Joe Rogan Experience #1588 - Lawrence Wright

1. 0:02 – 1:25

   Scientology’s staying power and Wright’s brushes with intimidation

   1. LWLawrence Wright0:02

      (drum music plays) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) Well, uh, first of all, a pleasure. I- I've enjoyed your work-

   3. LWLawrence Wright0:17

      Thank you so much.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      ... tremendously. I, I'm a gigantic fear, uh, fan of, uh, Going Clear in particular.

   5. LWLawrence Wright0:22

      Oh, really? I see.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      Yeah, I read the book and-

   7. LWLawrence Wright0:23

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:23

      ... watched the, the HBO documentary on it.

   9. LWLawrence Wright0:26

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:26

       Uh, o-one of the most bonkers things in our culture today.

   11. LWLawrence Wright0:30

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:31

       I mean, amazing that it's, that Scientology is, like, still a th- I mean, I, I passed by the Church of Scientology here just the other day. I was like-

   13. LWLawrence Wright0:38

       Oh.

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:38

       ... "Huh, still works." (laughs)

   15. LWLawrence Wright0:40

       Yeah. (laughs) They, they've just moved it. I ... When the documentary came out, um, some woman had just gone to see it at the movie theater in the, in the, uh, t- it was on The Drag, you know, on Guadalupe across from, um, the university, and she drove her car through the plate glass windows of the Scientology building and she didn't stop there. She drove around the lobby a little bit knocking over bookshelves and stuff, so-

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:06

       (laughs)

   17. LWLawrence Wright1:06

       ... (laughs) she's ... I had to issue a statement deploring violence in any form.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:11

       Was she a, a victim of it? Or ...

   19. LWLawrence Wright1:13

       No. She had just seen the documentary and she was really worked up.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:16

       Wow.

   21. LWLawrence Wright1:17

       So ...

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:18

       That's a hype t- She might have some other issues.

   23. LWLawrence Wright1:19

       Yeah, she might. (laughs) Yeah. Definitely. (laughs)

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:21

       (laughs) Maybe Scientology could've helped her, Iro- ... ironically.

   25. LWLawrence Wright1:23

       Yeah, could've been. There might've been a course for that.

2. 1:25 – 15:51

   Why celebrities and seekers get pulled into Scientology (structure, community, ladder)

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:25

      Well, this ... It's a weird thing when you see so many people that are so successful that are Scientologists. At least, you used to see that. I had a neighbor who was one of the nicest guys and he was a great guy, he was, uh ... in my old neighborhood, and he was a Scientologist-

   2. LWLawrence Wright1:39

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:39

      ... and I found out in the most bizarre way because, uh, there was a, a piece of land that was for sale and he was talking about this piece of land, about possibly purchasing it, but, uh, he was gonna have to put it off because he needed $50,000 because his wife was going clear.

   4. LWLawrence Wright1:57

      Right.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:57

      And it was like, like a scene in a movie where the record skips. Rrrr.

   6. LWLawrence Wright2:01

      (laughs) Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan2:02

      And I went, "What? Like, what are you doing?" And this was me of ... you know, I was probably 28 at the time, 29. I was a ... The, the podcast has radically changed the way I look at things, 'cause I've had a chance to educate myself-

   8. LWLawrence Wright2:19

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan2:19

      ... and have all these conversations with brilliant people and just enough of these conversations where I have a different perspective. But back then, I really didn't know too much about Scientology other than I had bought a book from, um, uh, Dianetics online, 'cause, uh ... not online, rather, uh, on, on television, late night TV-

   10. LWLawrence Wright2:38

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan2:38

       ... in '94, and they wouldn't stop sending me these pamphlets-

   12. LWLawrence Wright2:41

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan2:42

       ... asking me to come to all these various, uh, meetings and this and that and sending me all these things for programs they have and discounts and ... I mean, it j- I was ... In one way, I was kind of a ... I admired their hustle. I was like, "This is cr- These guys don't stop."

   14. LWLawrence Wright2:57

       Right.

   15. JRJoe Rogan2:57

       Like, they just kept sending this shit to my mailbox. I thought it was, like, a self-help book and I would ... Always been into, like, Anthony Robbins and all these different Sci- I've ... I always was into motivation, like, what can I, what can I get that's gonna help me, like, work harder or succeed better, do ... you know, whatever. So I saw this thing and it was like, "Wow, this seems, uh, very compelling," and I knew that there was a bunch of famous people that were Scientologists, like Tom Cruise and all of them.

   16. LWLawrence Wright3:23

       Right.

   17. JRJoe Rogan3:24

       I was like, "Maybe this is, maybe this is legit." And then I was reading it and I was like, "This ... Boy, this is, like ... seems odd. It seems off." And without getting-

   18. LWLawrence Wright3:32

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan3:32

       ... too much into it. So when I had talked to this, um, guy who was my neighbor, really didn't have a deep background in understanding it, but that was the beginning of me, like, really getting into it, like, talking to him and, and finding out, like, how much money he had to spend and what was it about and, like, "What do they do for you?" And they ... He was explaining how nothing would ever influence you again, no negative influence. That's what going clear meant. That was, uh, well, probably one of the first times I had ever heard that expression.

   20. LWLawrence Wright3:59

       Yeah. I ... First time I ran into it was when I was in college and I was, uh ... My girlfriend and I were living in an apartment ab- above this little storefront and, uh, it was Scientology and, uh, I'd never heard of it before and, you know, they, uh, they showed me the, the e-meter and stuff like that-

   21. JRJoe Rogan4:18

       Mm.

   22. LWLawrence Wright4:18

       ... and I just thought ... I thought it was interesting, you know?

   23. JRJoe Rogan4:21

       Yeah.

   24. LWLawrence Wright4:21

       I wasn't put off by it. I was ... You know, um, I thought, "Maybe so." I didn't pursue it. Uh-

   25. JRJoe Rogan4:28

       How old were you at the time?

   26. LWLawrence Wright4:30

       I was 21. 21, yeah. And, uh, you know, it was ... I've always been interested in religions, you know? It's one of the, the, the themes, I guess, of my work and, uh, and why people go into one religion rather ... why they believe one thing rather than another-

   27. JRJoe Rogan4:50

       Yeah.

   28. LWLawrence Wright4:50

       ... because in America you can believe anything you want and, you know, that's not true in a lot of countries, but in our country, there's a smorgasbord of religions you can choose from and if you don't see something, you know, you can make up your own and, you know, it's a very fertile religious culture, uh, which interests me and, and I have ... I've ... as a reporter, I think about how people have strong political beliefs and it doesn't affect their behavior at all.

   29. JRJoe Rogan5:22

       Mm.

   30. LWLawrence Wright5:23

       You know? Now, you know a lot of people like that, I'm sure.
3. 15:51 – 19:37

   Believing the unbelievable: Xenu, certainty, and the promise of eternal life

   1. LWLawrence Wright15:51

      But it i- The reason they do that is to enforce the boundaries of their community. And I think another, another significant part of this is that we look at Scientology and, you know, Mormonism and s- and you might laugh at their, you know, the, the theological construct that their religion is built upon. I think the crazier it sounds, then, uh, you, you, you have to crawl over this huge wall of doubt and misgivings to accept that Xenu, this ruler of, you know, 75 million years ago, you know, sent a bunch of Thetans to Earth in, you know, what looked like DC8s and dropped them into volcanoes where they were exploded by a hydrogen bomb, and their spirits were caught by a net, and then they were set in front of a 3D movie theater, and...

   2. JRJoe Rogan16:49

      (laughs)

   3. LWLawrence Wright16:49

      It takes a lot to swallow that, right? But if you do, if you, uh, at least if you say you do, you go over the wall and you go join a community that's very supportive. And, you know, you have to say, if somebody, "Do you really believe that shit?" "Oh, yes, we believe this." You're reinforcing-

   4. JRJoe Rogan17:10

      Yeah.

   5. LWLawrence Wright17:10

      ... your affiliation with the community. And I think people have a hunger, especially in our time, you know, for strong communities.

   6. JRJoe Rogan17:19

      Yeah, for sure. I mean, uh, we also like questions to be answered even if those answers don't make sense 'cause it removes this, this b- bizarre, th- like, there's a, there's an existential angst to just being alive, just being on a planet that's hurling through the universe. Above us is stars and space, and there's so many questions-

   7. LWLawrence Wright17:46

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan17:47

      ... and we have a finite lifespan. There's, if you really...... start thinking about it, you can kinda freak out.

   9. LWLawrence Wright17:53

      Sure.

   10. JRJoe Rogan17:53

       And if it's really open-ended, if you really don't know what life is, if we really were single-celled organisms that became multi-celled organisms, and we used to be a shrew, and the shrew evolved and eventually became a human being, and we don't even know exactly how all these steps happened, and here we are today. And you don't know w- where it's going, and i- is humanity even gonna make it? And you're not gonna make it, no matter what humanity, you ... I- if humanity dies off, you have a finite lifespan. If you're lucky, you live to be 100. And all those questions are so confusing and scary. And if someone comes along and says, "We have all the answers. Put your mind at ease. We have Xenu."

   11. LWLawrence Wright18:32

       Mm-hmm.

   12. JRJoe Rogan18:33

       "And Xenu has created you, and you got dropped off in a volcano, and you're here today. And all you have to do is follow these steps, and you will be free of all the confusion, and all the emotional stress, and the chaos this is life, that this life has. You don't need psychiatric medication."

   13. LWLawrence Wright18:50

       Right.

   14. JRJoe Rogan18:50

       "You don't need anything. You need us."

   15. LWLawrence Wright18:53

       And also, they offer the prospect of eternal life.

   16. JRJoe Rogan18:56

       Yeah.

   17. LWLawrence Wright18:57

       You know? 'Cause, you know, the idea is that, you know, you are not Joe Rogan, you are a Thetan.

   18. JRJoe Rogan19:05

       Mm-hmm.

   19. LWLawrence Wright19:05

       And you are an eternal being, and you incarnate in different bodies, you know, repeatedly. And so you, you ... They will help you discover your past lives, and they'll also help you, you know, ad- save civilization. So you have a noble purpose and you have the assurance that if you die, you'll keep going, and that's good news. So if, you know ... There's a, there's a reluctance to part with the, the good news that a lot of religions have to offer, that ...

4. 19:37 – 33:35

   Immortality as a serious project: lifespan extension, meaning, and mortality

   1. JRJoe Rogan19:37

      I had this conversation recently with a friend. We were talking about living forever. And they were like, "I wouldn't wanna live forever." I was like, "Well, do you wanna die now?" And they're like, "No."

   2. LWLawrence Wright19:46

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan19:46

      And I said, "Well, do you enjoy life?" "Yes." "Well, I enjoy life. I'm having a great time. Why would you want it to end?" Like, if, if you found out that life right now, like, Lawrence Wright, Jamie Vernon, and I sitting here having a conversation, that this is, this is life, and this just keeps going, it keeps going forever. You meet new people, you go to dinner, you go to see a concert one day when the COVID's up, but it just keeps going. Would you be okay with that? Or do you need an end?

   4. LWLawrence Wright20:13

      Well, actually, Joe, I started a group called the Im- Immortality Working Group, and, um ... 'Cause I'm, I'm, I'm on the side of living as long as possible. Now, I don't wanna be decrepit.

   5. JRJoe Rogan20:25

      Yeah.

   6. LWLawrence Wright20:25

      You know? There, there are, you know, there are things about the possibilities of the end that are pretty awful, and I don't wanna endure them.

   7. JRJoe Rogan20:35

      Yeah.

   8. LWLawrence Wright20:36

      But, uh, you know, the ... One of my (laughs) associates (laughs) in my, my now aging group of immortality-sts ... Is that a word? Uh-

   9. JRJoe Rogan20:46

      It is now.

   10. LWLawrence Wright20:48

       He, uh, he teaches psychology at the University of Texas, and he starts his class by saying, "I'm pretty sure that one, at least one student in this room will never die."

   11. JRJoe Rogan20:58

       Whoa.

   12. LWLawrence Wright20:59

       'Cause he's, you know, on top of a lot of the research that, you know, there are creatures, you know, they tend to be, like, seaweed and stuff like that, they, or, you know. Well, cancer, you know, is immortal, you know, they, these ... You know, their life can be immortal. But in the current construction that we have with our bodies, we're not. On the other hand, in the 20th century, we extended the lifespan of human beings by 30 years, so that's a significant contribution. Um, so there are a lot of things on the horizon. I'm afraid that, for me, it's a little over the horizon, but-

   13. JRJoe Rogan21:38

       You think you, you missed the cut?

   14. LWLawrence Wright21:39

       I th- You know, I'm hoping my children are able to, uh ... And my grandchildren now, you know, are able to ... But I'd like to be among them.

   15. JRJoe Rogan21:49

       Hmm. That, the real question is, uh, what are you missing out on if you don't die, right? Like, if you, if you're a religious person, you think there's something at the end of the line. But even if you're a, a quote-unquote "spiritual" person, or someone who's maybe plunged into some psychedelic waters upon occasion, and you recognize that there's ... I mean, there might be some things that we don't totally understand about this life that we're living in.

   16. LWLawrence Wright22:12

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan22:12

       Like, maybe there is something that all of these cultures, for untold thousands of years, have been speculating about, about a soul, a thing that's not just your physical tissue, and your, your eyes' ability to see what's in front of you, and your ears' ability to hear things. But there's a something inside of you, you know? Have you ... If you've ever seen a dead body, it's the weirdest thing, they feel like they're empty. They feel like empty vessels-

   18. LWLawrence Wright22:39

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan22:39

       ... when you see a dead body. It doesn't just seem like the person's not moving. It's like whatever was in them is not there anymore. Now, is that a perception? Is that something you think of because, you know, you know the person's not gonna move and you know they're gone? Or is there a thing inside of a person? Is there a thing that, that creates whatever consciousness is, whatever, whatever, uh, your embodiment is? Is there a soul? We don't know. I mean, it sounds-

   20. LWLawrence Wright23:06

       We don't know. Yeah. I-

   21. JRJoe Rogan23:07

       It sounds crazy, but life is crazy.

   22. LWLawrence Wright23:09

       Well, (sighs) you know, just, I've, uh ... You know, I've been, you know, assaulted with a lot of mortal thoughts recently. And, uh, you know, sometimes in the morning, when I'm just on the edge of waking, you know, the j- those are the dreams that tend to, you know, still be accessible when you wake up in the morning. And, uh, the other morning, I had a vision of both of my parents in their caskets. And, you know, I agree that there is a sense that, you know, this is an empty vessel and, you know, where, where is the life force that was once my mother and my father? I, I, I don't know.

   23. JRJoe Rogan23:47

       Yeah.

   24. LWLawrence Wright23:47

       Uh, and ... But if you're weighing the prospect of ...... heaven, you know, uh, or some assemblage of souls in, you know, the cloudy, uh, ether somewhere, um, versus the actual pleasure of life itself, uh, when it is pleasurable. I mean, I, you know, as a reporter I can't help but have sp- experienced many people's misfortune. And, you know, there are a lot of lives that I would not want to have spent.

   25. JRJoe Rogan24:25

       Mm-hmm.

   26. LWLawrence Wright24:25

       But, um, you know, uh, I cling to the joy of being alive and, you know, the love of my family and my, you know, my work. You know, those things are incredibly rewarding to me and I don't wanna leave it. So, you know, I'm ... That's why I (laughs) am still looking for the pill or whatever that, uh, will keep it going.

   27. JRJoe Rogan24:48

       Yeah, I've had many life extension experts on the podcast. You know, guys like, uh, David Sinclair and, um-

   28. LWLawrence Wright24:55

       Mm-hmm.

   29. JRJoe Rogan24:55

       ... Aubrey de Grey and a few other folks.

   30. LWLawrence Wright24:56

       Those are the top guys.
5. 33:35 – 47:27

   Hubbard’s mind and the business model: monetized piety and mythmaking

   1. LWLawrence Wright33:35

      Yeah. And, you know, and Scientology had the brilliant idea of ritualizing that and monetizing it.

   2. JRJoe Rogan33:42

      Mm.

   3. LWLawrence Wright33:43

      So, you know, each of these steps that you take to the ... on the bridge to total freedom, as they call it, uh, you ... and you pay very dearly for it, but they're all a notch in your belt and, you know, the higher you go, the more you're valued.

   4. JRJoe Rogan33:57

      That's so str- it's so strange that it doesn't occur to them that it was created by a science fiction author who wrote terrible books.

   5. LWLawrence Wright34:05

      Yeah, (laughs) they are. I mean, he, he has the ... It may not be true still, but he had the Guinness Book of World Records for the number of titles published, more than 1,000.

   6. JRJoe Rogan34:16

      Yeah.

   7. LWLawrence Wright34:16

      Maybe many more, you know?

   8. JRJoe Rogan34:17

      Never had a second draft.

   9. LWLawrence Wright34:19

      Uh, y- you know, he used to ...

   10. JRJoe Rogan34:21

       (laughs)

   11. LWLawrence Wright34:21

       He used to ha- type on butcher paper, on rolls. He would wr- he had an IBM electric typewriter, one of the earliest ones, and he would sit back and close his eyes and start typing.

   12. JRJoe Rogan34:34

       (laughs)

   13. LWLawrence Wright34:34

       And, you know, and the roll would just go through and then when he was done, he'd rip it off and then roll in another sheet and start the next story.

   14. JRJoe Rogan34:42

       So, he didn't look at what he was typing?

   15. LWLawrence Wright34:44

       I- I don't know. Uh, I mean, uh, he ... You know, the legend is, a lot of it is, I think, automatic writing and it reads like that. Uh, you know, he would, he would tell a story-

   16. JRJoe Rogan34:57

       Yeah. Well, you're being very charitable 'cause, uh, automatic writing could be interesting.

   17. LWLawrence Wright35:01

       It could be. And, you know-

   18. JRJoe Rogan35:02

       What he wrote was nonsense. He wrote a lot of, like, really bad fiction.

   19. LWLawrence Wright35:07

       (sighs) Yeah, there's no question about it. And, and-

   20. JRJoe Rogan35:10

       Horrible.

   21. LWLawrence Wright35:11

       But there's one thing I find very interesting about his writings and his, I guess, uh, theology and, and, uh ... I'm not sure what the right word is for the, the organization of the church and so on, and the organization of his psychology. Uh, the whole thing about the thetans and so on. He ... You know, as I said, there were thousands of books. How, how many million pages? No, no telling how many. There's this uncanny consistency to it. There's a unified vision and I think that, you know, if you wanna go in and start picking at, you know, what he said that was wrong, it's pretty much armored against that. You know, there's a ... You know, he, he writ- whatever lunacy was driving his mind-... it made sense to him. And it wa- I think that, you know, Scientology really is just a journey into the mind of L. Ron Hubbard.

   22. JRJoe Rogan36:08

       Hmm. Was ... It was ... He was very much self-medicating in a lot of ways, right?

   23. LWLawrence Wright36:12

       Yeah. He ... (sighs) he, eh, ea- early on, when he got out of the service, and then that's where he really, you know, went into Dian- Dianetics, you know, the whole idea that he cured himself of being blind and lame, when actually, he had conjunctivitis and, um, uh ... He wasn't lame at all, but he checked himself into a Naval hospital and he claimed that they told him, you know, he, uh, he was a hopeless case. And, uh, and he cured himself with these maxims that became Dianetics. Um, all of that came out of, uh, uh ... You know, Dianetics is full of what he says, "Studies show this." In ... There aren't any studies. But they're all things that he imagined, you know, sitting in that Naval hospital. Uh, and he comes up with this, this scheme of self-help, which is really a way of him trying to treat himself. He had asked for ... the VA for psychiatric, uh, counseling and, and they never responded. So he, he sort of was treating him himself. And I compare it to a shaman, in like an Indian, uh, society, where, you know, schizophrenics are in ... are often the shamans, and they are the people that go out, you know, both, uh, actually physically go out on spirit quests, but also, uh, you know, in a, in a ... they go into hallucinations and they come back and they try to heal their community. And I think basically that's what Hubbard was up to. Uh, I, I know I'm giving him more credit than you think he deserves.

   24. JRJoe Rogan37:57

       No.

   25. LWLawrence Wright37:57

       But I think he should be seen-

   26. JRJoe Rogan37:58

       No, no. I think you're r- I think you're very accurate-

   27. LWLawrence Wright38:00

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan38:00

       ... in that way. I mean, I think there's also some deception and th- there's also some fuckery going on.

   29. LWLawrence Wright38:04

       Oh, yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan38:05

       And some just, uh, m-
6. 47:27 – 54:11

   Cults, charisma, and catastrophe: Jonestown’s survivors and the cost of belief

   1. LWLawrence Wright47:27

      Well, what you said made me think of one of the hardest stories I ever did. (clears throat) I did a, an article for The New Yorker about the sons of Jim Jones.

   2. JRJoe Rogan47:38

      Oof.

   3. LWLawrence Wright47:39

      And, uh, not everybody died in Jonestown. Uh, he had three sons, two of 'em were adopted, and they were playing a basketball tournament in Georgetown, Giana- Guyana, and, um ... This, this story took place when I ... You remember the Branch Davidians?

   4. JRJoe Rogan47:58

      Yeah.

   5. LWLawrence Wright47:59

      Now that you're a Texan.

   6. JRJoe Rogan48:00

      Yeah.

   7. LWLawrence Wright48:00

      You know, just up the road.

   8. JRJoe Rogan48:01

      Waco.

   9. LWLawrence Wright48:01

      (laughs) Yeah. Uh, my editor at The New Yorker at the time was Tina Brown and she, uh, she asked me to go, you know, write about the Branch Davidians.And I said, "Tina, there are more reporters than Branch Davidians up there right now." I couldn't... you know. But what... I was... had been watching the news coverage and just before... The place was called Rancho Apocalypse, which is-

   10. JRJoe Rogan48:25

       (laughs)

   11. LWLawrence Wright48:25

       ... turned out to be really appropriate. But they sent... Before the conflagration, they sent out, uh, a, a van with children, you know, who had grown up in this community. And these kids, you know, as they, they drove past the ATF and the FBI lines and then the media line, and you could see these children looking out the windows. They were leaving behind everybody they knew. They were leaving behind the only world they knew, and they were going into what? And I thought, "What happened to those kids? This must have happened... You know, what will happen to those, it must have happened to children elsewhere." And so I started doing some investigation and I found out that, you know, Jones had these three kids. Uh, three young boys. They were... Uh, well, they were young men. Um, and there was Jim Jr who was Black, uh, and then there was Steven and, uh, who was the natural son, and then there was Tim Jones. And, um, for whatever reason, they hadn't talked to anybody and they agreed to talk to me.

   12. JRJoe Rogan49:36

       Wow.

   13. LWLawrence Wright49:37

       Uh, and perhaps it had to do with, you know, the Branch Davidian thing that was going on at that same time.

   14. JRJoe Rogan49:44

       So this was in the early 90s?

   15. LWLawrence Wright49:46

       Yeah, it was 15 years after Jonestown. It was, uh, actually almost exactly 15 years. And, uh, there's a cemetery in Oakland where many of, most of the 900 bodies were buried. And there's... They took a earth mover and, and took a hill down, you know, half of a hill, and then they stacked all the caskets up and covered it again. But it still has this distortion and you can see, you know, what remained of the, the, the Jonestown followers. But it was interesting to me that the people who joined the Jones cult were all good people. They were all... You know, it was started in Indianapolis and then it moved to the Bay Area. And they were largely a, uh, you know, largely Black. Uh, Jones was, uh, very, very progressive, you know, on race, uh, and, uh... But, you know, a lot of, uh, good-hearted people involved in it. And he was a, a big figure in San Francisco at the time, politically. You know, his, his support was sought after. You know, he was admired as a, a community leader. But he was totally crazy and paranoid and suddenly decided he had to remove the entire group. And you can't tell your family, you know, can't tell anybody. You were... You're gonna... Just as... You know." S- He sent his sons down to Guyana to clear the jungle so they could make this village and, um... And then overnight, they move, you know, nearly 1,000 people to South America and leaving behind all their friends, their jobs, and stuff like that. One day, you know, they've, they've been, you know (laughs) , uh, removed. They've been, uh, raptured, you know, off to South America. And so I was interested, you know, that, you know, in learning more about it, but, uh, these, these c- you know, young men were totally haunted. But you would, you would certainly relate to Tim Jones. He was physically one of the, uh... You know, very powerful. You know, he, he curled, you know, 100 pounds with either hand, you know. He... But he couldn't, he couldn't get on an elevator. Uh, the last time he tried to do an airplane flight, I mean, this has been years ago, I don't know if it's changed for him now, but he was... He made the airplane turn around and drop him off at the gate-

   16. JRJoe Rogan52:28

       (laughs)

   17. LWLawrence Wright52:28

       ... uh, which is hard to do. But when you're, you know, as physically overpowering as Tim was, you know, he's, uh, he's kind of a formidable figure. And, um-

   18. JRJoe Rogan52:38

       So he just had all sorts of anxieties.

   19. LWLawrence Wright52:40

       So I went to talk to him and, um, he, he said, "I'll do it on one condition. We have to do it in a public place, you know, a restaurant, someplace where I won't cry. And I want my wife there 'cause I've never told her about it." And-

   20. JRJoe Rogan52:58

       Wow.

   21. LWLawrence Wright52:59

       It's a little hard for me to tell this story because... We went to a restaurant and within (laughs) five minutes, he was crying, you know, and pounding the table, and the waiter was keeping his distance. People in the restaurant were, you know, frightened. And he told the story of going back. He's the one who had to identify 900 people. His r- his natural birth parents, his adopted parents. He had a wife and children then too.

   22. JRJoe Rogan53:33

       Wow.

   23. LWLawrence Wright53:33

       They were all dead. Everybody was dead. And I've never forgotten the power of, of a religious belief in a personality like Jim Jones who could persuade all those people to stay with him, train them in this, you know, suicide drills night after night, you know. And then one day, it's real. And, um, you know, the boys felt guilty because they thought if they had been there, uh, they might have been able to stop it. But probably not.

7. 54:11 – 1:05:47

   From Aum Shinrikyo to biohacking fears: empowered cults in a high-tech era

   1. JRJoe Rogan54:11

      (sighs) Yeah, I mean there's been so many of them. It's almost strange that there's not more. That, you know, you have like the Heaven's Gate, which is a very small cult. You know, you have certain sects of the Moonies that are still active, right? Like, you've, you've -Well, there are a lot... I, I, I... You know, to me, Aum Shinrikyo, that Japanese cult that was... You know, remember the blind yoga instructor and they drank his bathwater and stuff like that? No.

   2. LWLawrence Wright54:47

      Oh, you don't remember it. Well, that's it. You got a lot catching up to do. (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan54:51

      (laughs)

   4. LWLawrence Wright54:51

      But, uh, there were-

   5. JRJoe Rogan54:52

      What was this? What year was this?

   6. LWLawrence Wright54:53

      Uh, it was in the '90s and, you know, Aum Shinrikyo, and, uh, is the name of it, uh, and, uh, there were like 50,000 members in Japan and there are a number of them in Russia as well. But there was a far more dangerous cult than, uh... Well, than... I thought it was more dangerous in prospect than Al-Qaeda, because a lot of these people were engineers and, um, scientists. Uh, they were experimenting with, uh, uh, poisons. They poisoned a lot of people on the Tokyo subway with sarin gas.

   7. JRJoe Rogan55:33

      Okay. Now, I remember this.

   8. LWLawrence Wright55:35

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan55:35

      Now, I remember this.

   10. LWLawrence Wright55:36

       Yeah, yeah. And they were, they were-

   11. JRJoe Rogan55:38

       There it is.

   12. LWLawrence Wright55:38

       ... very adept. And if, if Al-Qaeda had had that kind of expertise, then, you know, they were also very interested in, you know, weapons of mass destruction, as are some of the white supremacist groups right now. But Al-Qaeda I think of, and ISIS, as being religious cults as well. So, you know, I think that the... They're... They continue to prosper and what's alarming is how much more empowered they are now with the, the kinds of weaponry that you can get, the drones, uh... You know, when I was writing about the intelligence community, I got to meet, uh... Who is it in the Bond movies that makes the weapon?

   13. JRJoe Rogan56:28

       Q?

   14. LWLawrence Wright56:28

       Q? I got to meet our Q, but he, he wouldn't show me the good stuff, but...

   15. JRJoe Rogan56:33

       (laughs)

   16. LWLawrence Wright56:34

       But I asked him what he was worried about, and he said the way in which, you know, like, high school kids can create computer viruses now, we'll soon see them able to create actual biological viruses because the technology like CRISPR and stuff like that is so accessible. And, uh, you know, that's a terrifying thought.

   17. JRJoe Rogan56:59

       Mm. Yeah, it is terrifying. It's, it's... I mean, I don't wanna downplay what these people have done and how many of them do exist, but it's almost shocking that there's not more.

   18. LWLawrence Wright57:13

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan57:13

       Because there is this weird... There's a, you know, a small percentage of people that have this strange desire to have a group of followers that unflinchingly just listen to everything they say. There was a guy in Australia recently that was saying he was Jesus. You remember this guy? Do you remember?

   20. LWLawrence Wright57:33

       No.

   21. JRJoe Rogan57:33

       He had a Mary. Like, he even kinda looked like he could be, like when you think of the stereotypical Jesus painting.

   22. LWLawrence Wright57:41

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan57:41

       Like white guy with beard and long hair.

   24. LWLawrence Wright57:42

       Right.

   25. JRJoe Rogan57:43

       He looked like this guy. And, uh, he had this woman that he met and he was convincing this woman that she was Mary, that's her. But then she found out there was another Mary in the past.

   26. LWLawrence Wright57:52

       (laughs)

   27. JRJoe Rogan57:53

       And, uh, another woman that he had called Mary too, but, uh, apparently, he said, no, he'd made a mistake. And people were like, "Wait a minute. Jesus makes mistakes?" Like, you know, you're not... "How do you know this is Mary?" He's like, "No, this one's definitely Mary."

   28. LWLawrence Wright58:06

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan58:06

       "That other one was just a fake Mary. She tricked me."

   30. LWLawrence Wright58:09

       Well, there's a... Have you ever heard of something called the Jerusalem Syndrome?
8. 1:05:47 – 1:11:15

   Religious authority, scandal, and abuse: Catholicism, Boy Scouts, and institutional cover-ups

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:05:47

      The reason why I brought up the Catholic Church is obviously the sex abuse.

   2. LWLawrence Wright1:05:50

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:05:50

      Like, that is one of the strangest religious groups, cults, whatever you wanna call it, ever, that is, uh, so connected to priests abusing children. I mean, y- you say Catholic priest, people automatically, in their mind, think child abuse.

   4. LWLawrence Wright1:06:06

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:06:06

      I can't think of another religion where you can say that of. But it's not that there's not great Catholics.

   6. LWLawrence Wright1:06:12

      No, no.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:06:13

      Like, the Catholic religion, like, in general, like, I know a lot of Catholics that go to church. They're, they're wonderful people. It's not them. It's specifically ...... these priests and how did this culture of these priests not, not just doing it, but getting away with it, getting shipped to different parishes where they didn't know?

   8. LWLawrence Wright1:06:32

      Right. Yeah, no, did you have such an experience when you were in...

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:06:36

      No.

   10. LWLawrence Wright1:06:36

       So, the, uh, y- you know, I was in Boy Scouts, which is now similarly stained by that and I re- regret, you know, what's happened to the Boy Scouts, 'cause it gave me a lot. I loved it. I mean, I, I learned a lot of things in the Boy Scouts I would never have learned otherwise and, uh, and I liked the comradeship of, you know, the other boys and, um, some of the scout leaders were a little peculiar, (laughs) you know.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:07:03

       Yeah.

   12. LWLawrence Wright1:07:03

       But, you know, they were mostly good guys, you know. Uh, I thought about being a scout leader at one point, um, but I'd been a conscientious objector and they wouldn't let me. Uh, so, you know, that didn't happen.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:07:17

       In which war?

   14. LWLawrence Wright1:07:18

       Vietnam.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:07:19

       Oh, okay.

   16. LWLawrence Wright1:07:20

       Yeah, I did two years of alternative service in Egypt-

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:07:23

       Oh.

   18. LWLawrence Wright1:07:24

       ... teaching at the American University.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:07:27

       I was in Scouts. Uh, I was in for one year and, uh, I was in, in a neighborhood in, outside of Boston at the time. I think it's kinda gentrified now, but it was shady as fuck back in, uh, the '80s. It was called Jamaica Plain.

   20. LWLawrence Wright1:07:40

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:07:40

       Actually, it was, I guess it wasn't even the '80s. It was the s- late '70s, um, 'cause I went to high school in '81, so maybe it was '80, maybe it was '79, '80? Either way, um, a lot of criminals. These kids were sketchy fucking kids.

   22. LWLawrence Wright1:07:53

       Really?

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:07:53

       Yeah, they were, they were tying other kids to their cots and leaving 'em in the middle of-

   24. LWLawrence Wright1:07:57

       (laughs)

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:07:57

       ... the woods and doing creepy shit. And, uh, d- they're basically inner city kids having fun with no real authority.

   26. LWLawrence Wright1:08:04

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:08:04

       You know, they leave us all in a room together in, with bunks and kids start plotting things and doing things. But, uh, fortunately, there was no sexual abuse. There was just a lot of, uh, you know, thuggish young kids.

   28. LWLawrence Wright1:08:17

       Romanhousing, yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:08:18

       And, but, also, there wasn't a lot of structure. Like, I remember, I, I just would go... I was into fishing, so I'd just go fishing every day. I would just blow off all their activities and go fishing, and no one seemed to give a shit.

   30. LWLawrence Wright1:08:28

       Yeah.
9. 1:11:15 – 1:29:00

   The Satanic Panic and repressed-memory era: how suggestion created ‘evidence’

   1. LWLawrence Wright1:11:15

      You know, I did a, I did an article in a book later, uh, touches on this in an o- in an oblique way, which was... You remember, uh, the kind of, uh, ritual abuse scare in the '80s, late '80s and early '90s? Uh, satanic ritual abuse? Uh-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:11:36

      Yes, I do. Yeah.

   3. LWLawrence Wright1:11:37

      (clears throat) I had a... My... I was interested in, um... Well, another way of starting this story is my... I was in therapy and my therapist, people that I really admired, uh, they knew I was an investigative reporter and they said, "Well, you know, we're seeing a lot of patients, especially young women, uh, who've been satanically abused and, uh, have, you know, multiple personality disorder."

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:12:09

      You wrote a book about this, right?

   5. LWLawrence Wright1:12:10

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:12:11

      Yeah.

   7. LWLawrence Wright1:12:11

      And, uh, so, you know, you... I thought, "Well, this is, uh, interesting." And, and then one of 'em said, "And Satanists are responsible for 50 murders a year in Austin alone." And I thought-... we never had 50 murders in Austin, you know, total. Uh, so I, I didn't say anything. I just thought it was, it's interesting information. Um, but, uh, yeah, discounted any ... But I, I mentioned it to my editor and, uh, I said I was interested in the multiple personality order, disorder, and this is Tina again, and, um, and she goes, "Oh, that's interesting." I said, "Well, you know, a lot of times when they start questioning, they find out that they had been s- ritually abu- satanically ritually abused." She goes, "Oh, that's hot, hot, hot." (laughs) She was very enthusiastic about it. So then I went to a workshop for cops. And, um, there's another cop who go- was going around the country telling, uh, police and various, and sheriff's deputies and stuff around the country about satanic ritual abuse. And he said they are responsible for 50,000 murders a year in America, and I thought once again, that's more murders than there are in America, you know? (laughs) . And these are cops telling this story to themselves, and so, you know ... And maybe it's true, you know? What year was this? Uh, it's ... I, I think it was '93 that I did this story. So pre-internet? Yeah. Yeah. You couldn't just research this. Before, before the internet exploded. Yeah. Before what we- Right. ... think of as the internet. And, uh, I found this, uh ... There was, you know, thousands of lawsuits and arrests, you know, around the country, but there was only one conviction, and it was for this sheriff's deputy in Olympia, Washington named Paul Ingram. And his daughters had accused him of, uh, raping them repeatedly and bringing the neighbors over and, you know, they had been cut up. They had, you know ... They had children ripped out of their, their stomachs and sacrificed, you know, and, uh, and there were, you know, other deputies in the In- Olympia, uh, department were involved in it and so on. And all of this was, you know, wild, but he confessed to it, and so I thought if there's anything to it, then, uh, you know ... And I went up to Olympia and I spent a lot of time talking to the cops, and you know, uh, trying to piece together what had actually happened. And because there was confession, there was never really a trial. So they never had the cops who were investigating it, who were his colleagues, you know, uh, they, they didn't have to put together a coherent case. What did he confess to exactly? He confessed to raping his children. Jesus Christ. Well, Jesus Christ had something to do with it. (laughs) Uh, because they were all members of this, um, Four Square Gospel Church, you know, and, uh, very religious family. And, uh, the, the idea of Satan was very real to them. Um, and Erica, the oldest daughter, had made this outcry, and, um, so it, it, it started at a, at a, at a religious camp, and then it kind of spread. And then her sister made a similar outcry, and, you know, it got ... And then they started implicating their neighbors, and all this amazing story of, you know, the, the abuse that they had suffered and how many people had been killed. Pretty soon there were helicopters flying around the county looking for, you know, satanic fires, and, and digging up their property, and, uh, and they never found anything, you know? So, you know, I asked one of the cops, you know, "Well, did you find any bones?" "Yeah, we did. Uh, it was an elk bone." (laughs) "Well, that's not exactly ... You found an elk bone? That's the proof?" And so it turned out, uh, one of the cops had taken, uh, uh, these girls in for a physical inspe- inspection, and, um, there weren't any scars. In fact, they were virgins. So there was never any of the thing that they ... All the things they had described had never taken place, and yet Paul Ingram confessed to it because his preacher came in and told him that, you know, God would not allow anything other than real memories to come into his mind. And, uh, a psychologist came in and hypnotized him, and pretty soon he was be- eliciting these, these fantasies. Mm. And so Paul began to, uh, fantasize about what ... And at this point the, you know, the girls hadn't gotten so ripe in their storytelling. Uh, he began telling what, what he visualized, "I can see myself going into Erica's room," you know, and the preacher took that back to the church, and the gossip started, and it gets into the ears of the girls and they start making similar, but not exactly the same sort of statements about what happened. So these memories never coalesced. And anyway, Paul, I think he served 13 years in prison for s- for a crime that never actually occurred. And one day I happened to be in LA, and you remember, since you spent some time there, Aimee Semple McPherson? No. She was an evangelist, uh, a great character in American religious history. She had, uh, she had affairs with Charlie Chaplin and so on. Mm. And she was, you know, really a, a, a huge figure on, on the scale of Billy Graham or something like that, at the time in the '20s. And she started this congregation, and ...... I talked to the woman who was the camp counselor at that church. Um, and I said, "Well, how did, how did Erica make this confession?" She said, "Well, it was a dramatic moment. You know, I had been talking to the girls and I would say, you know, 'I know that one of you here has been abused.' And, you know, I, I can see you in the closet. I see you hiding and I c- you can hear the footsteps coming towards you.'" And some girl, "Oh, it was me, it was me!" You know, and so-

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:19:22

      Oh, Jesus Christ.

   9. LWLawrence Wright1:19:22

      ... she's eliciting these things. And so at the end of the camp, uh, Erica is on the stage and she's just weeping. And she's not saying anything and so one of the counselors called over, Paula was her name, uh, you know, "Come help us, uh, understand what's going on with this young woman." And, uh, she put her hand on Erica's head and she says, "She's been abused." And then she said, "And it's by her father and it's happened many times."

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:19:55

       Oh my God.

   11. LWLawrence Wright1:19:56

       So in the mind of this very religious young woman, the, the message came from God. You know, that sh- she-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:20:08

       (sighs)

   13. LWLawrence Wright1:20:08

       ... she had been abused. And so she made an outcry that it wasn't hers. It was, it was the camp counselor's really that started this whole folly. And what, (sighs) what happened after that, uh, during that period of time, it, these, these kinds of stories took root in, um, daytime talk shows, uh, you know, it was, you know, all over the place, spread to other countries really quickly. Thousands of families were ripped apart by these kinds of accusations. And people like my therapist, brilliant, adorable people, took it on as, you know, their mission was to rescue people like that. And what happened is it drove away people who really had been abused. Their abuse was so insignificant by comparison with these elaborate tales, uh, you know, being, having babies cut up on you.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:21:04

       Oh, Jesus.

   15. LWLawrence Wright1:21:04

       And I finally decided that these were abortion fantasies. I think, you know, the whole abortion disc- you know, discussion, sup- put yourself in the mind of an 18-year-old virgin and, you know, drawn to sexual ideas and yet haunted by the prospect of, you know, abortion and all the stuff that goes into it. The, the fantasies that they elicited were very similar to abortions.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:21:35

       But what, what caused the father to think that he had done these things? Just because of the hypnotherapy?

   17. LWLawrence Wright1:21:42

       I, that was a big part of it, but he went, when he went into his first session, uh, he made two statements. "Well, I don't remember it, but my daughters wouldn't lie."

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:21:53

       Oh God.

   19. LWLawrence Wright1:21:54

       And that's what hung him.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:21:56

       Oh God. There's been a lot of, like, weird cases in the past of people putting memories, particularly in children. Remember there was a, a very famous case of, um, a, um, uh, childcare center.

   21. LWLawrence Wright1:22:11

       Oh, yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:22:12

       Remember that?

   23. LWLawrence Wright1:22:13

       Well, there have been a bunch of them.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:22:14

       Yeah.

   25. LWLawrence Wright1:22:14

       And there was one here in Austin, Fran and Dan, uh, that was, uh, actually I, I attended one of the days of the trial. Uh, it was, there was a, a daycare center south of town. Um, Fran and Dan had operated it for years and, uh, people would go drop their kids off and, you know, pick them up after work. Um, and some, during this period of time when there was this heightened fear of sexual, childhood sexual abuse, uh, some of the parents began quizzing their children. And there were psychologists who would come around with a doll and, you know, it had anatomically correct, you know, and, you know, "Did anybody touch you," you know? You know, sort of-

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:23:05

       Yeah.

   27. LWLawrence Wright1:23:05

       ... suggestive-

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:23:06

       Right.

   29. LWLawrence Wright1:23:07

       ... and so they elicited some stories from these children. And the stories were, "Mommy dropped me off and we flew to Mexico."

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:23:17

       (laughs)

Episode duration: 3:01:04