like in my case, growing up in the cadet organization, I knew that no matter what, the rules of uh the group were the laws of the land, so to speak. And um, yeah, they were senior to anything else, even senior to my mom's care and protection.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Yeah. All right. I'm reading this one. Let's see. What's one rule inside Scientology that still surprises you when you think about it now? Um my answer to that is the snitch culture. It's still like oof. It's so insidious and so um controlling, leveraging, um like knowing that you know you could write a report on me.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Never happened.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Or I could write a report on you.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Happened all the time.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

No, it did not. Oh my god, here we go again, folks.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

I never ever wrote a report on Claire. Oh, you shouldn't have to do that. Not once. Not once, not ever. Never happened. Okay. Because I knew that was down and dirty. You can't do that.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Well, you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Anyway, listen to this. It doesn't matter who you do something around, there's a 95% chance they're gonna rat you out. They're gonna write a report on you.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

And it doesn't matter if it's your spouse, your best friend for 10 years, the people that you work with day and night, that you're super close with, your tight little group that you work in, it doesn't matter if there's m if there's another person that's around when you do it, the rule is if you don't write a report on that person and you knew about it, and they get caught, then you get the same penalties they get when it's found out. So it's basically like CYA to the maximum. There's no everybody's is trying to cover their own ass so they don't get in trouble. And very, very rarely will something happen where somebody else doesn't know about it and write a report.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Yep. Um and my personal pet pee was the trend that whenever someone escaped, yeah, all of a sudden it's like you're obligated now to I mean, and and to be fair, sometimes there were things that you'd seen or you know, whatever that were nonsense. But most often those were ordered directly by David Miscavige or stemmed from him. But then so like uh, you know, the person would take off and all of a sudden it's like this flood of knowledge reports comes in because people are trying to cover their ass, like, oh shoot.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

But also, anytime somebody escapes, and if something's going wrong or something is like messed up in that area, then everybody blames it on the guy who just left because he can't defend himself.

Obedience Over Truth In The Sea Org

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Yeah. And then what happens is they they solicit- even though you're required to copy the person on the report, he he's not even there anymore. So all of a sudden now, you know, all bets are off. You can say whatever it is you've been uh if you were like when Marty Rathbun blew, I wrote wrote a report on him for all the times I witnessed him physically abuse staff. Um, but of course, I didn't cover in there the times that I saw David Miscavige physically abuse.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

They're not asking how many people David Miscavige built up. They're soliciting reports on how many people Marty beat up.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

Yeah. In fact, if if if anybody ever wrote wrote a report on David Miscavige, they would be uh shut down pronto.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Aaron Powell Yeah, you you'd find out real quick what what what happens when you do that.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Yeah. What's good for the goose is not good for the gander.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

How does Scientology keep people loyal even when they're unhappy? I think the re the how they do that is well, in the case of the Sea Org members, you're gonna get kicked out of the Sea Org if you don't play by the rules. And if you get kicked out of the Sea Org, it's very likely that you're not gonna be able to talk to your family or you don't you're not gonna have a job, you don't know where to go, you don't know where to do. But if you don't have the uh you're not able to talk to your family, then you're sort of gonna be out there on your own. Yeah. And you're not gonna have any resources. So even if you're unhappy, um, you still have to play by the rules. There's there there's at the Int base I want to say in its heyday, there was nearly a thousand people that worked there. 800, 900, almost a thousand people between all the different organizations, not just go.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

And this was leading up to 1996 is when they really s shut down and stopped bringing a whole lot of new people to the property. So up until 1996, yeah, it was close to, you're right, close to a thousand at its peak.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Aaron Ross Powell I would say there was about at least a hundred people there that you that everybody knew they didn't want to be there. They were just like, this place sucks, Dave sucks. They were openly um voicing these things. And then I want to say in probably the late 90s, they did a purge and they got rid of all of those people. Like the people that like the spike bushes and the um and any older people that were there, any elderly people that were there.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Yeah, that was that was in the early 2000s for the older people. But yeah, they yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

They called it the Deadwood Program. And the people that were The offloads.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

So all the people that were Deadwood, they were like, we just got to get rid of these people. They went to the PAC RPF or they went to the Flag RPF, the Rehabilitation Project Force, um, which is basically like a labor camp. And they just got rid of those people. Trevor Burrus, Jr. And and even the people that were unhappy, you don't walk around showing that you're unhappy. You've got to put on a good face. If you're one of the not not those people. There was probably a few hundred other people that were on the struggle bus and just being like, I don't know, I cannot do this. This is crazy. It's too much. And they would just, you know, put on a good face. But a lot of times it was the same people that were getting in trouble regularly.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

I would say that statistically, probably ninety percent of the staff at the base had family in. And then the other 10 percent, even if they didn't have family in, they were married to somebody at that property.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

And they had family in.

Snitch Culture And Knowledge Reports

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Right. So you have to understand to me, it's layers of control and leverage. So it's not only family and people who are important to you that you don't want to lose, but also such an extreme lack of resources. Where would you go with no money, you know, oftentimes no car, most times no car. Maybe what, two, three, four percent of the staff at the base had a car, maybe less.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

There's probably like 20, 30 people out of all those people that had a vehicle. But the other thing is there was also I would say a large majority of the CWORC members that were at the international headquarters were second-generation Scientologists. So they were the children of Scientologists. And in some cases, their spouses or their mother or father or brother or sister were also at the international headquarters. Like in my case, my sister was there. My mom was in the Sea Org at FLAG, and my half-brother was also a Scientologist, and his dad was a Scientologist. So everybody pretty much that I knew on my mom's immediate side of the family, they were all involved in Scientology. So if I left, I was never gonna talk to those people ever again.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

So I said, And also you had to do it. You you and I both had no connection or way to reach our extended family who were not in Scientology.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Aaron Powell Yeah, that's true. Even though I actually did have um a lot of family members, cousins and aunts and uncles on my dad's side, I didn't know their phone numbers or addresses or any I had no I didn't wouldn't even know how to find them.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Yeah, and let alone um it's weird to me also in retrospect how much I was convinced that none of those people would help me if I asked for help. It's not that I thought that they were mean or didn't care or anything else. It was just that, hey, you haven't spoken to somebody in 20 years, and now all of a sudden you're like, help me escape. It's just it's just not a reality.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Okay, next one.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

All right. Hold on.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Do you think Tom Cruise would overleave Scientology? No.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

No.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Um he is so tied to the hip with David Miscavige, Tom Cruise. Um their bromance goes runs deep.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah. And he's been in now, what, since the early to mid-80s, roughly?

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Aaron Ross Powell Well, really in the early 1990s is when he started doing courses and counseling, and that's when he audited me on with the Scientology e-meter and counseling, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Aaron Ross Powell But that was when he was married to Nicole, and already his previous wife was a Scientologist. So he'd been in already for a while at that point.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Aaron Powell Yeah, but he read Dianetics.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

He wasn't he wasn't doing anything. He read a book when he was Mimi Rogers.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Uh But also, but also to me, like there are certain events in somebody's life that tell you a lot about whether they're ever gonna wake up and get out of Scientology or if they're lifers. And the fact that he cut off his daughter and hasn't talked to her in however long, to me, says more about him that that he will never wake up and get out. I mean, never say never, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:37

You know, there's there's people who are gonna have to David Miscavige is gonna have to really stick it in his back in order for him to go. I mean, I just don't know how it it I would say there's a 1% chance. But if there's any chance at all, it's very slim. But the other thing is that he has it's that cost uh Sunk cost fallacy. He sunk so much into Scientology at this point.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

For him to go, nope.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

And he also got so many of his family involved.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Yeah, his sisters.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Um I think even his mom was involved at some point.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Yeah, but I think she passed.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

Okay.

Why Unhappy Members Stay

SPEAKER_01 20:21

But um yes. If she hasn't sorry about that, I didn't I I thought she had. But um but yeah, his sisters are in. Um he's got Scientology, uh, he's got buildings all around, he's like bought properties all around their stuff. He's he's sold he's sold all his other houses everywhere else so he could be concentrated in one place. I mean, it's just it's a lot. It's a lot to say for him, oh, I was wrong. This was stupid. Um and also he's still trying to work out a way to kill the aliens. He's like everybody in Scientology Here we go, folks. Everybody in Scientology is rooting for him because he's he's basically uh cosplaying how they could all the different ways they could get rid of the aliens. You watch. He's I bet you he does more alien movies. You watch. Another Tom Cruise movie comes out and it's about aliens. Just saying. Yeah, next.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

All right, hold on here. Um what was the biggest internal conflict you had before leaving? I'm sure your answer is different than well, it might be similar. You answer first.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Um what was the biggest internal conflict you had before leaving? Um The biggest conflict that I had was uh Scientology says that it is the way to solve all mankind's problems. Ever for every problem mankind has, they have a solution. And if basically if everything is done with Scientology, Technology, then you would be living in a utopia. And the place where we worked, there were only Scientologists there. There wasn't any other people. It was the whole place was being run on Scientology policies and programs and it was the furthest thing from a utopia in the world. A utopia, it was not. And it was so miserable working there. And it was so miserable. It was just a miserable experience every single day. And every year it would be like, well, uh look at the bread side, it can't get any worse than this. And then next year it's worse. And so it could always get worse and worse and worse and worse. And I thought, this is what they're trying to do everywhere? I don't think so. I can't. That's when it for me, when I was the if you've read my book, you you know all this. But in 2004, I had the opportunity to work on the audiovisual systems in a whole bunch of Scientology organizations outside of the international base. Go there, check on their systems, make sure everything's working properly. And every single place I went to was empty, like a bone yard. And so for me, then I realized oh, not only are they lying to the public, they're lying to us. They're telling us these places are booming and this everything's awesome. And then you go there, you're like, there's nobody here. This organization is a brand new ideal organization, and there's zero people here, it's like zero Scientologists in there doing courses and stuff like that. And if there were people there, it was one or two people. So then you realize they're lying to us, they're lying to the Scientologists, and and it's miserable. And and also the people in the organizations were miserable too. So I'm going, every one part of this is miserable. There's no happy people in this, even the public. You think, oh, these people are donating all this money. When there's an event, they have this every there's like seven or eight events every year throughout the year in Scientology, and the public, Scientologists that are not on the C org or they're not on staff, they're just paying members of Scientology. They dread these events. Oh, completely. They're gonna get they know they're gonna be they're gonna be harassed until they donate for a course or some lectures or give a donation to the IAS, or there's no way you get out of there without spending money. No. So nobody wants to go to these things. So everybody in the everybody in the Scientology pyramid, they're all miserable.

SPEAKER_02 24:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

And the only people that I think that aren't like just this is horrible, are the rich people that are getting people into Scientology and making money off of the people that they get into Scientology.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Yeah. So by the way, Catherine commented, and if they didn't show up to the events, they would be seen in ethics later.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

You would get in trouble if you didn't go listen to David Miscavige drone on for three hours. I about shit that's already happened. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

So we being that we worked at the headquarters, it was we wouldn't go to a lot of the events in Los Angeles. I think initially when I got there, the only event we would go to was the New Year's event.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

However, in 1993, October 1993, at the International Association of Scientologists event where David Miscavige announced tax exemption.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

At the LA Sports Arena. Rest in peace sports arena.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Yeah. We went to that one. And I remember um that the Sea Org members were basically like surrounded every entrance or every exit, I should say, to the LA Sports Arena. And we were all required to sell the tapes and lectures.

Will Tom Cruise Ever Leave

SPEAKER_01 26:01

We were selling cassettes. We were selling cassettes in 1993. And I remember the cassette we were selling was nothing's gonna stop us. Nothing's gonna stop us now. It was a little audio thing. You remember that?

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Yes. I do.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Was that 1993 or was that the 2000 one?

SPEAKER_00 26:25

I think that was the 2000 one. I can't remember. I think. I don't know. We'll have to anyone who remembers.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Did you is that it? Did we answer this question? Um Yes, say yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

No, no, I didn't even answer yet. You were telling your answer. Give me a second there, honey buns. What was the biggest internal conflict? So for me, again, factoring in the difference that I was born into it and my mom had joined the C organization when I was four, I knew uh it it was a lot for me to consider losing my entire family. And and also, unlike Mark, I had fear of their labels and what they would do and all those things. Mark, you were always the rebel. Um like you you were it was for you, not that it was nothing, but rel compared to me, it was like water off a duck's back.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Yeah, I did not let it affect me personally because I understood that the system was a giant lump of shit. So I was basically like, don't get all worked up. This ain't personal. Yeah. Everybody's just a a giant turd here, and they're basically in order for you to move up in the Sea Org, somebody else has to go down. You gotta kick that you gotta kick people down a pattern. Dog eat dog. Yeah, it's all dog-eat dog. And and after a while, you're just like, whatever. And then it also, if you are genuinely, genuinely trying to get something done, and people see that you're genuinely trying to get something done, most of the time they would leave me alone. They would see, oh this guy's getting stuff done. He's a little unorthodox, but let's let's leave leave him be.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

Yep.

The Breaking Point Before Escaping

SPEAKER_01 28:10

And then every once in a while, I would just get in trouble randomly for something completely stupid. And I would just be like, whatever, I get stuff done. If you don't want me to get stuff done, then put me on a post where I don't get stuff done. I don't care. I'm I'm good either way. I was that's how my view was is like, whatever. It's you're you're already so miserable. What else can they do? Yeah. It's it's that kind of thing. If you to me, it felt unproductive to get emotional about it because it doesn't it doesn't solve or it doesn't change anything at all.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

They just now they just add that to the list of things that they need to sort out with you is that you get emotional as well.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Right. I know a little off topic, but when we left, I literally felt broken emotionally. Like I felt that the most obvious thing about me was that that I was a suppressive person. I I'm just saying, like in the aftermath of escaping, shush, stop it. And but I I did. I felt broken emotionally, broken physically, and everything else. It took me a lot to recover from that.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Possad out says no AR.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Emotion and reaction. Scientology.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Yeah in Scientology, they have a word for crying, getting mad, uh yelling.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Um HR is one, human emotion reaction, case on post, uh, which you're not allowed to have. There you go, case on post. Yeah, exactly. I know. Anyway, seriously.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

So when you're in, you know they frown on that.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

Frying other fish off purpose.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

But they know that if you get like that, that means, ooh, maybe something else is going on.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

So I was just playing the game. So when something happened, I'd just be like, okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

And then they don't they don't you're not getting upset about it. So it's just like, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Okay, let's go. Next one.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

Sounds good.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

What do people misunderstand most about why members stay? Um you want to answer that one?

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Yeah. Um, I think that uh I think it's expressed best by Prison of Belief as Lawrence Wright used in his title, Go and Clear Scientology and the Prison of Belief, or I can't remember the full subtitle, but it is a prison of belief. So very often the indoctrination and programming make eventually gets you to do the work of keeping yourself in, in addition to the external reinforcements by Scientology of ethics, um, justice, uh, peer pressure, all those things. And it's a very small world. So most often a Scientologist has, like we've said, has family members, their kids, they probably work for a Scientologist, their friends are Scientologists, like it's a very intricate web that tends to keep people in.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Yeah, one of the very first courses that you do when you get into Scientology is called the PTSP course. That's potential trouble source slash suppressive person course. And you are taught very early on that anyone who's negative towards you or uh is antagonistic about your involvement with Scientology, you got to cut all those people off. Not just one of them, you got to cut them all off out of your life. And so it insulates you right off the bat. And then now everyone surrounding you is either a Scientologist or supportive of you being in Scientology. So and that is usually other Scientologists or SEARC members. So it it they it's very the whole system is very, very calculated to make sure that after the longer you're in, the less chances they have of you getting out.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Right. And that's why Which is reinforced by isolation from any context, not in Scientology.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

Yeah. It's it if you really think about it, it is um evil to a level beyond many other cults and organizations, in that like it systematically digs the person into a hole that eventually they will be close to incapable of breaking out of.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

I gotta I gotta post this. Catherine, thanks to Catherine, she's uh one of our mods. Um she was in the Sea Org for uh many years, a lot of years.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Yep, I think 27.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

Yeah. She's almost was in almost longer than both of us put together.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

Yep. Well, not longer than we were in Scientology.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

But in the Sea Org.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

But in the Sea Org, yes.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

She said she did that course three times. It seems like you might have a misunderstood on that one, Catherine, because you ain't there anymore. You done did good.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Um course he's being sarcastic. Everybody. That's well done, and congratulations, Catherine. You know we love you.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

And that is the and that's the craziest thing is if you if you're a Scientologist, most and or a Sea Org member in most places, they all believe that if you do it exactly how Hubbard says, then it'll all work out right. Then the flip side of that is at the base. They don't do anything the way L. Ron Hubbard says to do it. They do it more the way David Miscavige wants it done rather than the way L. Ron Hubbard said to do it.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

And so it it uh it's a weird thing at the imp base because you know that Hubbard said, do not do this, and Dave is doing this. Yep. But he's the boss, you can't say anything. No, so it's just a weird thing. Then you go to one of these places, or this is the perfect example. When Leah Remini left and she kept saying, But the policy says she kept, I was talking to her on the phone a bunch when she was still in, but she was thinking about getting out. And she would say, But the poly and I was like, she kept saying that, and she kept saying that. I said, Leah, Leah, Leah, hold on a second. No one gives a shit about the policies. What are you talking about? And she's like, What do you mean? I go, There's no no one's quoting policy at the imp base to you when you do something. That's this nut the you're being silly. You're like being a good obedient Scientologist.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

There's that that's I I would modify that though. The only time policy is quoted at the imp base is in the form of punishment and degradation and humiliation. Like, like, you know, oh, you're gonna join the Walking Dead, and you know, we're gonna give you a black eye in the in the alley and put your ethics in all that nonsense.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Aaron Powell Walking Dead was a hit TV show.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Right. Okay, next one. Uh okay, hold on here.

Deprogramming Fear And Rebuilding Life

SPEAKER_01 35:17

If someone currently inside reached out privately, what practical first steps would you suggest?

SPEAKER_00 35:23

Yeah. Well, the first thing that um even on the foundation's crisis line is we just always focus on is the person safe? Are they able to communicate freely? Free com uh an open communication line is the most important thing. Um nobody should be bullied into staying and nobody should be bullied into leaving. It's a very personal decision and it has a lot of ramifications for a lot of people. So, you know, just one but once the person's made that decision, guiding them to get safely out without being intercepted is my answer to that.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

Yeah. And also if you're thinking of getting out, that there are steps you can do to like slowly, you know, kind of make your way out of that without without sending off you know flares that you're doing that. Yep. And we've talked about that. I think one of the best ones we did, we did an interview with Phil Jones. Maybe you could make a note to put that in a link in the description. But we we we talked about, you know, getting a different job if you work at a Scientology company. Aaron Ross Powell Getting if you live with Scientologists, get your own place. You know, like you want to be able to not have to rely on the Scientology network when once you've left. And if you can if you can extract yourself enough where you're not reliant on them, they don't they're not the ones paying you every week, or they're not the ones where supporting your housing or all these different things, then leaving is not that big of a deal.

unknown 36:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Sea Org members and I think C org members and staff members might have it a little worse because their whole world is Scientology. They don't even in a lot of cases, C org members don't have any close friends or family that they talk to on a regular basis that are not in Scientology. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Right. Which is why also when we have, I mean, we've had now thousands of people reach out to us over the years saying, oh, I have a family member who's on staff or in the C organization, what can I do? And we're like, just open up that communication line and be there for them and know make them make sure they know that you're a safe person. That alone, just having somebody to fall back on when all hell goes, you know, all hell breaks loose, that is huge.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

What part of rebuilding your marriage or identity was harder than you expected? I'll let you answer this one.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

I would say just so it was really like starting over in many respects, um, not only in terms of identity, um, because in my case, being that I was born into Scientology, I didn't have any pre-cult references or experiences. So um there was so much uh fear and concern of like, you know, um, that would all the things that I was had been told my whole life would happen if I ever broke free from Scientology, would those things happen? Like I remember having a conversation with you being really just terrified. Like, uh, you know, I've been told for the in our entire marriage that anyone who leaves their marriage falls apart and they cheat and you know goes to hell in a handbasket. And that was a huge burden for me. And and you, you I remember very distinctly, you were like, why are you worried about this? Like, that's not fair. We've been married 14 years. What have I ever done to make you think that way? And it was an earth-shattering moment of like, okay, that's fair. You don't deserve that. Uh so I would say that rebuilding, you know, um really our relationship and trust and um, you know, just outside of that frame of reference um was, you know, it was it was a path.

SPEAKER_01 39:29

Yeah, I think for me, the biggest thing that I had to figure out was that that world is behind me now. It's done. I can't I'm not gonna go back to it. I'm not gonna I don't I'm not worried about if they do something. You just basically have to be like, okay, that's done. And then figure out, you know, it took us a few years to kind of figure out what our our things were and kind of, you know, okay, you're good at this, I'm good at this, let's do that. And but it but it took like a a year or two for that to kind of shake out.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

But then maybe even a bit more than that. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

But either way, within a within five years, we sort of knew, okay, we're gonna do this, we're gonna, this is how we're gonna do it.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

Yeah.

Why People Stay: Prison Of Belief

SPEAKER_01 40:18

And the only thing that I would say that ended up being a little different was Scientology started kind of attacking us before we'd done anything. Right. I want to make always make that clear to everybody that's watching. If you're a Scientologist and you're watching this, we were playing it cool. For sure. We were we were happy to be gone and we were just gonna live our lives, and Scientology couldn't let that happen, and they started messing with us. And I think I sort of decided a few years ago, because some people are like, why are you even doing these videos? Why are it's only there's only 7,000 people that are watching this, or you know, whatever it is. Um I think I would be willing to do it right now, in this my current state of mind. I think I'm gonna be willing to do this as long as they are continually attacking us. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 41:09

And destroying families and hurting people and all the things.

SPEAKER_01 41:13

I think if we stop, they win.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

So for me, and I'll and to be fair, we're doing this two hours a week. Okay. This the the the bloopity bloops and the the YouTubes and the X's and all that. But obviously the aftermath, we do that as well. But that's that's more of we're this is really trying to expose Scientology and the things that go on it from people that were there for a long time at the top of the headquarters. So of course there's people, and we've had tons of people on, and we've interviewed people that were at orgs or that they were in LA or they were in Florida, so we can hear their stories too. In in the large, they're all very, very similar. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 41:58

Yeah. But we also hope that it's therapeutic, too, for people who have been in. It is the best thing to do to talk about it or learn about it in whatever form you're comfortable with.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

To ask questions and choose for yourself, you know. That's that's what I I feel strongly.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

Aaron Ross Powell And I think that is a good part of rebuilding is to come to terms with that it was nonsense and that it was wrong, and in some cases illegal, and all these other things, and then you say, okay, so it's not me, it's them. Right. And then you go, okay, fine. Now, now if you can't get your shit together after that and you need some work, there's tons of resources and people that can help you. But you gotta you gotta realize that those guys were not doing what was in your best interests. Right. They're trying to, they're trying to make Scientology successful. They're not trying to make individual Scientologists successful. If a Scientologist goes bankrupt and and they get rack up all these tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit card debt, and then they can't pay it off, Scientology doesn't come in and help them.

SPEAKER_00 43:13

No.

SPEAKER_01 43:14

They're like, see, I wouldn't want to be.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

Go talk to the ethics officer in good conditions.

SPEAKER_01 43:18

Yes, sucks to suck.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

Because if you're if you're failing and you can't give us more money, then tech is not going in. Therefore, ethics is out. But yeah, and also I would say another thought you reminded me of in regards to this is that again, in the context that I was born into Scientology and in the cadet organization and the C organization from the age of four, um, I really I found that the more books I read, the more things I listened to, the more research I did, and um just studying up on various different things, not just about Scientology. Um, trauma and recovery is one of the books I read that relates to PTSD. By Judith. I can't remember her last name, but it's like the, you know, one of the founding texts of research of about um PTSD. But unraveling like my thought process and peeling back those layers of programming and indoctrination, um, like I would just start to go like, well, wait a minute, why am I thinking this way? Is this because this is real and this is or is this because that's what Scientology trained me to think? And just unraveling all of that. It's it's a process, but it was very, very helpful and therapeutic to approach it that way.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:40

Okay, next one.

SPEAKER_00 44:42

Okay. What do you think is the biggest misconception the public has about David Miscavige? My answer to that is that David Miscavige is a Scientologist.

SPEAKER_01 44:53

That's a great one. The misconception that he's a Scientologist, that he's a Theorg member, that he cares about Scientologists. He David Miscavige is in it for David Miscavige. Right. And the uh the if you've worked with the guy for any amount of years, um we're slaving away 120 hours a week, and he's snowmobiling with Tom Cruise.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

Yeah, or scuba diving.

Policy Vs. Power And Punishment

SPEAKER_01 45:21

Or scuba diving, or taking pictures underwater. You're just like Neil had to watch a slideshow, an underwater slideshow of pictures he'd taken in the ABC's uh Aruba Bonair and Curacao. Yeah, and then we had to give feedback on a music soundtrack, this fucking slideshow. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

You want to know my honest feedback? I haven't taken a three-week leave of absence ever.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

Yeah, you spent more time underwater than I've spent time off this year, Bub.

SPEAKER_02 45:52

Geez.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:55

Literally, he spent more time scuba diving than a Sea Org member has off in a year.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

Yep. Yep. Seeing their family, any of that.

SPEAKER_01 46:06

He was going, he was watching football every week, too.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 46:09

When we went to do the event, we were at an event. I will never forget this.

SPEAKER_00 46:13

And and the the problem is it's not that it's bad to watch football, but when staff are being abused and mistreated and underpaid and underfed and humiliated and like put through hell, living hell on earth, the contrast is a huge problem.

SPEAKER_01 46:31

Yeah, we were doing an event in Los Angeles at the Shrine Auditorium. And when we would do these Scientology events, they would there was a broadcast truck there, like uh they have at the Super Bowl or they have at an NFL game. And the guys that worked in the truck did NFL football games when they weren't doing Scientology gigs. And we were in the truck one time, and Dave would um he would always give them very expensive gifts.

SPEAKER_02 46:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 47:00

Right after the event, um, somebody would pass out all these gifts from him, and they were, you know, ten thousand dollar watches or whatever you name it, expensive shit for these guys that are already getting paid like thirty, forty thousand dollars to to do the event.

SPEAKER_00 47:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:15

E individually.

SPEAKER_00 47:16

Yeah. And these gifts were not paid for by David Miscavige personally, of course.

SPEAKER_01 47:21

Of course not. Scientology paid for those.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 47:25

Um they would get to talking, and he was a big uh he's from Philadelphia.

SPEAKER_02 47:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

So he's a big Philadelphia sports fan. And they get talking about different sports, and he was like, Oh, and what about that play last week when the guy and you're like and I'm thinking to myself, the play last week? Bitch, you're watching football too? I'm like he this guy, he does whatever he wants. Right. He's not doing anything compared to what a Sea Word member or even a Scientologist does.

SPEAKER_00 47:56

Right.

SPEAKER_01 47:57

He is the king of the castle.

unknown 47:59

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 47:59

Okay, back to it.

SPEAKER_00 48:01

All right.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Oh, double clair.

SPEAKER_00 48:03

Oh, look at that. Um what gives you hope right now when you look at how things are changing? Um a few things. Number one, definitely Scientology is shrinking um in membership and in good people um who have gotten out. Yep. Um, public awareness, especially since HBO's Go and Clear documentary, and then of course Lee Remini's Scientology in the Aftermath three seasons. Um, the public awareness of the abusive nature and truth about Scientology has dramatically changed from when we first got out.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

Yeah, I think more people are willing to speak out, knowing that they're all bark and not a lot of bite. They maybe sometimes they'll they get a good nibble in, but for the most part, their bark is way worse than their bite. Yeah. And people who leave, some people leave and they don't say anything and nothing happens to them. Yeah. And some people leave and they do say things they do tell other people. And maybe Scientology sends them a nasty gram or does something that you know tells somebody don't talk to that person anymore. They're they're an SP or you know, something like that. Which is that that's gonna come no matter what. If you do speak out, you're gonna get a nasty gram. For sure. Which is why quit talking about Scientology.

SPEAKER_00 49:21

Right, which is why the help the Aftermath Foundation provides is never contingent upon someone speaking out. It's you know, that is a very personal choice, and the foundation's focus is on helping people gain regain stability, security, and to choose their own path and go their own way. Um, but also I would say the other thing that gives me hope is seeing the um uh what's the word the decompression time has dramatically shrunk.

SPEAKER_02 49:54

That's true.

Safe Exit Steps And Support

SPEAKER_00 49:55

Like the time it takes somebody to wake up now with the internet, with all the resources available. Um so when that when when we first joined, you know, when the foundation was first formed back in December 2017, um, all of the original board members, we thought, oh yeah, this is a great idea and would be wonderful. But the thought of actually being able to reach people currently in was, you know, kind of a far-off hope. And now it's it's a regular occurrence, which is really, really uh, you know, to me, no to to know that we're reaching the people inside so that they know they have options and resources to get out and they're not trapped by that lack of resources or that imagined lack of resources, that gives me hope.

SPEAKER_01 50:41

Totally. I think that that's a very good point. The amount of people, even the amount of people that watch this channel that are Scientologists, is a lot more than I thought it would be. And they are regularly getting content and truth about Scientology from many different sources that they go, hmm. Like the things that they wondered about, they're finding out those things, a lot of those things are true. Like, oh, this is a scam. This is all about the money. Uh there's not, it's it's it's really that's it. It's a scam and it's about money. That's really and manipulating people.

SPEAKER_00 51:22

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 51:23

Okay, awesome. There we go. That was it. We want to do some other ones.

SPEAKER_00 51:26

All right. Um, yeah. So we should do a shout out.

SPEAKER_01 51:29

There is an upcoming Comedy for our cause event that we're doing in Denver.

SPEAKER_00 51:33

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

Um there's still tickets, there's still tickets available. So we want to sell this out if possible. And we've got about a little less than a month, three weeks.

SPEAKER_00 51:43

Yes. So it's March 11th at Comedy Works South in um it's technically Denver Tech Center area, south of Denver.

SPEAKER_02 51:53

It's Denver-ish.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

Yeah. We will we have an amazing online silent auction. Uh, thank you to everybody who has donated. If you'd still like to donate items, you're we would really, really appreciate that. But we have it's already shaping up to be a really great event that we're really looking forward to.

SPEAKER_01 52:11

And if you can't make it, you can donate and have the tickets for somebody else. Like there's a lot of people that are coming to help put on the event and um and special guests that might be coming. Yep. So if you don't eat if you can't make it and you want to donate, just go to the you can go to Comedy Works and you can just buy the tickets and then tell us, hey, I'm donating these tickets. Or you can just go to the Aftermath Foundation and say, hey, I want to donate, you know, five tickets or ten tickets or two tickets or whatever it is. And then that way we can we kind of don't have to eat up uh tickets with people that are there to, you know, support and stuff like that that are that are guests or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 52:51

Any and all support is greatly appreciated. Um and so yeah, we hope as many people will join us as can, and we're looking forward to it. And yes, um, so we can do a few questions before we wrap up for today.

SPEAKER_01 53:04

Sure. Here's one. We got uh I I'm not we're not previewing these, so hopefully uh okay.

SPEAKER_00 53:09

Angela, question that I've wanted to pose for a while. Did you have NetNanny installed on your sorry, hold on here.

SPEAKER_01 53:17

I got it. Yeah. We had a filter at the yeah, yes, thank you for the question, Angela. Um we had a program at the Imp Base, which was essentially it was called the filter. And it and every single person at the Imp base who had to go on the internet, except for David Miscavige, had to go through a filter. And if you typed in anything related to Scientology, you would get an access denied page. And if you typed in anything that was antagonistic towards Scientology, you would get an access denied page. And then the person that oversaw the internet access, I want to say when I had it, I was one of the very, very first people to have internet access at the international base.

SPEAKER_00 54:02

And we should provide this context too. You had to have approval from like five people to even have internet access at all. Yes. Like you had to prove that you had to have access to the internet to do the duties of your job, which was what, maybe five percent of the staff at the property could prove that?

Rebuilding Marriage And Identity

SPEAKER_01 54:23

Even less. Yeah. Your shit your shit couldn't stink if you were trying to get on the internet. Well, she didn't have internet access, but I did. But one of the things that if you so if you went to a site that was restricted or you did a search and you saw something and you clicked on it and got one of these access denied, the administrators that ran the filter would get an alert. And one of those people was an RTC and one of those people was in security golden air productions.

SPEAKER_00 54:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 54:52

So if you did even click on something.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

And if you didn't have a good answer as to why you clicked on that, your internet access was revoked instead of.

SPEAKER_01 55:02

And then you would never get it back.

SPEAKER_00 55:03

Yep. So even if it even if your job required it, didn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 55:09

I will say that the way they managed the filter was they managed it with sites and keywords. So if there was a like Operation Clambake, which was a message board that a lot of people shared uh exposing Scientology stuff on. So that whole domain was just blocked. Aaron Ross Powell Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:28

Had you ever heard of Operation Clambake when you were at the base? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:31

Never.

SPEAKER_00 55:32

Only when you got out.

SPEAKER_01 55:33

But but another way they would do it is by keywords.

SPEAKER_00 55:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:37

So they would just have a list of keywords. Well, I will tell you that at the international headquarters, I would say at least fifty to sixty percent of the staff there are foreign nationals.

SPEAKER_00 55:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 55:51

That speak and some of them speak multiple languages.

SPEAKER_02 55:54

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 55:55

And those people that had internet access very quickly realized that if they just searched in their own languages, that they those weren't those weren't keywords that were on the filter. Nope. So I don't even know how they could possibly do it now. Because you basically have to have the keywords and then translations of those into every possible variation to be able to so anyway, they probably just don't have internet access.

SPEAKER_00 56:21

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 56:23

Okay. Hopefully that answers your question, Annie.

SPEAKER_00 56:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:25

We definitely had net Nanny. Oh, and there was a t time period in the in the 1990s where all Scientologists were encouraged to set up an I an I am a Scientologist website.

SPEAKER_02 56:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:39

And they would get a CD. Scientology gave everybody all the members CDs, and you would install that CD on your computer to make your I'm a Scientologist site. And one of the programs that it would install was a filter on your computer. A lot of Scientologists don't know that. If anybody's got a copy of that CD, let me know. Reach out because I would love to open it and show you what it was. That would be crazy if we could do that. Yeah. But if you just look up Scientologist NetNanny C D or something like that, you'll you'll there's people that wrote about it, and it's definitely why was widely documented at the time.

SPEAKER_00 57:22

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 57:22

Oh, we got a super chat here.

SPEAKER_00 57:24

Oh, nice. Lisa, take it or leave it. NYC here. I've been following the story of Scientology since the mid-80s. What kind of catch-up do you have to do health-wise when you leave aka dental health after living in the state of emergency? Yes. Uh a lot. I mean, uh, we've we've told many stories about this, but yeah, I had I had never had proper dental work done. I had to go through all kinds of dental work and we had to do physical checkups and all that kind of stuff. I thought I had cancer when I first got out because I had adrenal gland exhaustion. Um and that's that's not uncommon.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

Yeah, I had to have every single filling or anything that the dentist at the international headquarters had done. I had to have them all taken out and replaced. And they they asked me at the dentist if I had gone to a third world country to get my dental work done. And I was like, what? They were like, this is the worst.

SPEAKER_00 58:27

And it and I was You know what's bad when you see the dentist looking at the X-ray and kind of going, hmm, I haven't seen this before. Uh where did you get this done? Yeah, that happened a lot.

SPEAKER_01 58:38

It was bad news.

SPEAKER_00 58:38

It was bad news, yeah. Bad news bears.

SPEAKER_01 58:41

Claire was tapping me while she was reading that. I was like, quit tapping me. And then I realized the camera was on me, not her. She was doing all the reading.

SPEAKER_00 58:49

Yes, coffee milk, dude. Donation for Aftermath Foundation fundraiser. Best you guys, always a great time here on BFG. Yes, so just for the records, yeah. Foundate um foundation donations are need to be made on the foundation channel. We will do that transfer. Thank you. But just for future reference, if you'd like to support support the Aftermath Foundation, do it on the Foundation website. Uh or the foundation channel. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 59:15

Can you give donations on there yet?

SPEAKER_00 59:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 59:18

You can? Okay, good. Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 59:19

But thank you. We will take care of it on the back end. No worries.

SPEAKER_01 59:22

Yes. Okay. Do we have anything left? There's I mean, I saw them. Oh, I gotta go back to the starred ones.

SPEAKER_00 59:28

Yes. I'm sure we have a few more here. Question: Do you ever plan on having Amir on? Yes, definitely. I will talk to Amir.

SPEAKER_02 59:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:35

Um, I have had to take a hiatus from doing interviews because I already have a full-time job and a family and everything else. And to carve out the time needed to finish my book, I had to kind of put certain things on hold. But yes, I would love to talk to Amir for sure. So coming later this year, as soon as I have any news to announce.

Miscavige’s Image Vs. Reality

SPEAKER_01 59:57

This one says Mark being a bit afraid he might get pneumonia. I wasn't afraid, but I wanted to, if it happened, I would be like, okay, but if it didn't happen, that was it. And that was that really was uh I I joke, but it really was the moment when I watched the South Park thing, and then I read all of the OT levels, every single one, all the way up to OT eight. And when I read all of those and w found out about Zenu, I read up everything. So the South Park is sort of an abridged version of OT3.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:36

When you read the whole thing, it's it's even crazier than South Park. But then you and it says right in there that you will get pneumonia. It says in the materials you will get pneumonia.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

But you know what's funny that you just made me think of? So, for context, Mark tells me he's gonna read all of the OT levels, and he and he says, if I die from pneumonia, uh, then they were right. Okay, so that happened. And I was like, But did I take it seriously? Did I really think he was gonna die from pneumonia? Honestly, no, I didn't. When you when you were told me you're gonna release your book, I'm like, we need wills, we need to make sure our children are protected. I'm just saying, like the contrast to me says a lot about the reality of are you gonna die from pneumonia? Or uh compared to is what damage is Scientology gonna try to perpetrate on you if you dare to speak out? So anyway, just an interesting thought that you reminded me of there.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:32

This is a good one. I like this one.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:34

Okay. Bill Kormetsky, how is it possible to somehow not show quote unquote case over loggerheads which are constant? Fear and loathing never recognized.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

You you can't. I mean, some people there would literally just be yes, sir, okay, sir, and then they just take it. Um or if you're trying to do something and the other person is trying to stop you or is is is trying to sabotage you or whatever, you can write a report, but nothing's really gonna happen to them. They're just gonna do whatever they're gonna do.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:10

So I I think a lot of people are a little bit apathetic about that. Like they just take it like, okay, well, there's nothing I can do.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:18

I'm that's the true cause of the pie face phenomena where you just get so beat down that you just feel like there's no the life there's no life left in you on sadly and unfortunately.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:32

There's no reason to fight. It's only gonna go more bad for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:35

Right. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:37

Yeah, it's a bummer.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:39

Okay. Oh, here we go.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:42

Lisa, take it or leave it. I remember watching Stacy and Jesse trailing.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:48

Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:48

They both Stacy 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:51

Uh Jesse Prince and Stacy Young. What it was Stacy Vaughn, Stacy. Stacy Vaughn, Stacy Young. They did a bunch of YouTube videos. That's right. And they and they would tell a lot of these things. And you know that Jesse Prince is one of the people that I realized because he used to be in RTC, and then he was in gold, and then he was gone.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:13

And he started speaking out, and he said somewhere there's no way they can stop you from talking about things that are illegal. There's no way that you can get in trouble for telling something that's illegal that they're doing. And when he said that, I was like, oh, and he was doing it. It was all over the internet. It was videos and there's posts, and that's all.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:37

Yeah, and he also wrote a book, The Expert Witness. So if you haven't read that, give that a listen for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:42

Aaron Ross Powell, so that was one of the key things for me that was like, oh, they're gonna mess with us, and there's no consequence if we talk about what happened. Because up until that point, I was worried that if we talked about something at the base, then maybe something would happen to us. And they had drafted up a lawsuit. And I we have copies of that. I think we even covered it on the spy files on this channel. But they had drawn up an entire lawsuit against me about telling all these secrets at the end base, just based on the Operation Clan Book uh postings that I had done.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:17

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:17

And they never filed it, they never did it.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:20

But if they had at that time, it I mean, of course it would have been way worse for them than it was for us. But in that moment, it would have been devastating for us. Like we had a newborn baby.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:35

Yeah. I mean financially it would have been h it would have been rough. But then also, Scientology, um, they don't initiate a lot of lawsuits.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:45

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:46

They're the recipients of them.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:48

I think the last one they initiated was on Debbie Cook. We all know how that went.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:52

Yeah. So but if you do file a lawsuit against them, they will use the discovery phase to try to get as much dirt and info on you as possible so that when the lawsuit is all done and dusted, they have enough ammunition unless it goes your way and they have to be hands-off.

Signs Of Decline And New Hope

SPEAKER_00 1:05:13

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah. And of course, now, which hopefully will get shut down eventually, but now they've added the kangaroo court of arbitration. Yeah, we did not have no lawyers present, no just absolute I mean, I can't even believe that they're getting away with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:31

So Yeah, I'm trying to see if there's any other super chats in here that I missed because I it used to automatically put those in there. Anyway. Yeah. Um I wanted to do some shout outs because we normally did the shout outs at the beginning. And now we do kind of do them at the end. So I'll do some shout outs.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:48

And then um, if you guys uh just want to say hi or you know, whatever, I will put the comments in on the end video. I put the I Show the comments on the right.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:01

And any questions we didn't get to that get relates to QA, we'll keep those for next time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:07

We we got a lot of requests to do QA's, and we've been getting a lot of questions on other uh platforms. Yep. And so and there was some guy, I can't figure out how to answer it. He posted on YouTube that if I had seen the Tron movie and then it has a whole bunch of Depeche Mode references in it. Yes. Yes, I have seen the movie, and yes, I do know it has a lot of Depeche Mode references in it. And uh and I liked I liked the movie. So I know some people didn't like it. Some people thought it was dumb. I liked it, and that it they talk about depeche mode. Basically, Depeche Mode's the hero of the movie. Let's just say that.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:39

Um fun fact, Mark and I are not really Minecraft people. However, we went Minecraft. No, no, it relates. Just give me a second to to connect the dots here. Here we go. Um, our kids play Minecraft. So we took our youngest son to go see the Minecraft movie. Not only was that hilarious because it was kind of a cult experience, but also a depeche mode in there.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:04

That's right. The kids are like, my dad's super cool, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:09

There you go. I got to my punchline.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:11

Here we go. I was like, Minecraft. Okay, let's jam these through. You ready?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:14

Yep, I'm ready. Hi from Albuquerque, Mary Kay, and Angel Cat. Hi from Sunland, California. Harvey Denton's Toad. Hi, everyone. Beaches Activate. Yes. Uh good evening, everyone from Nova Scotia. Nice. Trevor. Good evening from the Netherlands. Old Techie. Hi from Nebraska.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:36

Okay. Now Techie. Was your name always Old Techie or was it just Techie?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:41

Yeah, we're having a familial debate here.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:45

And Claire says it was always Old Techie.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:47

Yeah. So.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:48

I want to know. I want to know the answers.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:51

Tracy Hobart, howdy from Wyoming. Hello from Tuolemy. Becky, big brother fan, good evening from UK.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:02

Oh, Harvey Denton's got a good one coming up.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:04

Greetings from Cameron, North Carolina. Harvey Denton's Toad. Wonder if Warren McShane still looks at adult sites, of course.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:14

We know he does.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:15

Yeah, we know he does.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:16

You know he does.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:17

Yeah. For anyone missing context there. It's in the book. Um, Warren McShane is in Religious Technology Center. He's the top legal guy. He was at our um at my deposition during our lawsuit. And one of the most epic moments ever was when Mr. Mark Marmorough, who then later became a Supreme Court judge, says, Well, Miss Headley, isn't it true that you audited Mr. McShane here? Audited meaning Scientology's counseling. And I said, No. Actually, it was definitely technically I'm not auditing you. And David Miscavige asked me to do an ethics interview on Mr. McShane because he was looking at X-rated material on the internet. And Mark Marlowe was like, strike that from the record.

Event Promo: Comedy For Our Cause

SPEAKER_01 1:09:02

It was the best. So remember when I said there was people monitoring the interwebs at the base, and one was in RTC and one was in Security Gold. Well, Warren McShane was the guy in RTC and the guy in security, his name was Kenny Campelman, and he was uh he was a security guard in Golden Era Productions.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:24

When he when when um Kenny or when Warren would go on these other sites, uh it wouldn't give them an access denied because they're the administrators.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:35

But the administrators can see what the other administrators' histories are. So Kenny Campelman could see that Warren McShane was going on to X-rated websites, and Warren McShane could see that Kenny Campelman was going on to X-rated websites. So the two guys that were the administers of the entire system were breaking the rules every chance they could get, which in my mind is hilarious because they're coming enlightened people up for for accidentally clicking on a Scientology article and Rolling Stone or something like that. Meanwhile, they're good just going to porn sets whenever they want.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:13

Yep.

unknown 1:10:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:15

Holy moly maniacs.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:17

Maniacs is right. Okay, sorry, hold on. Give me let me get that.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:20

Hello from Copenhagen. I have a tardy note. Oh, okay. Well, there you go. Hey, hey, from Virginia. Carrie Rodriguez, thank you. Hello from Auckland, New Zealand. Nice. Oh, apostate Alex is in here. Apostate Alex, hi to you in London.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:35

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:36

Um, Central Florida, Snooky. Uh, and then we've got uh Aloha Goddess, Aloha from Kauai, Hawaii.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:44

Kawaii Hawaii.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:45

You know, I know somebody, I know somebody who's there right now. I just emailed them, a designer that we work with on museums.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:52

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:53

Um, okay. And oh, apostate Alex, org and turbulation officer, IAS International Association of Suppressive Persons, London Foundation Reporting for Duty Service.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:06

Hey Alex, thanks for joining us. Thanks for all the work you've been doing. Alex you're awesome. Alex is so laying 5.4xing his stats.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:14

He is causing so much nonsense with what he's up to over there.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:19

It's awesome. Yeah. Do we show this one?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:21

Tracy Howdy from Wyoming. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:23

Awesome. Okay. Oh.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:25

I Catherine Olsen, I had a lot of misunderstood words. That's why I left. It made no sense anymore.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:32

You know, that's another thing Catherine does say that that probably in in in jet in jest, but in Scientology, they believe if you pass a misunderstood word, that that leads to overts, and overts leads to blow-offs, and that's when people escape is the root of that.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:51

Yeah, one of the manifestations. Yeah, no, one of the manifestations of a misunderstood word is below. I aka escape. Yeah. Aka unauthorized departure. So yeah, for sure.

Internet Filters And “Net Nanny”

SPEAKER_01 1:12:05

Yeah. Crazy people, crazy. Well, I I appreciate you guys. Um oh, there's a live see. Oh wow, there's oh I there's a bunch of things that weren't starred, but um, if there's any highs, buys, or thanks or whatever, I will put those up uh on the end and we will try to get to um as many questions as we we can as we get them in, maybe every few weeks.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:28

Yes. Oh, and let me say we will be back next week with special guests to do a follow-up to your discussion with Matt Pesh regarding the rehabilitation project for us.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:39

So RPF story. So if you guys have got any really crazy RPF stories, you can send those in too, and then we can share notes with uh our special guests on um on those things. And that'll be next Sunday.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:55

Definitely Sunday.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:56

Definitely Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:58

Okay. Put it on your calendar. You heard it here, folks.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:01

Nothing happens in this family unless I put it on the calendar. So I got you. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:07

Okay. Yahweh.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:08

Thank you to everyone joining us today.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:11

See you next week. Until next time. Thanks for watching. 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.