Out of Frame: Scientology and Hollywood

Summary

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WHAT WENT WRONG Podcast

Episode: "Out of Frame: Scientology and Hollywood"

Date: June 12, 2026

Hosts: Lizzie Bassett & Chris Winterbauer

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Episode Overview

In this “out of frame” episode, Lizzie and Chris delve into the intertwined history of Scientology and Hollywood ahead of their War of the Worlds coverage. Avoiding a straight rehash of well-known documentaries like Going Clear, the hosts set out to contextualize Scientology within Los Angeles’ unique religious climate, trace L. Ron Hubbard’s journey from pulp writer to cult leader, and explain why Hollywood, particularly actors, proved ripe for the church’s expansion. The episode concludes with the rise of Tom Cruise within Scientology, setting the stage for the explosive public and industry intersections of the early 2000s.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

I. The Ubiquity of Scientology in Los Angeles

[03:01]

• Chris: Frames the episode as a historical exploration—“putting Scientology in context historically and then exploring where Tom Cruise fits in.”
• Lizzie: Shares personal anecdotes of living near LA’s most iconic Scientology centers: “an enormous, hideous, cobalt blue building... And my personal favorite, the Celebrity Center...we always were kind of looking across the street, being like...it looks free.”
  [05:00]

II. Scientology’s Viral Moment & Public Perception

[07:08]

• Chris describes the recent social media trend of “Scientology speedruns”: content creators filming themselves infiltrating Scientology buildings, leading to debates over whether such pranks are “harassment” or a form of justified protest.

  “If any other religion was suffering through this...people would condemn this. But you think it’s funny because it’s Scientology.” —Chris [08:00]

• Lizzie, typically a critic, surprisingly sides with Scientology on this issue, agreeing it’s harassment:

  “I can’t believe I’m going to stand up for Scientology, but I think that’s technically correct.” —Lizzie [08:25]

• Leah Remini (ex-Scientologist) counters that such actions can drive believers further in rather than inspiring them to question.

  “If I had been confronted by people running through the Scientology building...it would have pushed me further into Scientology.” —Leah Remini (quoted by Chris) [08:55]

III. Why Do “Modern” Religions Seem So Odd?

[10:04]

• The hosts note parallels between Scientology and other American-born faiths (Mormonism), emphasizing that their “weirdness” is often a function of recency, not content.
• Chris advances the metaphor of Scientology as a “mollusk on the underside of Hollywood’s belly,” with Lizzie pointing out the unique vulnerability of LA’s transplanted, hopeful population (see below for expanded context).

IV. LA’s History as a Breeding Ground for New Religions

[14:53 – 23:00]

• Chris delivers an engaging LA religious history lesson:
  • Early 1900s: A population boom, with new arrivals “looking for community” and open to new beliefs.
  • LA birthed—and attracted—a dizzying variety of sects, cults, and charismatic leaders: from Pentecostalism to “sun worshipers” (the Mazdaznan Society) and the I Am Movement.
• Lizzie attributes LA’s cult attraction to “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.” [22:48]

V. The Life & Metamorphosis of L. Ron Hubbard

[24:00 – 35:20]

• L. Ron Hubbard’s biography is described as “a tug of war between...the most important person who ever lived and the world’s greatest con man.” —Chris quoting Lawrence Wright [25:53]
• Notable quote from a court ruling:

  “Virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, backgrounds and achievements....charismatic and highly capable of motivating...and inspiring his adherents.” —Judge’s opinion on Hubbard [25:28]

Hubbard’s Early Life and Path to Dianetics

• Hubbard was a pulp writer with “the Guinness World Record for most published works by a single author: 1,084.” [28:46]

• Post-WWII, he searched for physical and psychological healing; his skepticism and rivalry with psychiatry shaped his doctrines.

• He dabbled in black magic circles (Ordo Templi Orientis), hypnosis, and self-administered affirmations before creating Dianetics as a “science, not a religion.”

  “This is not a theory. This is not religion. This is fact. This is proven fact....How did I figure it out? Don’t worry about it.” —Chris paraphrasing the tone of Dianetics [34:00]

• Dianetics combined Freudian psychology, self-help, and science fiction, promising cures for all ills through “auditing.” Dianetics was published in 1950, spent 28 weeks on the NYT bestseller list, but most psychologists derided it as “psychological folk art.” [40:12]

VI. Pivot to Religion: The Founding of Scientology

[43:04]

• Explains Hubbard’s pragmatic financial pivot:

  “If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way to do it would be to start a religion.” —L. Ron Hubbard (quoted by Chris) [47:00]

• In 1953, Hubbard reincarnates his movement as The Church of Scientology, emphasizing the immortal “thetan” and introducing the E-meter (derided as “one third of a lie detector test”).

• Notable strategy: targeting celebrities for legitimacy and influence — “Project Celebrity” [48:31] — assigning followers to “stalk these prime communicators.”

  • Stars like Ed Sullivan, Orson Welles, and Walt Disney appeared on early target lists.

VII. Cult Mechanics: Growth, Control, and Abuse

[51:54 – 53:20]

• Hubbard established mechanisms familiar in many cults and multi-level marketing schemes:

  • Fair Game Policy (“anything goes” attacks on critics)
  • Policy of Disconnection (members must cut off “suppressive” friends or family)
  • Paying for ascent through the “Bridge to Total Freedom” (escalating financial buy-in).
  • “He formalizes...paying for subsequent levels of enlightenment...It’s again, multi-level marketing structure, self-help, life coaching structure, wellness structure...” —Chris [51:55]

• Lizzie draws connections to the Catholic concept of indulgences—paying to reduce punishment for sins.

  “So much of this becomes sunk cost...when you are paying for each rung...you get to the next level and...it’s really fucking weird. And then you go, ‘Okay, I already paid for three of these, so I’m going to see what the next one is.’” —Lizzie [52:34]

  • Both hosts reference the infamous “briefcase” moment—when high-level Scientologists finally read about Xenu, likened to the glowing case in Pulp Fiction.

VIII. Targeting & Trapping Hollywood (and Why It Worked)

[57:18 – 60:41]

• As major celebrities like Leonard Cohen, Priscilla Presley, Jerry Seinfeld, and John Travolta become associated with Scientology, the church offers stars special treatment, targeted “communication courses,” greater flexibility (and less financial pressure), and, crucially, “certainty” in a brutally uncertain industry.
  • “...if another institution grants you passage, acceptance...says you’re special. Special. You have a purpose. You’re meaningful...That’s an incredibly seductive and powerful sales pitch.” —Chris [22:57]
• The church collects compromising information in private auditing sessions—fuel for blackmail if celebrities think about defecting.
• “Much of this is illegal.” —Chris on the blackmail and coercion tactics [60:41]

IX. David Miscavige & The Modern Era

[63:02 – 66:02]

• Following Hubbard’s death, David Miscavige, a zealous, “scary” and “completely devoid of charisma” leader, takes control. [Lizzie, 63:02]
• With Miscavige at the helm, the church wins a crucial IRS victory in 1993, restoring tax-exempt status after a blitz of lawsuits.
  • “He doesn’t say the war is over because we have been recognized as a legitimate religion. What he says is...‘We are officially tax-exempt, sir.’ At least fake it...All you care about is the money.” —Lizzie [66:08]

X. Tom Cruise: The Ultimate Celebrity Convert

[64:37 – 71:00]

• Cruise, introduced to Scientology by his then-wife Mimi Rogers, rises in the church’s ranks. His break from Nicole Kidman—whose psychiatrist father was labeled a suppressive person (SP)—is described as a pivotal moment.
  • “What it looks like to me is that he experienced one of the most destabilizing situations in his life...And what Scientology then offers him is absolute certainty.” —Lizzie [71:29]
• Chris and Lizzie posit that the aftermath of Eyes Wide Shut and his divorce triggered Cruise’s deeper immersion in the church and a shift toward more “safe,” action-heroic Hollywood roles—culminating in the public collision of Cruise, Hollywood, and Scientology with War of the Worlds.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On LA’s Religious Uniqueness

• “LA is a breeding ground for a lot of unusual gurus, practices, and followings. And, in fact...Scientology was tame in comparison to many of these.” —Chris [22:57]
• “One of the things that they’re going to look for is community, which you can always get from religion. And the other thing...is somebody telling you, 'Oh, I can explain why this isn’t working for you.'” —Lizzie [22:09]

On Hubbard’s Invention of Scientology

• “Say what you want about L. Ron Hubbard...the one thing I think everybody would agree on is he has an incredible and inexhaustible imagination.” —Chris [24:00]
• “If at first you don’t succeed, try 1,084 times again." —Lizzie on Hubbard’s Guinness record [28:53]
• “This is not a theory. This is not religion. This is fact. This is proven fact....How did I figure it out? Don’t worry about it.” —Chris paraphrasing the tone of Dianetics [34:00]

On Fair Game & Auditing

• “That’s not a turn the other cheek methodology.” —Chris [48:10]
• “...they film and record these auditing sessions. Sometimes without knowledge. So...celebrities...are very vulnerable. If they leave, the organization literally has recordings of your deepest, darkest secrets and their policy is to attack their critics.” —Chris [60:39]

On Celebrity Appeal

• “If you are someone who is deeply uncomfortable with uncertainty, I totally understand the appeal of what he [Cruise] is being offered by the church.” —Lizzie [71:49]
• “You’ve got this rabbit’s paw, you know, in your pocket. That is Scientology.” —Chris [59:49]

On "Success"

• “The war is over. We are officially tax-exempt, sir. At least fake it. Like, I understand all you care about is the money...” —Lizzie [66:08]

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Timeline/Timestamps for Important Segments

• LA’s religious roots & cult history: [14:53 – 23:00]
• L. Ron Hubbard’s personal story: [24:00 – 35:20]
• Birth of Dianetics & its cultural moment: [35:20 – 40:10]
• Transition to Scientology & celebrity strategy: [43:04 – 51:00]
• Cult methodology and abuses: [51:54 – 53:45]
• Celebrity Center & Hollywood seduction: [57:18 – 60:41]
• Miscavige era, IRS battle, and Tom Cruise’s ascent: [63:02 – 66:35, 64:37 – 71:00]

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Episode Tone & Style

• Conversational, playful, and skeptical.
• Frequent, wry digressions and pop culture nods (“If L. Ron Hubbard looks like Dr. Finkelstein from Nightmare Before Christmas—yes.” —Lizzie [63:08]).
• Serious and empathetic when discussing manipulation and abuse within Scientology.
• Focused on connecting Hollywood’s structure with Scientology’s strategy.

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Summary

This episode contextualizes Scientology’s rise not simply as a Hollywood oddity, but as the logical inheritor of LA’s long tradition of spiritual entrepreneurship. L. Ron Hubbard’s flair for narrative, his opportunistic pivot to religion, and the development of exploitative, cultish techniques are laid bare, with special emphasis on the lure—and dangers—of certainty for those striving in Hollywood. The episode sets the table for the next installment: how all these threads—religion, celebrity, control, spectacle—climaxed with Tom Cruise and War of the Worlds.

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Next Episode Tease:
Coverage of War of the Worlds and Tom Cruise’s media meltdown, examining how private belief systems clashed with public personas in early-2000s Hollywood.
Released Monday.

Transcript

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[Chris Winterbauer]

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[Lizzie Bassett]

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 Lizzie Bassett, one of your hosts here, as always with Chris Winterbauer, and I'm really, really excited for today's episode. Chris, what have you prepared for us today?

[Chris Winterbauer]

Lizzy 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 perhaps 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 Cruise fits in briefly to lead us into really, the early 2000s, getting into the release of War of the Worlds.

[Lizzie Bassett]

And I did watch Going Clear in preparation for this. Had seen it before, but I happily watched it again.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Yeah. And so if you would like to skip today's episode and just dive into War of the Worlds, completely understand. But I hope that we will give you guys some new information here that will be helpful if you. In the exploration of belief and truth. That's gonna come on Monday. So without further ado, Lizzie, let's dive in. Lizzie, when did you become a Scientologist?

[Lizzie Bassett]

The minute I moved to Los Angeles.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Chris, you did move to Los Angeles. 15 years ago.

[Lizzie Bassett]

17 years ago. 15 years ago.

[Chris Winterbauer]

15 years ago. And I'm guessing one of the first buildings you noticed was.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Well, Scientology has. It actually has many centers across Los Angeles.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Oh, no, no, no.

[Lizzie Bassett]

The two big ones. There's a.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Across the world.

[Lizzie Bassett]

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 building. It's called blue, officially, 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 Feliz. It was really in East Hollywood. So it was kind of triangulated almost as 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 lavish brunches set out on the lawn of the Celebrity Center. And we always were kind of looking across the street, being like, could think like it is. It looks free.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Like, could we. Yeah, you like the little. The rabbit looking at the trap, you

[Lizzie Bassett]

know, and we never did.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Yeah. So it's. 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, going Clear. Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright. A Piece of Blue Sky, Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard Exposed by John Attack or Attuck, Bare Faced Mess by Russell Miller. And a number of videos, interviews, retrospectives. In particular, videos and footage of Tom Cruise and L. Ron Hubbard and David Miscavige, who currently runs the church. Now, 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. People, content creators filming themselves running through a Scientology building to see how far they can make it before being kicked out.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Oh, that's not a good idea.

[Chris Winterbauer]

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.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah.

[Chris Winterbauer]

It started with a viral video Posted by an 18 year old shot with his meta Ray Ban 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 the 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.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I can't believe I'm going to stand up for Scientology, but I think that's technically correct.

[Chris Winterbauer]

It's interesting. Yeah. And Jenna Miscavige, who's the niece of current Scientology leader David Miscavige, posted an Instagram video saying, quote, I'm proud of these kids for doing something that the government is too corrupt and chicken shit to do. And the question is, Lizzie, 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 Romini, who I'm sure you know of, was the actress perhaps most famous for King of Queens, who is a former Scientologist, she left the church in 2013. 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.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yes, that's what I was going to say. Because the whole ethos of it is. Is victimization to a certain degree. Like. Like 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, everyone 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.

[Chris Winterbauer]

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.

[Lizzie Bassett]

But it is. It is so recent that, you know, I think that's what makes it kind of like Mormonism. That's actually 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 to be, you know, nowadays. And L. Ron Hubbard said, no, we're

[Chris Winterbauer]

going to talk a lot about story. We're going to 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 rel 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 moviegoing 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 4833 Fountain Avenue is an enormous former hospital converted to a Scientology center that features in, you know, assign 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. Guys, summer is almost here and I want to focus on planning my vacation, not worrying about whether or not I can afford it. And that is where Monarch comes in. Monarch is the personal finance app that tracks everything accounts, investments, savings goals and spending. Get your first year of Monarch Core for half off just $50 with promo code wrong. I like to think of Monarch like a line producer for my personal finances, making sure that I'm not going to make a stupid decision today that's going to cost me a scene I want later. They have taken the mental load of tracking my finances off my plate. Plus with the investment view, I can focus on how my long term savings for my kids education for example are doing relative to the market. Most apps are backward looking, they're just telling you what you've spent. But Monarch helps me set goals, map out big purchases and make sure that I am looking ahead. So use code [e-mail] to get your first year of Monarch Core half off. At just $50. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code wrong.

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[Chris Winterbauer]

Louisiana has long been a hotbed for new religions and religious revivals. And no Lizzie, I'm not just talking about the counterculture movement of the 60s and 70s. We talked a little bit about Children of God, for example, when we were discussing the River Phoenix episode. Let's go back though, 60, 70 years prior to the early 1900s. So if you were to think of LA back then, it's far more homogenous 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 100,000 people in LA in 1900. That grows to 570,000 by 1920 and then doubled to over a million in 1930. A lot of this is obviously the development of Hollywood. For example, Hollywood moved from Florida to Los Angeles around the 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 city's packed 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 congreg. The Economist once argued, looking back, Louisiana's most successful export is not Hollywood, but Pentecostalism. Do you know the definition of Pentecostalism? I did not.

[Lizzie Bassett]

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.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Tent revivals? Yeah. Like, it's basically. It's a movement within the evangelical wing of the Protestant Christian community. Right. 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. Obviously, this is very different than Catholicism. And they adhere to the inerrancy of the Bible, which means the Bible's 100% 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 Azusa Street. It's now known as Little Tokyo. He was a student of Charles Parham 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 Lyman Stewart, founder of Union Oil Company, funded the Bible Institute of Los Angeles in 1908. Lizzie, are you aware of Biola University? No, that's Bible Institute of Los Angeles. Have you seen the.

[Lizzie Bassett]

It sounds like a payola scam. They could have rethought that, but whatever.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Have you seen the Jesus Save sign at the top of the Ace Hotel downtown that was originally made as for Biola University, it was moved around. It got put on the top of what was formerly the United Artists Building 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 la. And they're overlapping. And this is when we get, Lizzy, what some historians have called the heyday of biblical epics. So you've got the Ten Commandments, King of Kings, Noah's Ark, Ben Hur, Tale of the Christ, the MGM film that would eventually be remade with Charlton Heston that we covered. And preachers 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 Gospel. Sounds completely real. She was called God's best publicity agent. Some historians describe her as the first religious celebrity of the mass media era.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Interesting.

[Chris Winterbauer]

She was kind of like a religious influencer. Right. She was theatrical. She used radio, print 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.

[Lizzie Bassett]

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 that they both love the theater of it all.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Yes, absolutely. So as early as 1913, one New York magazine described Los Angeles as susceptible to, quote, spiritualists, mediums, astrologists, phrenologists, palmists and other breeds of esoteric windjammers.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Nothing changed.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Can we bring windjammers back? That is the best. Also, do you know what phrenology is?

[Lizzie Bassett]

That's not the thing with your skull, is it?

[Chris Winterbauer]

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. Is a seven head. So anyway, there was also the Mazdaznan Mazdaznan Society. They were a cult of sun worshipers 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 for all I know. She also had some interesting ideas, or they did, like free childcare, profit sharing, free public transportation for working people and free trade.

[Lizzie Bassett]

So those are crazy.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Wasn't all bad. I mean for the time, yes. Burner at the stake. Now, the Blackburn cult 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 Mormonism and the Angel Moroni and whatnot.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I'm also. I don't know if you ever watched the Righteous Gemstones, but my favorite sequence in 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 outfit alone is the reason to watch it. But the whole thing is like, I'm only doing this because there will come a payday. Hallelujah, what a payday.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Now, some of these were inclusive. Some of them were antagonistic, like Joe Jeffers of the Kingdom Temple. He said he 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, Catholics and Jewish people in Hollywood. During the 1930s, there was a decent Nazi presence in Hollywood that we discussed briefly on Casablanca, of course. And in the 30s 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 God. They went on a voyage through time and space. They astral projected to visit ancient cities. They explored past lives, and they met guests from Venus. And then they rode 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.

[Lizzie Bassett]

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.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Yep.

[Lizzie Bassett]

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 gonna look for immediately is community, which is something you can always get from religion. And the other thing that they're gonna 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. Are just extremely vulnerable to this kind of organization. It makes total sense that this would be a breeding ground for religions, cults, everything.

[Chris Winterbauer]

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.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yes.

[Chris Winterbauer]

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. 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 1950s, 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 Dianetics. So L. Ron Hubbard, and we've talked about him briefly before Lizzie, but let's dive back in. He was born in Nebraska in 1911, and say what you want about L. Ron Hubbard, and you could say a lot about L. Ron Hubbard. The one thing I think everybody would agree on is the fact that he has an incredible and inexhaustible imagination 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.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I was gonna say his war hero, war crimes.

[Chris Winterbauer]

There's a funny portion in Going Clear where basically he claims he was blowing up submarines, but the reality was he was just killing whales. And the Navy said, you cannot have access to any more depth charges. L. 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 1984 once described him as, quote, virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, backgrounds, and achie. At the same time, it appears that he is charismatic and highly capable of motivating, organizing, controlling, manipulating, and inspiring his adherents. End quote. So Lawrence 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. Those 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 has, 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.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I am a writer, a doctor, a

[Aramco Narrator]

nuclear physicist, a theoretical philosopher, but above all, I am a man.

[Chris Winterbauer]

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 12 years old, he went on a cruise from Seattle to D.C. 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 your mother. 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 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. Was unintelligent. He had a superpower, and that was writing. Writing prolifically.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah.

[Chris Winterbauer]

So, Lizzie, we talked about this when we covered Battlefield Earth. But by the time Tubard's in his 20s, 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 L. Ron Hubbard's name popping up multiple times in one issue. So you got Mr. Spectator, Captain Humbert Reynolds, Rene Lafayette, Winchester, Remington Colt, which is just three guns in a row. 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 quoted, prolific, but a genius nonetheless. As if being prolific was a bad thing.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Right.

[Chris Winterbauer]

He then wrote, quote, just why is it, pray 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. So 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.

[Lizzie Bassett]

He has a Guinness World Record.

[Chris Winterbauer]

He has the Guinness World Record for the most published works by a single author. 1084.

[Lizzie Bassett]

If at first you don't succeed, try 1084 times again.

[Chris Winterbauer]

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 golden age who we've talked about, Robert Heinlein, who would write Starship Troopers. Now he sniffed around Hollywood. We do know that Columbia optioned one of his stories and they made it into a serial movie, the Secret of Treasure Island. But the question is, how did L. Ron Hubbard go from science fiction to fictional science? And to explore that, we got to get into World War II and his history in the Navy. So he served in the Navy and ultimately, after he'd set off a billion death charges, he wound up in the hospital. And medical records show that he greatly exaggerated his condition. L. Ron Hubbard, he was just. He is a fabulist. That's what he does does. According to his diaries, though it seems like he truly believed that he was in a 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 1947 he wrote to veteran to the VA Veterans affairs to ask for help. Quote, 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

[Lizzie Bassett]

aversion to psychology and psychiatry is so interesting because, you know, 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 the board of psychologists or what the deal is there, why he's so afraid of it.

[Chris Winterbauer]

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 fringe crowd. Ordo templi orientis. So this is a black magic cult that traces back to German speaking occultists and then was taken over by aleister Crowley in 1910. The gist of it is this particular sect of this cult was obsessed with the idea of impregnating a woman with the Antichrist.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Basically, yes. And he was based in Pasadena. Hey, shout out.

[Chris Winterbauer]

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 re establish 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 II he is completely destabilized and he is just trying, he's grasping at a lot of different, different straws. So eventually he claims at least that he started volunteering in a psychiatric clinic. And he wrote some letters to Robert Heinlein 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, these physical ailments are in people's heads and I can solve them through.

[Lizzie Bassett]

So it's not like a laying on of hands. It's like these are psychosomatic conditions that I am.

[Chris Winterbauer]

No, he was very much in, as we'll discuss right now, his method, he was adamant, is science, not religion because he's writing a book about this method 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 35 hours just to make sure. That was last month. So now he turns up this afternoon with all A'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 nos meaning mind. I also read it was pulled from the Greek word dianoia, which means intellect. 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 or bring them together. We've gotten close a couple of times. When were those times? Don't worry about it. But I have figured it out. 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 works 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. 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.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I mean, this is not particularly far from Freud.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Exactly. So these subconscious recordings of painful memories he calls engrams, and they cause psychosomatic illnesses. Individuals can uncover, re, experience and refile these engrams via Dianetic 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.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Excuse me. Enough auditing, Chris, with enough auditing, yeah,

[Chris Winterbauer]

you can reach clear. Like you mentioned, Lizzy, it mixes therapy speak with things like transcendental meditation. He is pulling. 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. Dianetics 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. The Modern Science of Mental Health was published in May of 1950, and it stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 28 weeks. It was part of a bigger trend. So Post World War II, there's a large therapeutic culture that's developing that's blending religion with psychology.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Well, but to be clear, this is not being positioned as religion at this point.

[Chris Winterbauer]

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?

[Aramco Narrator]

Seeking, pushing, optimizing, creating, learning, discovering. At Aramco, we believe in harnessing the power of data to push the limits of what's possible. That's how we deliver reliable energy to millions across the world. Aramco, an integrated energy and chemicals company. Learn more about [e-mail].

[Chris Winterbauer]

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, phenomena. And a lot of this was spurred by the discovery of Himmler's research into the occult, you know, during World War II. It's all tied together. But 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 Dianetics 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. So 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 20 hours what psychoanalysis took years to achieve.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah, he's looks maxing self help.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Also, psychiatry was, to be fair, experimenting with some questionable methods including lobotomies and electroshock therapy. Hubbard's also offering certainty. He compared Dianetics to the discovery of fire. He said it's simpler than physics or chemistry, but far more useful and 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 Dianetics into their work.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I mean look in terms of asking you to like basically re experience potentially traumatic memories and to like 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 do. There is evidence to suggest that they work. I don't know that they are entirely original to L. 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.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Yeah. So to be clear, most of the scientific community has rejected Dianetics outright and they did at the time. Lawrence Wright said they saw 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 and science fiction should ultimately begin to internalize the assumptions underlying the verbiage. Dianetics was called a cult, a fast selling mental snakebite remedy, the poor man's psychoanalysis. And it was a major craze. Hubbard traveled the country giving lectures. He would sell $500 professional auditor courses. People started auditing each other at home. This reminds me, later in the 80s 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. F. 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 a quick fix, especially with its persnickety little actors.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Hollywood.

[Chris Winterbauer]

That's right. Your actress is having weird confidence problems. Audit. Ah, your actor is having a hard time with his accent. He needs nodded. One newspaper claimed that three film studios had consulted Hubbard about how to use his method to, quote, make movie stars better than ever. Hubbard 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 Neal come on Patricia auditing one another. He even claimed that dianetics would cut down on Hollywood suicides and divorces. And he hired Richard demille, son of Cecil b. Demille, as his personal assistant. So dianetics burns bright, but it burns fast. If you search for mentions of the word dianetics in California newspapers In the year 1950, you get nearly 2,000 results. In 1951, that drops to just under 1,000. And in 52, it's only 118. And even some of Hubbard's closest supporters, like Don Campbell's brother in law, who was a physician, cut ties with him when they realized that the science behind it wasn't exactly. Exactly formal. Plus, as you know, Lizzie, l. Ron Hubbard 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 going 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, married again. And also all three of his marriages overlapped. Technically, he was a bigamist. He was a serial bigamist.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Well, Chris, are you a bigamist, though? If you are an operating satan, yes.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Still, no rules don't apply. But several articles that debated the legitimacy of dianetics in the early 50s 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 Hubbard 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 20th century. And then a German philosopher who believed in racial hygiene used it again in the 1930s. And Hubbard just said, well, nobody's heard it for a while. I'll use it for my thing right now.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah.

[Chris Winterbauer]

So scientology was not at odds with dianetics. It just expanded it. And this is where we go from kind of pseudoscience self help book into relig the core Concept that's added here is what you just mentioned, Lizzy. The concept of an immortal human soul known as a thetan. 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 electropsychometer or the E meter. Lizzy, could you describe. You just watched going clear. Could you describe the E meter to me?

[Lizzie Bassett]

I can't remember. Are people wearing something when they're.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Yeah, it's like one third of a lie detector test. Basically, you're gripping metal tubes.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Okay. That's right. You grip 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 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 engram. Right?

[Chris Winterbauer]

Yes. The idea is like the higher the reading, the more intense the engram that you're exploring. But what we learn, what we're really getting into or we will get into, is blackmail very, very quickly.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah.

[Chris Winterbauer]

But at this point in time, he's expanding all of these concepts. So engrams now include prenatal memories, AKA sperm dreams, past lives and past lives. This was very popular at the time. 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, like a lot of the Satanic panic was built around.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yes, there are famous. The famous example of this is Michelle remembers during the Satanic panic. If you're not familiar with what that is, very worth looking at. Also, 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.

[Chris Winterbauer]

My point is that, you know, it feels. The way that Hubbard 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.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Sure. And I also want to be clear, if something helps you, I don't care, like, 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.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Let's Talk about those other people. So Hubbard starts giving lectures. In 52, he starts publishing a series of books which would later become the history of man, Scientology 88088 the factors. And he is preaching to acquire this is the most loyal group of his followers. And he needs to turn this into a scalable business. So he introduces the idea of idea of franchising. The idea is basically like satellite organizations are going to pay him for the training plus a 10% tithe, basically so they can practice his techniques. And in 1953, he officially converts Scientology into a religion. Why? For money?

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah.

[Chris Winterbauer]

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 and angle. He even asked his secretary for her opinion. In early 1953, 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, D.C. he encourages franchise holders around the country to convert their Scientology and Dianetics facilities into independent churches. And if you guys have seen the Going Clear documentary, you may be familiar with the Scientology strategy or term fair game. Basically, anytime the church is attacked in any, any way, attack back with force. Think Sean Connery's speech in the Untouchables. And, and Lizzie, you could do a better accent than me, but you know that they pull a knife, you pull a. A gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue. That's the Scientology way.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Great.

[Chris Winterbauer]

So as early as 1955, 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?

[Lizzie Bassett]

Hollywood.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Hollywood. Hollywood was a key part of Hubbard's strategy. In an early issue of Scientology magazine called Ability, he described Project Celebrity. I can't remember if he talked about Project Celebrity during Battlefield Earth.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I think we did.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Just to recap Celebrities are key to the success. 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 influence. 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 no's or clerks or secretaries to intervene in the days, weeks, or months. These celebrities are well guarded, well barricaded, overworked, aloof, quarrel. 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?

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah.

[Chris Winterbauer]

This is a list of published names in this magazine.

[Lizzie Bassett]

And. Sorry, what year is this?

[Chris Winterbauer]

1955.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Okay.

[Chris Winterbauer]

The mid to late 50s. Yeah, 1955. Okay, I'll read some names. Edward R. Murrow. Ed Sullivan. Marlene Dietrich. Orson Wellesley. Ernest Hemingway. Sid Caesar. Liberace. John Ford. Jimmy Stewart. Howard Hughes. I feel like you could have gotten him. Billy Graham. Bob Hope. Walt Disney, Milton Berle, Jackie Gleason, Joe Louis, Vincent Price, Groucho Marx, Darrell zanuck, Cecil B. DeMille, Bing Crosby, Greta Garbo, and many, many more. Definitely. It means many male. And it's very high level.

[Lizzie Bassett]

It's also just a shotgun blast. There's not a lot of.

[Chris Winterbauer]

There's no strategy.

[Lizzie Bassett]

No, there's no strategy. 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, Bob Hope. Like these people that could really legitimize it. Jimmy Stewart. There's certain names on there you're not getting. Marlena Dietrich. Are you kidding? She would rip. Rip your hairpiece off. Like, there's no way.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Even like Pablo Picasso's.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Oh, yeah. Good luck there too.

[Chris Winterbauer]

So the church starts attracting unwanted attention. In 1963, the FDA raided the D.C. church and they seized its E meters because Scientology had claimed they could cure neuroses, psychoses, schizophrenia, and all psychosomatic illnesses. So obviously, if you're going to make a claim that you have a product that can clear, you know you have to get FDA approval.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah.

[Chris Winterbauer]

So as they grow, Hubbard creates a more formal sense system. He's got a PR department. He's got an intelligence system that's investigating the communist criminals that criticize Scientology. We discussed this before, Lizzy. He makes the Sea Org, which is his private navy, but it's basically, you 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, you know, anybody in your life who is not supportive of your endeavors. Again, these are things that are used. Used in multi level marketing, for example, very commonly.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Very common in cults.

[Chris Winterbauer]

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. Right. 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's 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 very manipulative business practices.

[Lizzie Bassett]

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, not a ladder, as you said, you might really like what's in one. And then you get to the next level and. And it's really fucking weird. And then you go, okay, well, I already paid for three of these, so I'm gonna see what the next one is. And then it goes on and on and on. And I don't know if you noticed 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 Pulp Fiction. And I was like, is Quentin Tarantino doing that on purpose?

[Chris Winterbauer]

And the whole idea in Pulp Fiction is that it's Marcellus Wallace's soul right in the suitcase, which is also interesting with the thetan. 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 this does evoke indulgences from the Catholic Church, which was a practice from hundreds of years prior where you could reduce the amount of punishment that you underwent for your 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 corrupt. Something gnarly, as most of these things do. They can start with interesting, potentially helpful ideas or the desire to help yourself or other people. And it can metastasize in kind of gnarly ways.

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[Chris Winterbauer]

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[Lizzie Bassett]

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[Chris Winterbauer]

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[Chris Winterbauer]

Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com. So in part, there is a tendency for key practitioners to break off and start their own sects. So Hubbard introduced also the idea that some levels of Scientology must be kept confidential. So we also get the first world of Fight Club. Don't talk about Fight Club. So the public attention was a double edged sword. Some felt it was doing Scientology more harm than good. But as you mentioned Lizzy 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 67, 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-70s, he really ups his game by assigning his wife to head operation snow, 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. It's crazy.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah.

[Chris Winterbauer]

So at the same time, he's buying historic l. A. Buildings. The chateau lysay. Is that how you say it? Lizzie? That's the celebrity center now. And operation celebrity had started to attract some big names. So Leonard Cohen took classes in York, New Priscilla Presley joined. Jerry Seinfeld took a communication course in the mid-70s, Chick Corea read Dianetics. In the late 60s, he became involved in the church.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Chick Corea is on the album space jazz that is featured as the companion to battlefield earth.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Ann Archer, in 1975. 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 sect or pentecostal sect, and then you move into scientology.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Team Glenn close and fatal attraction. What can I tell you?

[Chris Winterbauer]

Well, Lizzie, who was the big fish that converted in 1975? We just talked about him.

[Lizzie Bassett]

John travolta.

[Chris Winterbauer]

John travolta at the age of 21. This is the same year he gets his big break in. Welcome back, cotter. Vinnie Barbarini. So why were these celebrities attracted to Scientology? We talked about this a little bit earlier, but Jenna Miscavige, niece of David Miscavige, 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. 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, you know, catered 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 it can feel. Even when you're succeeding in hollywood, you really feel like you are one false step away from falling all the way back down to the bottom.

[Lizzie Bassett]

And also, you know, and they discussed 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.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Well, it. And at least it makes it enough of a question. Right.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Which is like, what would happen if I dropped this?

[Chris Winterbauer]

Exactly. Like, you've got this rabbit's paw, you know what I mean? Foot, like, in your pocket. That is Scientology. And you. I mean, again, actors, athletes, anybody who performs, I feel like, is perhaps more superstitious in some ways. Right. We know this. Like, we develop a routine that we don't want to break, and if we do. Oh, that's why this didn't go. Right. And so this plays into that.

[Lizzie Bassett]

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 and 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.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Oh, yeah, that has nothing to do with them. It's just the way the system is designed.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Right.

[Chris Winterbauer]

They're entirely fungible.

[Lizzie Bassett]

At 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.

[Chris Winterbauer]

And bad press can destroy an actor. And so the auditing process, as Lawrence Wright points out, and the church's attitude toward defectors and the fact that, especially under David Miscavige, they film and record these auditing sessions.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah. Sometimes without knowledge.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Exactly. So it 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. Illegal. So in 1979, 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 1980, just before he turned 69, Hubbard went into seclusion. Two years later, he published what Lizzie Battlefield Earth that we discuss, and Space Jazz, its accompanying soundtrack.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Indeed, a space opera.

[Chris Winterbauer]

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, look, this is a fun ride that harkens back to the golden age of science 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 bestseller. The New York Times reported that two Scientology organizations bought 30,000 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 become a movie, but Hubbard would never see it reach the screen. The film rights were purchased, but it wouldn't become a movie until 1999, I believe. As we've discussed in Battlefield Ear and Hubbard died in January of 1986 at the age of 74 at his ranch just outside of San Luis Obispo. He had a stroke in his sleep.

[Lizzie Bassett]

No, he didn't, Chris. He went to a new level of clear.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Well, no, he did. They do say that. I mean, they say that, you know, he will continue his work without his body.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Exactly.

[Chris Winterbauer]

That's the announcement that David Miscavige made. To 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 L. Ron Hubbard. But it has this kind of interesting situation of almost like a dual succession that takes place interest internally. You've got David Miscavige and Lizzy, you know David Miscavige, you just saw him in the documentary. How would you describe David Miscavige to somebody, uh,

[Lizzie Bassett]

scary.

[Chris Winterbauer]

A Tom Cruiseian intensity, perhaps?

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yes, beyond.

[Chris Winterbauer]

In a different way.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah. It's if L. Ron Hubbard, like, look. Does L. Ron hubbard look like Dr. Finkelstein from Nightmare Before Christmas? Yes. But when you watch videos of him there certain warmth to him where I think you could understand how his charisma came into play when forming this religion. David Miscavige is completely devoid of charisma. He's like if you took the darkness behind Tom Cruise's eyes and gave it 0% of his charm, that's David Miscavige. He reads and as so determined, so intent, so deeply sure of himself. He's very scary to watch.

[Chris Winterbauer]

He's a zealot is the way I would describe it through and through. He had been in. He, to be clear, had been a Scientologist since age 11. Miscavige 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 11, and he had been close with Hubbard from a young age. He was, you know, as he would assist him as like an assistant cameraman on some of their, you know, internal video productions, et cetera. In 1986, Miscavige takes over. And this is the same year that Scientology attracts its biggest celebrity yet. Lizzie.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Timmy Cruz.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Timmy Thomas.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Mapathor.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Mapathor. The second or third or fourth Tom Cruise. Can't remember Tom Cruise. He'd been introduced to the religion through his first wife, Mimi 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 10 to 20 years. He developed a close relationship with Miscavige, 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 $30 million to another former. Remember? Although I did read that they appealed and settled that out of the court. And Miscavige was trying to clean up the church's image. So a 91 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 Lawrence Wright, thousands of Scientologists simultaneously sued the IRS and individual IRS employees.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Right.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Which contributed to the IRS eventually granting at Scientology tax exempt status in 1993. The story goes, basically, 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 it.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Crazy.

[Chris Winterbauer]

It's like Miscavige announcing to a stadium full of Scientologists that the war is over.

[Lizzie Bassett]

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. Like, I understand all you care about is the money, but.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Well, you know what he says. It's like you can finally, you will get tax deductions on your donations. You make the scientists. It's interesting. Yeah. It's all about the business.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah.

[Chris Winterbauer]

But then their best soldier goes a

[Lizzie Bassett]

bit MIA because of one tall Australian drink of water.

[Chris Winterbauer]

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, AKA by his very nature, an sp, a suppressive person. So Kidman gets labeled a pts. Potential tall person. Potential Trouble source. So former members claim that there was a coordinated campaign to drive Cruise 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 way a away 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 90s, 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 Cruise and Kidman's marital issues, we will never know. There is an incredible amount of speculation. But we do know that they divorced in 2001.

[Lizzie Bassett]

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 Cruise is secretly gay. And, like, that's the thing that Scientology is hiding. And that, oh, this marriage to Nicole Kidman was entirely arranged. I just want to say that makes zero. I 100% believe that these two were in love with each other. That, like, there's. He had no. 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. Like, I think they. I think they were absolutely real, and I understand the appeal on both sides.

[Chris Winterbauer]

I agree with you. And this brings us kind of. We're coming up now to War of the Worlds and where we're gonna 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 a 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. 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. And there is something solemn and spiritual about it. I find it so fascinating that at this exact moment. So cruise of the 90s, you look at the roles that he's taking, right? And it culminates in 99, with these two fascinating roles in Magnolia and Eyes

[Lizzie Bassett]

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 performers performances.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Two deeply flawed men with shattered ideas of masculinity in very different ways. 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 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 Cruise do everything a hundred times. And I think it broke Top Cruise's brain as an actor. And what I find so interesting then is that if you look at his transition into the early 2000s, he goes back into the fold with Scientology. And almost all of the movies that he starts taking in the early 2000s are big budget action hero movies.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Very safe.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Not all of them, but many. And, you know, we're talking Minority Report, the Last Samurai, Mission Impossible 2. I know collateral's an outlier in that he plays the video villain in that one. His 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 that has so many things to do with the golden age of science fiction, and given his relationship with L. Ron Hubbard. And it makes complete sense that he and Spielberg are going to team up again. But all of the worlds that Cruise 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, that really concludes our coverage of the history of Scientology, how Tom Cruise came into it, and where the organization stood when we were heading into the early to middle 2000s.

[Lizzie Bassett]

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 Kidman 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. Is absolute certainty. If you watch these videos of him being awarded, and this is all after of him on stage with David Miscavige, there will always be a place at that point that he can go where he knows exactly what he's gonna get, and it's gonna 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, if you're someone who is deeply uncomfortable with uncertainty, I totally understand the appeal of what he is being offered by the Church.

[Chris Winterbauer]

And we will get into what he offers in return with our coverage of War of the Worlds on Monday. What Went Wrong is a sad boom podcast presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer. Post production and music by David Bow.