The Turning Point for Tom Cruise

Hello and welcome back to another episode of What Went Wrong, your favorite podcast full stop that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one, let alone to make a good one or any movie at all whilst one scrubs the deck of the sea org. I'm Lizzy Bassett, one of your hosts here, as always with Chris Winterbuer I'm really, really excited for today's episode. Chris, what have you prepared for us Today, Lizzie, we are diving into a unique Phenomena or so I thought of Hollywood which is a religion very closely associated with Hollywood, which is scientology, which is important to tee up because it becomes an important aspect of our coverage of War of the Worlds, which comes on Monday. So this is You could call it an out of frame, you could call it a primer. I am going to call it an exploration of scientology and how It is not as fringe as we might think. relative to many a strange gathering that has taken place in Los Angeles over the years. I don't want to just, you know regurgitate what people have seen in going clear, for example, either the book or the documentary, although we are going to talk about those things briefly. What I really want to do is kind of put scientology in context historically, and then try to explore where Tom Cruz fits in briefly to lead us into really the early two thousands getting into the release of War of the Worlds. And I did watch Going Clear in preparation for this, had seen it before, but I happily watched it again. Yeah. And so if you would like to skip today's episode and just dive into War of the Worlds, complepletely understand, but I hope that we will give you guys some new information here that will be helpful in you know the exploration of belief and truth that's going to come on Monday. So without further ado, Lizzy, let's Dive in Lizzy When did you become a scientologist The minute I moved to Los Angeles, Chris. You did move to Los Angeles How was fifteen years ago? seventeen years fifteen years ago. fifteen years ago. And I'm guessing one of the first buildings you noticed was Well, scientology has it actually has many centers across Los Angeles. the two big ones. there's across the world. Yes, across the world, but has a big physical presence in Los Angeles, most notably with two buildings. One is an enormous Hideous cobalt blue It's called blue offically that sort of looms over East Hollywood. And my first ever apartment, which I loved, was on the corner. I said it was in Los Filas It was really in East Hollywood. So it was kind of triangulated almost as the the third prong in a triangle that featured The main scientology center and then my personal favorite, the celebrity center was very, very close to my apartment. And the thing that I always remember was that we used to get brunch at one of the restaurants right across the street from the celebrity center. and I don't know if they still do this, but for a time period I know that they would have these like lavish brunches set out on the lawn of the celebrity center and we always were kind of looking across the street being like, Do you think like it is it looks free likeike could we? Yeah like the the rabbit looking at the traps, you know We never did Yeah, so it's scientology has an enormous presence in Hollywood, and the world is very aware of it in large part thanks to Tom Cruise. So sources for today's episode include, but are not limited to G Clear, Scientology, Hollywood in the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright, a piece of Blue Sy, Scientology, Dianetics, and El Ron Hubbard expxposed by Johnttack or Attic Barefaced Messiah by Russell Miller, and a number of videos, interviews, retrospectives, in particular videos and footage of Tom Cruise and Elron Hubbard and David Miss Cabidage who currently runs the church. In case you aren't aware, Lizzie, scientology has been back in the news. Are you aware of the current trend of scientology speedruns? No No, this is not trying to climb the bridge of we'll get into it in a second. as quickly as possible. This is people content creators filming themselves running through a scientology building to see how far they can make it before being kicked out. Oh It's not a good idea No, it started in Hollywood, then spread to New York, Sydney, Vancouver, London, and beyond. As we mentioned, scientology has large property holdings across the world.. It started with a viral video posted by an eighteen year old shot with his meta Rayband glasses. He apparently ran into another content creator who happened to be a vocal critic of scientology That creator gave him an overview this organization is a cult, he said. The original content creator thought it was funny. He goes into the church, he films a staffer selling him a book. That mundane interaction went viral. He realized Scientology is an easy way to make money, to generate views. Another creator says, Hey, let's run through the building together. The trend is born and other people start doing it more aggressively. They're wearing masks, they're blowing air horns, they're forcing entry, they're damaging property. To be clear, the original creator says he regrets posting the video And it's interesting because on the one hand, scientologists have said This is basically a form of harassment. This is a hate crime. If any other religion was suffering through this, right? If somebody was rushing through a synagogue, if they were rushing through a mosque, if they were rushing through a church people would condemn this, but you think it's funny because it's scientology. I can't believe I'm gonna stand up for scientology, but I think that's technically correct. It's interesting. Yeah. And Jenna Miscaabidage, who's the niece of current scientology leader, David Miscaabage posted an Instagram video saying, quQote, I'm proud of these kids for doing something that the government is too corrupt and chicken shit to do. And the question is, Lizzy Are the videos helping anyone inside the church? If there is abuse going on inside the church, which we will get to, are they helping? Are they just another form of exploitation Leah Rumini, who I'm sure you know of, wasie the actress, perhaps most famous for King of Queens, who was a former scientologist. She left the trish in twenty thirteen. She said, I spent decades on the other side of this. and if I had been confronted by people running through the scientology buildings and harassing me or staff it would have pushed me further into scientology. Yes, that's what I was going say because the whole ethos of it is is victimization to a certain degree. the way that all of the, I'm sure we'll get into this, but the tax exempt status was framed and everything was that You know everyveryone is out to get us and we are just trying to practice our religious freedom. So if you're having people coming in and doing this, which like clearly is just to get views and is you know, harassing people, hurting property, like disrupting your day. I don't think that's going to get anybody to leave. If anything, that gives them more fodder for you know, how the church itself is being attacked So what I've always found most interesting about scientology is less the specifics of belief Because I always find those unusual in every religion from Islam to Christianity to Judaism. But it is so recent that you know I think that's what makes it it's kind of like Mormonism. That actuallyually there's a lot of similarities to Mormonism also in terms of the way that the truths are revealed to the creator, but yeah, I think that's all it is. It's just that it's more modern and people think you probably should come up with a more realistic story, I guess, if it's going be, you know, nowadays. And Elron Hubbard said no. We're going to talk a lot about story. We're going talk about why it's so modern. We're going to talk about what it was birthed out of. But what I find so interesting about it is that it almost feels like this mollusk on the underside of Hollywood's belly in a way. And Hollywood is slow to embrace a lot of religious films. I think a lot of Hollywood stars are reluctant to speak out about their religious beliefs for fear of alienating a portion of their audience. Of course, there are exceptions. And of course, as we've discussed on the show, there are big religious movie going audiences out there that some studios, Angel Studios, for example are trying to cater to. Yet here we have this fringe religion that exists in the heart of Hollywood. As you mentioned, Lizzie, Big Blue at four eight threety three Fountain Avenue is an enormous former hospital converted to a scientology center that features in you know a sign the size of a movie screen the word scientology across its roof It stands out But the truth is, scientology is not an outlier in Los Angeles history And I didn't know that M M LA has long been a hotbed for new religions and religious revivals. And no, Lizzie, I'm not just talking about the counterculturure movement of the sixties and seventies. We talked a little bit about childildren of God, for example, when we were discussing the River Phoenix episode. Let's go back though sixty seventy years prior to the early nineteen hundreds. So if you were to think of LA back then, it's far more homogeneous than it would eventually become It's got a large population of white mainstream Protestants with roots in Europe Many have migrated from the Midwest, then the population exploded. There's one hundred thousand people in L.A. in nineteen hundred It grows to five hundred seventy thousand by nineteen twenty and then doubled to over a million in nineteen thirty A lot of this is obviously the development of Hollywood, for example. Hollywood moved from Florida to Los Angeles around the you know early nineteen teens into the nineteen twenties, the major studios are being formed. And as Hollywood's being built, so is LA's religious economy. So the cities to with a very ethnically diverse group of people all of a sudden, which means it's also far more religiously diverse. And the last thing a few of these Christian sects felt they needed was to lose ground to some of these other faiths. They're like, they're taking our congregation The economist once argued, Looking back, EllA's most successful export is not Hollywood, but Pentecostalism Do you know the definition of Pentecostalism? I did not. I don't. When I think Pentecostal, I think Pentecostal churches in the South. I think like snake handling and you know, things that began as tent revivals. Tent revivals, Yeahah. it's basically, it's a movement within the evangelical wing of the Protestant Christian community. And there's a couple of important aspects to it. It's more complicated than this, but basically they emphasize direct personal experience of God through baptism with the Holy Spirit. So obviously this is very different than Catholicism And they adhere to the inerrancy of the Bible, which means the Bible is one hundred percent right, Every word is right, this is the word of God, and the necessity of being born again. Now the Pentecostal Church has important roots in LA. A key figure was preacher William Seymour, who set up a church on Azuza street,'s now known as Little Tokyo. He was a student of Charles Param and took on the mantle of speaking in tongues per your revivalist comment from earlier, Lizzie The rich were also getting in on it. So Lymon Stewart, founder of Union Oil Company, funded the Bible Institute of Los Angeles in nineteen oh eight. Lizzy, are you aware of Bayola University? No. That's Bible Institute of Los Angeles. Have It soundounds like a payola scam. They could have rethought that, but whatever. Have you seen the Jesus saave sign at the top of the Ace hotel downtown That was originally made as for Bo University. It was moved around. It got put on the top of what was formerly the United Artists builduing and then was eventually converted into the Ace Hotel. And that's how you have a Jesus Save sign on top of the Ace Hotel, which is very unusual So during the Roaring twenties, film and religious fundamentalism are thriving in L.A and they're overlapping. And this is when we get Lizzie, what some historians have called the Heyday of Biblical epics. So you've got the Ten Commandments, King of Kings, Noah's Ark, Ben H, Tale of the Christ, the MGM film that would eventually be remade with Charlton Heston that we covered Creachers were coming to Los Angeles looking for an audience. So a couple of examples, Amy Semple McPherson, she established the Church of the Four Square Gspel. sounds completely real. She was called God's bestest publicity agent. Some historians describe her as the first religious celebrity of the mass media era. Interesting. She was kind of like a religious influencer, right? She was theatrical, She used radio and film to spread her message. And she had friends in high places in Hollywood. like Charlie Chaplin, who reportedly told her Half your success is due to your magnetic appeal, half due to the props and the lights. And so I do think like Hollywood and religion share An affection for theatrics, let's say. Well, it's necessary to both. and I think it always has been necessary to religion, you know Obviously there's a huge difference between when we're talking about Protestant or especially fundamentalist Christians and something like Catholicism, except B bothoth love the theatre of it all. Yes, absolutely So as early as nineteen thirteen, one New York magazine described Los Angeles as susceptible to quote, spiritualists, miniums, astrologists, phrenonologists, palmists and other breeds of esoteric wind jammers. Nhing changed. Can we bring wind jammers back? That is the best. Also do you know what phrenology is? That's not the thing with your skull, is it? Yes. Yeah, it's the belief that the shape and measurements of a person's skull indicate their mental faculties and personal traits, if that were true I would be the richest man in the world. My forehead is a seven head. So anyway, there was also the Mazdas Mazdasan Society. They were a cult of sun worshihipers and they engaged in self torture. There was Mount Helios led by a woman who claimed to have control of a thousand men, which she may have I know. She also had some interesting ideas or they did free child care, profit sharing, free public transportation for working people and free trade So Those are crazy. Wasn't all bad. I mean, for the time, yes, Burner at the stake. Now the Blackburn Colt was a mother daughter team who claimed to have had visions of the archangels Michael and Gabriel who divinely ordered them to write a book and promised them coordinates to oil and gold around the world. Reminds me a little bit of Mormon and the Angel Moroni and I also I don't know if you ever watched the Righteous Gemstones, but my favorite sequence and the whole thing is, I think it might have been in season three where Uncle Baby Billy sings There will come a payday. and they wrote this song for the show. If you've never seen this, look it up on YouTube, His oututfit alone is the reason to watch it. But the whole thing is like, I'm only doing this because there will come a payday. Hallllelujah would a payday Now, some of these were inclusive, some of them were antagonistic, like Joe Jeffers of the Kingdom Temple. He said heard the voices of Noah and Jesus and had power over people's fates. And he was actually part of the anti Semitic Christian identity movement and he condemned Catholics and Jewish people in Hollywood. During the nineteen thirties, there was a decent Nazi presence in Hollywood that we discussed briefly on Casablanca. Of course. And in the thirties, there was also the I am movement, or the mighty I am presence founded by married couple Guy and Edna Ballard. Edna said she was a medium. Guy said he had a spiritual awakening on Mount Shasta, met the great ascended master Who was a go, they went on a voyage through time and space. The astral projected to visit ancient cities. They explored past lives, and they met guests from Venus. And then they wrote a series of books called Unveiled Mysteries or starting with Unveiled Mysteries, which they sold during the Great Depression. There's always like a commerce angle to most of these religious movements, not all, but to most or many of them. Can I pitch a possibility as to why Los Angeles, I think the thing about Los Angeles is and you hit on this, the speed with which it grew was insane. And the vast majority of the people who lived here were not from here. Y. So you've got a bunch of people coming with the hopes of making it big, making it rich, you know, finding a purpose in their life, they probably don't know that many people. So one of the things that they're going to look for immediately is community, which is something you can always get from religion. And the other thing that they're going look for is somebody telling you Oh I can explain why this isn't working for you because it will not work for the vast majority of the people that show up here. So you've got a population of people who are just extremely vulnerable to this kind of organization. It makes total sense that this would be a breeding ground for religions, cults, everything And like you said, Lizzie, I completely agree. For many people, certainly not all, there are a lot of industries in Los Angeles. It's a misnomer to say it's a one industry town. Yes. But many people come here attempting to break into the seemingly impenetrable institution known as Hollywood. And so if another institution grants you passage, acceptance In fact, says you're special, you have a purpose, you're meaningful. That's an incredibly seductive and powerful sales pitch And so the point is, as you've expertly diagnosed, by the time the Church of Scientology shows up in the nineteen fifties, LA is a breeding ground for a lot of unusual gurus, practices, and followings And in fact As we've explored, scientology was tame in comparison to many of these, and it seemed or may have seemed more legitimate The only problem was it wasn't And to understand why we need to talk about Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, or L Ron Hubbard and the book. that led to scientology known as dionetics So El Ron Hubbard, and we've talked about him briefly before, Lizzie, but let's dive back in. He was born in Nebraska in nineteen eleven and say what you want about El Ron Hubbard and you could say a lot about Elron Hubbard, the one thing I think everybody would agree on is the fact that he has an incredible and inexhaustible immagination Across his life, A lot of what's written about him focuses on fact checking the stories he told about himself, because he contradicted himself A lot To be clear, much of what he said about his childhood, his education, his time in the Navy. I was gonna say, his war hero slash war crimes. There's a funny portion in Go Car where it basically he claims he was blowing up submarines, but the reality was he was just charges and the Navy said, you cannot have access to any more death charges. A Ron, Hubbard. The point is, much of this doesn't match what his family and colleagues have offered in comparison. And in fact, he even contradicts himself. He contradicts his private journals in many cases. A superior court judge who ruled against Hubbard in nineteen eighty four once described him as quote, virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, backgrounds, and achievements At the same time, it appears that he is charismatic and highly capable of motivating, organizing, controlling, manipulating, and inspiring his adherenceote So Lawurece Wright, author of Going Clear, which was made into the documentary that we've discussed of the same name, has spent a lot of time investigating Hubbard's life. And he argues that the quote tug of war between scientologists and anti scientologists over Hubbard's biography has created two swollen archetypes. the most important person who ever lived and the world's greatest con man Th thoseose are the two ends of the spectrum He even argues that the discrepancies between what Hubbard says about himself and what others say about him is quote overshadowed the fact that he genuinely was a fascinating man, an explorer, a best selling author, and the founder of a worldwide religious movement I am a right This is the theoretical But above all, I am a man I love that scene so much. I love the Master. It's my favorite Paul Thomas Anderson movie. I absolutely love it I do want to note that Hubbard was a bit of an explorer and it started young. But not just of the world of the mind. So when he was roughly twelve years old, he went on a cruise from Seattle to DC. and one of his fellow passengers was a man named Joseph Thompson, who was a member of the Navy Medical Corps who studied under Sigmund Freud. Oh So Thompson really apparently quote beat Freud into him. You want to have sex with your mother? You want to have sex with me. It's like, I know. And he said that he wanted to follow out this work, but his dad said that he was going to be an engineer. So he went to college and he studied engineering, but was he did not have a knack for it. He got really bad grades, he didn't graduate. But it's not to say that Hubbard was unintelligent. He had a superpower, and that was writing Writing prolically. Yeah. So Lizzie, we talked about this when we covered Battlefield Earth, but by the time Tubbard's in his twenties, he is churning out stories for Pulp magazines, sci fi adventures, Westerns, he would write to the point where he was dripping sweat. He would write on a roll of butcher paper. So when he was done with one story, he'd just tear it off and continue on the next one while it was delivered to the publisher He had to write under pseudonyms because the magazines didn't want the readers to keep seeing Elron Hubbard's name popping up multiple times in one issue. So you got mister Spectator, Captain Humbert Reynolds, Renee Lafayette, Winchester Remington Colt, which is just three guyss in a row Yeah. And he was self conscious or may have been a bit self conscious about the speed at which he wrote He came across at one point some praise of another writer where the reader who wrote in said that this writer was, quote, prolific, but a genius nonetheless, as if being prolific was a bad thing. R. He then wrote Just why is it Pay tell that John Public and Hollywood I think that's an important thing that he includes there, dwells in the dark about a fast production writer. If a man writes one story a year, everybody says, ah, he must be an artist. No merit to a man who works himself bald and into an early grave putting out repeated bits of the marvelist. He didn't go entirely bald, but he went a little bit bald. I also was like, oh, is that personal? He then name checks O Henry, Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, and he more or less says that his brain is like a shark. If he stops swimming, he dies And then he says, you know, the layman would faint from shock if they witnessed the speed at which the true literary heavyweights quote rolled out the yardage So he's a little bit defensive. And he again, to be clear He is remarkably prolific. Actually, he's the most prolific writer in history. He has a Guinness World record. He has the Guinness World Reord for the most published works by a single author, one thousand eighty four. If at first you don't succeed, try one thousand eighty four times again And he was coming up during the Golden Age of science fiction. He's born at the right time for this. He wrote for Astounding stories under editor John Campbell. and he was friends with other famous writers, including one of the fathers of that Glden age, who we've talked about, Robert Heinlin, who would write Starship Troopers. Now he sniffed around Hollywood. We do know that Columbia aptioned one of his stories and they made it into a serial movie the secret of Treasure Island. But the question is how did Elron Hubbard go from science fiction to fictional science And to explore that, we got to get into World War two and his history in the Navy. So he served in the Navy and ultimately, after he'd set off a billion death trig, he wound up in the hospital And medical records show that, you know, he greatly exaggerated his condition. Ellon Hubbert,' just, he is a fabulous. Like that's what he does According to his diaries, though, it seems like he truly believed that he was in a quote, hopeless state So this is from his personal diaries. Blinded with injured optic nerves and lame with physical injuries to hip and back at the end of World War II I faced an almost non existent future I was abandoned by my family and friends as a supposedly hopeless cripple To be clear, his first marriage fell apart and he did struggle for years, mentally, physically, and financially. And in nineteen forty seven, he wrote to the VA, Veterans Affairs to ask for help,ote I am utterly unable to approach anything like my own competence. My last physician informed me that it might be very helpful if I were to be examined and perhaps treated psychiatrically, or even by a psychoanalyst I avoided out of pride any mental examinations, hoping that time would balance a mind which I had every reason to suppose was seriously affected. I cannot myself afford such a treatment. Would you please help me Yeah, the aversion to Psychology and psychiatry is so interesting because as many are quick to point out to his face, what you are selling seems to be a version of psychoanalysis And he's so quick to say, no, no, no, that's for crazy people And I don't know if it's because it was rejected by Like the board of psychologists or what the deal is there, Why he's so afraid of it It's interesting, I think this was definitely a time as we'll get to when people were skeptical of psychiatric and psychological treatments. And Hubbard, it seems, didn't get the help he sought at first because he was too proud and then because his prayer or letter was not answered. and he falls in with a different far more fringe crowd Ordo Templli Orientis So this is a black magic cult that traces back to German speaking occultists and then was taken over by Alistair Crowley. in nineteen ten The gist of it is, this particular sect of this cult was obsessed with the idea of impregnating a woman with the Antichrist basically. was based in Pasatina. Hey, shout out. That's right He then experimented with hypnotism, and according to some sources, he wrote a document called The Affirmations or the Admissions, where he basically tried to therapize himself with a list of mantras The purpose of this experiment is to reestablish the ambition, willpower, desire to survive the talent and confidence of myself I feel like there's just this interesting portrait of this person who really felt like he maybe had a purpose and he had willpower and desire and a place in the world. And then after World War two, he is completely destabilized and he is just trying he's grasping at a lot of different straws So eventually he claims, at least, that he started volunteering in a psychiatric clinic, and he wrote some letters to Robert Heinlin claiming that he was curing patients of physical ailments So for example, one week ago, I brought in my first asthma cure I have an arthritis to finish tomorrow and so it goes. This is at a psychiatric clinic. So he's making claims that basically many of these phhysical ailments are in people's heads and I can solve them through So it's not like a laying on of hands. It's like these are psychosomatic conditions that I am. No, he was very much in he was as we'll discuss right now, his method he was Adamant is science, not religion because he's writing a book this method and he's and he really believes it works. In fact, he believes it works on kids He said, quote, I took a scared little kid who was supposed to be stupid and was failing everything and worked on him about thirty five hours just to make sure. That was last month. So now he turns up this afternoon with all's and all of a sudden he's reading Shakespeare We should remember later on, Tom Cruise, for example would claim that scientology cured his dyslexia So Hubbard calls this book Dianetics. which in the book, it says it's pulled from the Greek dia meaning through and noost meaning mind. I also read, it was pulled from the Greek word danoia, which means intellector mind. It doesn't really matter. The point is the book presents itself as irrefutable science. I bought a copy, I was reading through it, reading through the beginning. This is not a theory. This is not religion. This is fact. this is proven fact. In fact, these concepts have been around for thousands of years and nobody has ever been able to distill them brring them together. You know, we've gotten close a couple of times. When were those times? Don't worry about it. But I have figured it out. How did I figure out? Don't worry about it. How does it work? Don't worry about it. It's a lot of just definitive, declarative, this work statements without a lot of, this is the process through which I came to these conclusions But let's talk about the core concepts. The first one is the idea that all people have two minds There's the analytical mind, which is logical conscious, self aware, records and stores information, solves problems, and the reactive mind, which houses fears, insecurities, and painful sense memories. Quote, It does not remember. It records and uses the recordings only to produce action. It does not think, it selects recordings and impinges them upon the conscious mind and the body without the knowledge or consent of the individual. particularly far from Freud Exactly. So these subconscious recordings of painful memories he calls N grams and they cause quote psychosomatic illnesses. Individuals can uncover, rexperience, and refile these Ngrrams via diinetetic therapy with a trained auditor who could be a therapist or just a friend. And with enough therapy, you can reach your highest, most stable form known as going clear. Excuse me with enough auditing Chris With enough therapy. Yeah, you can reach clear. Like you mentioned Lizzie, it mixes therapy speak with things like transcendental meditation. He is pulling is it is the George Lucas, right of It is a pastiche master right at play here So he sells an excerpt of the book to his old editor Campbell, who says, great, I will publish this in astounding science fiction, which seems like a perfect fit because it's kind of science fiction. But to be clear, Campbell's saying this is not science fiction, this is real. I want to read part of the introduction that he wrote This article is not a hoax, joke, or anything but a direct clear statement of a totally new scientific thesis I know Dionetics is one of, if not the greatest discovery of all man's written and unwritten history. It produces the sort of stability and sanity men have dreamed about for centuries And Campbell wasn't just being a supportive friend or an outlier. Dietics, the modern Science of Mental Health, was published in May of nineteen fifty, and it stayed on the New York Times bestest seller list for twenty eight weeks It was part of a bigger trend So post World War two There's a large therapeutic culture that's developing that's blending religion with psychology. Well, but to be clear, this is not being positioned as religion at this point No, but it's taking elements of that and it's putting it with therapy into What's really being born is self help, in a lot of ways, right M It's not just the public that's interested in these ideas that seem far fetched. You know, you've got institutes that are dedicated to ESP and PK exploration, both privately and publicly. You know The Soviets and the United States government have launched respective programs that are exploring anomalous mental phenomena. And a lot of this was spurred by the discovery of Himmler's research into the occults, you during World War two all tied together. Unlike the US. government's pursuit of knowledge for military superiority, Hubbard's positioning dianetics as a means to quote, denuclearize the world He says, Dianionetics addresses war because there is in fact a race between the science of the mind and the atom bomb There may be no future generation to know which one And a New York Times critic even wrote, history has become a race between dianetics and catastrophe Very smart marketing This book will save the world Americans were also skeptical of psychoanalysis and psychiatry and may have been looking for an alternative that was less European, less Jewish less expensive and faster They're looking for a life hack. Yeah. Hubbard claimed that he could accomplish in twenty hours what psychoanalysis took years to achieve. Yeah, he's looks maxing self help Also, psychiatry was, to be fair, experimenting with some questionable methods, including lobotomies and electros shhock therapy. Hubbard's also offering certainty He compared dynetics to the discovery of fire. He said it's simpler than physics or chemistry, but far more useful in that it is an exact science He had no medical license, he had no formal scientific data A lot of psychologists, though, actually claimed that they incorporated some aspects of dietics into their work I mean In terms of asking you to like basically re experperience potentially traumatic memories and to allow yourself to be open to the possibility of you know, things that may come to the surface that you are not aware of and then to actually walk you back through experiencing them. Yes, those are real treatments. Those exist in other forms of you know psychoanalysis and they There is evidence to suggest that they work. I don't know that they are entirely original to El Ron Hubbard at all. and also when you put them in the context of what he was doing with them They become an awful lot less legitimate? Yeah, so to be clear, most of the scientific community has rejected diionetics outright and they did at the time Lawce Wright said they sa it as, quote, you know, psychological folk art One critic said basically Hubbard has started to believe the fiction that he's written. Yes. Anybody writing several million words of fantasy in science fiction should ultimately begin to internalize the assumptions underlying the verbiage Dynamics was called a cult, a fast selling mental snake bite remedy, the poor man's psychoanalysis. And it was a major craze. Hubber traveled the country, giving lectures. He would sell five hundred dollars professional auditor courses. People started auditing each other at home. This reminds me later in the eighties, you'd have like Yuri Geller, if you remember Lizzie who would bend spoons famously and you'd have spoon bending parties at home The crowd that was most interested, according to Wright, was young to middle aged white collar Protestants who had a pronounced interest in science fiction. Some saw it as a promising new field to work in, others were looking for a new faith. And a lot of people, Lizzie, just had mental and physical issues and were desperate for a cure. And Dianetics comes in as a quick fix And what industry loves Quick fix, especially with its p snickety little actors. Hollywood. That's right. Your actress is having weird confidence problems Audit. A. Your actor is having a hard time with his accent. He needs not it. One newspaper claimed that three film studios had consulted Hubbard about how to use his method to quote, make movie stars better than ever claims to have fixed Kim Hunter's attempt at a southern accent when he was visiting the set of a streetcar named Desire. And then he witnessed Betsy Drake and Patricia Neil. comeome on, Patricia. auditing one another. He even claimed that Detics would cut down on Hollywood suicides and divorces And he hired Richard D Mill, son of Cecilby De Mille as his personal assistant So dietics burns bright, but it burns fast. If you search for mentions of the word diionetics in California newspapers in the year nineteen fifty, you get nearly two thousand results in nineteen fifty one, that drops to just under one thousand and in fifty two, it's only one hundred eighteen. And even some of Hubbard's closest supporters, like Don Campbell's brother in law, who is a physician, cut ties with him when they realized that the science behind it wasn't exactly on it Plus, as you know, Lizz, Ellron Harb spends a lot of money. He goes into debt, declares bankruptcy, one of his financial backers, claims ownership of Dianetics' assets and copyrights and Hubbard showed that he was far from clear They go into much more detail about this in Go Clear, but in the two years since the book was published, he'd kidnapped his own daughter, absconded with her to Cuba, had a bunch of affairs, destroyed his marriage to his second wife, who married him under threat of suicide and he was abusive towards physically and emotionally. And then he married again, and also all three of his marriages overlapped, teechnically he was a bigamist. He was a serial bigamist Chris, arere you a big aist though if you are an operating Thatan? Yeah Yes, No. No. please don'tly. But several articles that debated the legitimacy of detics in the early fifties concluded that if nothing else, it demonstrated the craving of many Americans for improved mental care. And maybe that's why it would survive with a little rebrand So Harbard goes to Europe, pivots to something new. Scientology Which wasn't really a new name. I didn't know this. The name existed before A British philologist had used it to refer to pseudoscientific theories in the early twentieth century, and then a German philosopher who believed in racial hygiene used it again in the nineteen thirties. And Hubbard just said, Well, nobody's heard it for a while. I'll use it for my thing right now So in scientology was not at odds with dinetics, it just expanded it. And this is where we go from kind of pseudo science self help book into to religigion The core concept that's added here is what you just mentioned, Lizzy. The concept of an immortal human soul known as a theaetan, T H E T A N Now, initially, it was not introduced as a religious concept, and Hubbard tried to make it seem scientific. And by this point, he had introduced what's I think perhaps the most well known aspect of scientology, which is the electrocysychometer or the e meter. Lizzie, could you describe you just watch it going clear? Could you describe the E meter to me?'t Are people wearing something when they're Yeah, it's like one third of a lie detector test. basically you're gripping two metal tubes. Okay, that's right g The rods, essentially.. And then someone is operating the e meter and what they're doing is they're watching a needle and they're saying like as they see the needle move, they're asking you to like return to the memory or the thought that you had depending on certain movements of the needle. And then the whole point is to release that thought or that Ngram, right Yes. the idea is like the higher the reading the more intense the Ngram that you're exploring and yes, But we learn what we're really getting into or we will get into is blackmail very, very quickly. Yeah. But at this point in time, he's expanding all of these concepts. So Nnggrams now include prenatal memories, AKA quote, sperm dreams, past lives And past lives, this was very popular at the time. You know, even in today, there's fascination with the idea of recovered memories, for example, and there's not a lot of science behind that. and it's like very debated how valid this is and you get into issues with, you know, for example, a lot of the satanic panic was built around. Yes. The famous example of this is Michelle Rembers during the Satanic panic. If you're not familiar with what that is, very worth looking at. Also a fun fact, my dad was at a cocktail party at one point and somewhat recently and I believe a woman started referring to like past life trauma with him. and he, I think exited the conversation relatively quickly My point is that, you know it feels and the way that Harvard packages this feels unusual, but he's again, taking a lot of concepts that have purchase in different you know, groups and parts of the country. Sure. And I also want to be clear. If something helps you I don't care Do whatever you want. It's when it becomes something you are pushing on other people or using to control or manipulate other people that it becomes a problem Let's talk about those other people. So Hubbard starts giving lectures in ' fifty two. He starts publishing a series of books, which would later become know the History of Man, scientology eight dash eighto eightzero eight eight, the Factors. and he is preaching to acquire. This is the most loyal group of his followers. And you he needs to turn this into a scalable business. So he introduces the idea franchising. The idea is basically like satellite organizations are gonna to pay him for the training plus a ten percent tithe basically, so they can practice his techniques And in nineteen fifty three, he officially converts scientology into a religion Why money. Yeah. This is a quote from Hubbard. If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way to do it would be to start a religion Now, Hubbard wasn't sure how people would react to the religion angle He even asked his secretary for her opinion. In early nineteen fifty three, he wrote to her, I await your reaction on the religion angle. In my opinion, we couldn't get worse public opinion than what we have had or have less customers with what we've got to sell. I sure could make it stick. I think he viewed the religion angle as necessary to the financial future of scientology And it turns out he's pivoting at the right time because the US is experiencing another post war religious boom Hubbard creates the Hubbard Scientology Association of America. He opens churches in New Jersey, California, DC He encourages franchise holders around the country to convert their scientology and detics facilities into independent churches And if you guys have seen the Go Clearear documentary, you may be familiar with the scientology strategy or term fair game. Basically, anyim the church is attacked in any way, attack back with force. Think Sean Connnery's speech in the Untouchables. And Lizzie, you could do a better accent than me, but you know they pull a knife, you pull a gun. You seent one of your to hospitals, you send one of their us to the morgue. That's the scientology way. Great. So as early as nineteen fifty five, he's writing to his followers that we should be very alert to sue for slander at the slightest chance so as to discourage the public press from mentioning scientology, which is not exactly a turn the other cheek methodology But while he wanted to keep scientology out of the press, he did want attention from one specific group. Lizzie, who did he want attention from? Hollwood Hollywood Hollywood was a key part of Harubvard's strategy. In an early issue of Scientology magazine called Ability, he described Pject celebrity. I can't remember if he talked about proroject celebrity battlefield. I think we did. Just to recap, celebrities are key to the success of scientology. When they talk, America listens. And the goal of the operation is to stalk these quote prime communicators and pressure them into an auditing session He's looking to make an army of influencers. He included in the magazine a list of celebrities, and he told the reader to pick one and quote, write us at once so the notable will be yours to hunt without interference It will be up to you to learn what you can about your quarry and put yourself at every hand across his or her path, not permitting discouragements or knows or clerks or secretaries to intervene in the days, weeks or months, these celebrities are well guarded, well barricaded, overworked, aloof quarry. If you bring one of them home, you will get a small plaque as your reward, which like that's not a big prize for bagging a fish like these. Do you want to hear some of the names? Yeah these are is a list of published names in this magazine. And sorry, what year is this? be nineteen fifty five. Okay or the mid fifties. nineteen fifty five. Okay. I'll read some names. Edward Armorow. Ed Sullivan, Marlina Dietrich, Orson Wells, Ernest Hemingway Sid Caesar Liberacci, John Ford, Jimmy Stewart. Howard Hughes, I feel like you could have gotten him. Billy Graham. Bob Hope What Disney Milton Burl, Jackie Gleason, Joe Lewis, Vincent Price, Groucho Marks, Daryl Zank, Cecil B. D Mill Bing Crosby, Greta Garbo and many, many more. Definitely is mle And it's very high level It's also just a shotgun blast. There's not a lot of There's no strategy. There's noategy. There's people in there that I don't know that you want advertising your religion even at the time. And then there's people that make a ton of sense. Ed Sullivan Job Hope, like these people that could really legitimize it. Jimmy Stewart. There's certain names on there Um you're not getting Marlena Dietrich. Are you kidding? She would rip your hairpiece off. L there's no way. Even like Pablo Picasos. Oh yeah, good luck there too The church starts attracting unwanted attention. In nineteen sixty three, the FDA raided the DC Church and they seized its e meters. Because scientology had claimed they could cure neuroses, psychosis, schizophrenia, and all psyosomatic illnesses. So obviously, if you're going to make a claim that you have a product that can you have to get FDA approval. Yeah. So as they grow, Hubbard creates a more formal system. He's got a PR department. he's got an intelligence system that's investigating the communists and criminals that criticize scientology We discussed this before Lizzie, He makes the Sa Og, which is his private navy, but's basically know his clergy and it's almost a form of slave labor. He introduces the concept of a suppressive person. This is somebody who's in any way critical of the church or its practices, the policy of disconnection Which is where you cut off anybody in your life who's not supportive of your endeavors. Again, this is these are things that are used in multile level marketing, for example, very commonly. Very common in cults. Yeah. And then he formalizes the concept of the fair game law, The fair game law, by the way, is like everything is fair game when it comes to dealing with a suppressive person. They can be tricked, lied to, or destroyed. He also established the structure of paying for subsequent levels of enlightenment along the bridge of total freedom. So the bridge of total freedom is the levels that you go up to reach your clear status, the operating thetan levels. It again multi level marketing structure, self help life coaching structure, wellness structure. These are a lot of the same practices used in marketing and branding, for example, for these you know, very manipulative business practices. Well, and I think something that the documentary does such a good job of explaining is that so much of this becomes sunk cost because when you are paying for each rung of the bridge notot a ladder, as you said. You might really like what's in one and then you get to the next level and it's really fucking weird. And then you go, okay, well, I already paid for three of these. so I'm gonna to see what the next one is. and then it goes on and on and on. And I don't know if you notice this by the way, but I know that when you get to a certain level of clear you get to open the briefcase and you get to read the creation story of scientology. And all I could think about when they were talking about that was John Travolta opening the briefcase in public fiction I was like' Quintin Tarantino doing that on purpose And the whole idea in pulfiction is that it's Marcellis Wallace's soul right in the suitcase, which is also interesting with the Satan. you know, I don't know if that was on purpose by Tarantino or not, but it is interesting. I also do want to mention, you know This does evoke indulgences from the Catholic Church, which was a practice from hundreds of years prior where you you could reduce the amount of punishment that you underwent for forgiven sins by paying the church. And it you know it started as a way to raise money for charitable causes and then quickly became corrupted into something gnarly, as most of these things do, you know, they can start with interesting potentially helpful ideas or the desire to help yourself for other people and it can metastasize in kind of gnarly ways Yeah In part, there was a tendency for key practitioners to break off and start their own sex. So Hubbert introduced also the idea that some levels of scientology must be kept confidential. So we also get the first world of Fight Club, donon't talk about Fight Club So the public attention was a double edged sort. Some felt it was doing scientology more harm than good. But as you mentioned, Lizzie earlier Others argue that the government raids made scientology look like an underdog, right? They were able to exploit this sort of victim status constantly So in ' sixty seven, the IRS officially revoked their tax exempt status. and by this point, Hubbard's gone back to Europe, settled in England. He's established the Scientology Worldwide Management Control Center. And in the mid seventies, he really ups his game by assigning his wife to head Operation Snow White which is an organized infiltration of US. government agencies that were critical of scientology Basically, they send scientologists out to get jobs at the IRS and FTC, for example, and steal files to use as blackmail is crazy. Yeah. So at the same time, he's buying historic L.A buildings Chateau Elisse, is that how you say it Lizzie? That's a celebrity center. now. and operation, celebrity had started to attract some big names. So Leonard Cohen took classes in New York. Priscilla Presley joined Jerry Seinfeld took a communication course in the mid seventies. Chick Koreaad the read Dianetics in the late sixties, he became involved. Chick Korea is on the album Space jazz that is featured as companion to battlefield. Yes. Y. Anne Archer in nineteen seventy five. Yeah. She was formerly a Christian scientist and then she converted to scientology That was kind of another common thing was like, you know the more obscure Christian sector or Pentecostal sector then you move into scientolog. Well now I'm Tam Glen Close and Fatal Atraction. What can I tell you Well, Lizzy, who was the big fish that converted in nineteen seventy five? We just talked about John Travolta. John Travolta at the age of twenty one. This is the same year he gets his big break in Wlcome backack Cotter, Vinny Barbara. Why were these celebrities attracted to scientology? We talked about this a little bit earlier, but Jenna Miscabage, niece of David Miscaabbage, argues that the experience of scientology for celebrities is much different than the average person. So unlike the average person, they're not going to be hounded for money, right? You can move through the coursework at your own pace They are not exposed to any of the corruption behind the curtain. So you know, low wages, poor living conditions going clear goes into this in more detail They're offered communication courses that are cater to their industry. Let us help you feel more comfortable in your auditions. Let us improve your networking, for example. I think it's hard to express or hard to capture sometimes how insecure can feel even when you're succeeding in Hollywood. You really feel like you are one false step away from falling right all the way back down to the bottom. and also You know, and they discuss this in the documentary as well, but any major successes you are having at that time, scientology is really set up to convince you that those are because of scientology. So well and at least it makes it enough of a question, right? which is like what's happen Tump this. Exactly. Like you've got this rabbit spa, you know what I mean? like in your pocket that is scientology And you I mean, again, actors, athletes, anybody who performs, I feel like perhaps more superstitious in some ways, right? We know this's like we all we develop a routine that we don't want to break. and if we do, o, that's why this didn't go right. And So this plays into that. Yes. and also we talk about this on the podcast all the time. but actors are just by nature of the position, they have potentially the least control over their own careers out of almost any position in Hollywood. And that's not knocking actors because it takes an enormous amount of mental fortitude to be able to deal with that. Oh yeah, that has nothing to do with them. It's just the way the system is designed. Right. They're entirely fungible. the end of the day. It is not an accident that the people that they are mostly targeting are not creators so much as they are actors. And bad press can destroy an actor.. And so the auditing process is Lawrence wr points out and the church's attitude toward defectors and the fact that, especially under David Miscavagege They film and record these auditing sessions. sometimes with celebrity knowge. Exactly. So means that sometimes the celebrities who have joined are very vulnerable if they leave. The organization literally has recordings of your deepest, darkest secrets. And their policy is to attack their critics. And to be clear, much of this is illegal. So in nineteen seventy nine, five scientology members, including Hubbard's third wife, Mary Sue were fined and sentenced to prison for their involvement in Operation Snow White And in nineteen eighty, just before he turned sixty nine, Hubbard went into seclusion. Tw years later, he published, What Lizzie? Battlefield Earth that we discuss. and space jazz. It's accompanying soundtrack. Inde, a space opera. And you know, it's interesting. It did not get terrible reviews. It got very mixed reviews. Some people said it's look, this is kind of nonsense and other people said, lookook, this is a fun ride that hearkens back to the golden age of science fiction What we also know is that the church reportedly pressured members into buying multiple copies of it to make sure it was a best seller.. The New York Times reported that two scientology organizations bought thirty thousand copies of the book at discount directly from the publisher. And it seems like in part that was because they wanted to make sure that somebody would buy the film rights because Hubbard, I think, desperately wanted it to beome a movie, but Hubbard would never see it reach the screen The film rights were purchased, but it wouldn't become a movie until nineteen ninety nine, we believe, as've discussed in Battlefield Earth And Hubbard died in January of nineteen eighty six at the age of seventy four at his ranch just outside of San Louis Oispo. He had a stroke in his sleep. No, he didn't, Chris. He went to a new level of clear. Well, no, he did, they do say that. I mean, they say that, you know, he will continue his work without his body. Exactly. the announcement that David Miscavge made too be fair, that's kind of what a lot of religions more or less preach and believe I think if you think about a lot of the organizations that came before scientology in Los Angeles, these are such personality driven endeavors in so many ways. And so I think there was a real question as to whether or not scientology would really last after E Ron Hubt but it has this kind of interestnteresting situation of almost like a dual succession that takes place Internally, you've got David Mis Cabbage. and Lizzy, you know David Ms Cabbage, you saw justw in the documentary. How would you describe David miscavriage to somebody. Uh ry A Tom Cruisian intensity, perhaps Yes, beyond different ways. Yeah. It's if Elron Hubbard Like look Does El Ron Hubbard look like Dr. Finkelstein from Nightmare Before Christmas? Yes. But when you watch videos of him, there is a certain warmth to him where I think you could understand how his charisma came into play when forming this religion. David Ms Cabbage is completely devoid of charisma. He's like, if you took The the darkness behind Tom Cruise's eyes and gave it zero percent of his charm That's David Miss Cabbage. He reads as so determined, so intent so deeply sure of himself He's very scary to watch He's a zeal This is the way I would describe it through and through Um C had been to be clear, had been a scientologist since age eleven. Ms Cabbage was effectively born into this or brought into it by his parents. This is not somebody who came to this in adulthood. He was raised in scientology since age eleven, and he had been close with Hubbards from a young age. He was, you know, he would assist him as like an assistant cameraman on some of their, you know, internal video productions, et cetera In nineteen eighty six, Miss Cabbage takes over and this is the same year that scientology attracts Its biggest celebrity yet. Lizzy Timmy Cru Timmy, Thomas M Mapathor. Yeah the second or third or fourth. Tom Cruz can't remember Tom Cruz He'd been introduced to the religion through his first wife, Aimie Rogers And he had just starred in Top Gun. Tom Cruise is one of the biggest stars on the planet at this point, and his star will only continue to rise for the next ten to twenty years He developed a close relationship with Ms Cabbage, and he later credited scientology with curing his dyslexia Now, scientology to be clear, is under increasing pressure at this time. There's a class action suit from former members. They were ordered to pay thirty million dollars to another former member. although I did read that they appealed and settled that out of the court. And Miss Cavage was trying to clean up the church's image. So a ninety one Time magazine article called Scientology a ruthless global scam that was aiming from the mainstream According to the Cult Awareness Network, no group prompts more telephone pleas for help than does scientology, and they were still battling the IRS for tax exemption So according to Lurerence Wright Thousands of scientologists simultaneously sued the IRS and individual IRS employees, which contributed to the IRS eventually granting scientology tax exempt status in nineteen ninety three story goes basically, you know, we'll make these lawsuits go away if you give us our status. And it becomes this huge win. You can see the video Lizzie you saw crazy. It's like you know, Miss Cavbage announcing to a stadium full of scientologists that the quote war is over. Do you know what's amazing about that announcement, though, is that he doesn't say the war is over because we have been recognized as a legitimate religion. What he says is the war is over. we are officially tax exempt Sir, at least fake it. L I understand how you care about is the money, but Well, you know what he says, it's like you can finally, you will get tax deductions on on your donation You make the sign It's interesting. Yeahah, it's all about the business. Yeah then their best soldier goes a bit MIA Be of one tall Australian drink of water. That's right. He meets and marries Nicole Kidman. He met her working on Days of Thunder Her father was a well known psychologist in Australia, AK by his very nature, an SP a suppressive person. So Kidman gets labeled a PTS, potential potential trouble source. So former members claim that there was a coordinated campaign to drive Crwz and Kidman apart But I actually think in what is such an odd and tragic and ironic twist It may have been Stanley Kubrick who was most responsible for ending their marriage and in a way, returning Tom Cruise to the very religion that had attracted his daughter away and caused an estrangement between Kubrick and his daughter, Vivian. So Vivian had become a scientologist in the nineties, and she and her father had stopped talking So at the same time, the shoot is you know again, this is a troubled shoot. We covered it on this podcast, Lizzie and just how much it may have contributed to Cruz and Kidmen's marital issues. We will never know. There is an incredible amount of speculation, but we do know that they divorced in two thousand one I want to say this because I feel like we grew up in the era of there being so many stories about Tom Cruise, which I'm sure we'll get into And many of them were that, oh, Tom Cruz is secretly gay And like that's the thing that scientology is hiding and that, oh, the marriage to Nicole Kidman was entirely arranged. I just want to say That makes zero sense. I one hundred percent believe that these two were in love with each other, that he had there was nothing advantageous for him about being with her from the perspective of scientology, which he was extremely embedded in And it made it very hard for him. L I I think I think they were absolutely real. and I understand the appeal on both sides. I agree with you And this brings us kind of we're coming up now to War of the Worlds and where we're going to touch off on Monday. So I'm not a fan of religion, as our audience knows. any religion it tends not to be for me. but I went to a memorial last weekend and so I was back in church. I don't often go into churches. and I was reminded of the power of these institutions. You go into a church, and I mean, there is something A bit awe inspiring about it. you know, there is something about being in a space where everybody's facing the same direction and dedicated to the same thing and you're not on your phone and there is something solemn and spiritual about it Um, I find it so fascinating that this exact moment. So the Cruise of the nineties, you look at the roles that he's taking, right culminates in ninety nine with these two fascinating roles. in Magnolia and eyes wide shut Both of which feel about as far from the image that they had been crafting for him as you could get. and are two of his best performances deeply flawed men with shattered ideas of masculinity in very different ways he and I think the Kubrick shoot He would never say anything bad about Kubrick. Cruz never says anything bad about the people he works with for the most part. I think that shoot like was incredibly disillusioning for him at working with his hero and not having it go well famously. infamously, Kubrick was extremely positive toward Kidman and supportive of her performance, and then made Cruz do everything a hundred times. And I think it broke Tom Cruz's brain as an actor. And what I find so interesting then is that if you look at his transition into the early two thousands, he goes back into the fold with scientology Almost all of the movies that he starts taking in the early two thousands are budget, action hero movies. Ver safe. Not all of them, but many. and you know, we're talking a Minority report, the last Samurai, Mission Ipossible two. I know collateral is an outlier in that he plays the villain in that one H star rises in the world of scientology and he gets put in a way on this collision course with War of the Worlds, where On the one hand It makes complete sense that he's going to tackle a movie has so many things to do with the Golden Age science fiction and given his, you know relationship with Eon Hubbard. h And it makes complete sense that he and Spielberg are going to team up again. All of the worlds that Cruz had so expertly kept separate from one another in a lot of ways collide in a very spectacular fashion with the release of War of the Worlds, which we will get into on Monday So Lizzy, thats really concludes our coverage of, you know, the history of scientology, how Tom Cruise came into it and where the organization stood when we were heading into the early to mid two thousands. It really is interesting because And we've talked about this with Tom Cruise before, but the roles that he took prior to this turning point. And it really is the divorce with Nicole Kibman and eyes wide shut really is an enormous turning point for him, both personally and professionally. It's a turning point in the way that he is perceived, which I think goes in a direction that he did not anticipate when we get into, you know Katie Holmes and everything. but what it looks like to me is that He experienced one of the most destabilizing situations in his life, both on that movie set and in the dissolution of his marriage to Nicole Kidman And what scientology then offers him is absolute. Certainty If you watch these videos of him being awarded and this is all after, you know, of him on stage with David Miscaavge There will always be a place at that point that he can go where he knows exactly what he's going to get. and it's going to be total adoration and power. and that is the Church of Scientology Now we don't know how aware he is of You know the price that he and others are paying, but It sure looks like he's okay with it I mean It's if you're someone who is deeply uncomfortable with uncertainty I totally understand the appeal of what he is being offered by the church And we will get into what he offers in return with our coverage of W of the Worlds on Monday What went wrong as a Sad booom podcast presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer Post productroduction and Music by David Bowman