Aaron Smith-Levin: Scientology | Lex Fridman Podcast #361

Aaron Smith-Levin 0:00 If Scientology was just getting auditing when you wanted, about the subjects you wanted, and you could take it or leave it, that would be fine. It's, it's the fact that it's part and parcel to this entire organization and this entire experience that has, as a part of that experience, taking everything from you, demanding everything from you, controlling who you can speak with, con- controlling who you can have relationships with, who you have to erase from your life. This is where, and it's hard to, it's hard to place one pinpoint on "This is where Scientology goes wrong." It's really hard to do that, because the good parts of Scientology and the bad parts of Scientology are all just Scientology.

Lex Fridman 0:48 The following is a conversation with Aaron Smith-Levin, a former Scientologist, raised in Scientology, and have worked in our organization full-time for many years as a staff member and a Sea Org member, including the job of training Scientology auditors. Today, he educates the public about Scientology on his YouTube channel called Growing Up in Scientology. This is the Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description, and now, dear friends, here's Aaron Smith-Levin.

Lex Fridman 1:21 Let's do a full overview of Scientology, its ideas, how it operates, how it wields its power and influence, and let's start at the very basics. What is Scientology?

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:31 Scientology is a belief system created by L. Ron Hubbard that does fundamentally believe that we are all immortal, spiritual beings called thetans, that we have native godlike potential, that there is nothing more powerful in the universe than a thetan. Like, so godlike is, you know, quite literal here. And that through various decisions thetans have made, they have fallen away from their native godlike power to, uh, fallen down to a state where most thetans aren't even aware that they are thetans, aren't even aware that they ever, um, have lived before or have these powers, and that thetans are now in a state where they're trapped in bodies, trapped here on Earth, uh, trapped in this prison of a physical universe, trapped on this prison of a planet, and that only Scientology can restore a thetan to its native state.

Lex Fridman 2:32 Are these multiple beings? Like is there one thetan inside of me that's trapped in this prison? Uh-

Aaron Smith-Levin 2:38 Well, the than would be you.

Lex Fridman 2:40 The than would be me?

Aaron Smith-Levin 2:41 The thetan is you.

Lex Fridman 2:43 But I'm presumably limited in some fundamental way. So this thetan that is me is, is limited. So there's like eight billion thetans on the planet?

Aaron Smith-Levin 2:52 There's one primary thetan animating each body. Later in Scientology, you learn there's actually like tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of like sick, unconscious, half-dead thetans stuck to you that are-

Lex Fridman 3:07 Oh.

Aaron Smith-Levin 3:07 ... now an additional cause of problems for you.

Lex Fridman 3:10 Sure.

Aaron Smith-Levin 3:10 But fundamentally, at the lower levels, the non-confidential levels, there's just one thetan per body.

Lex Fridman 3:17 I mean, it's an interesting idea. I just would like to kind of explore the philosophy of that. So there's a being that's all powerful, that's immortal, and its projection, its manifestation on this Earth is fundamentally limited, and you're trying to, uh, the process of Scientology is the process of, uh, letting go of those limitations. You know, that's an interesting idea. I mean, a lot of religions have this kind of idea that there's, uh, not just religions, but like, uh, we have the capacity as human beings to do, to achieve greatness in all kinds of ways.

Aaron Smith-Levin 3:52 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 3:52 And that that's the question we have with our cognitive abilities. We start with an embryo and build up and into this organism and like this world of opportunities before us. What are we capable of? And the idea that we're capable of almost anything is a really powerful one, and there's a lot of religions, there's a lot of philosophies, there's a lot of advice, self-help that kind of explore those ideas. And so it seems like with Scientology, this, the application of these religious philosophy means that there's, we're limited and we have to break through those limitations, and there's a process to break through those limitations.

Aaron Smith-Levin 4:25 That would be correct. So what can make it challenging to adequately and completely describe Scientology in the beginning is what Scientologists believe actually changes as they progress further into or further up in Scientology. So, um, the explanations that I've given it is pretty consistent with what you would get at the lowest levels.

Lex Fridman 4:49 Got it.

Aaron Smith-Levin 4:49 Right? You're a thetan, I'm a thetan, everyone's a thetan, and we have a reactive mind. L. Ron Hubbard would say the reactive mind is a collection of, uh, these recordings, mental recordings of any moments of pain and unconsciousness you've ever had in your life. It's like the subconscious mind. Uh, it's always recording in moments of pain and unconsciousness, and that these are called, uh, these recordings are called, L. Ron Hubbard called them engrams.

Aaron Smith-Levin 5:19 Now, when L. Ron Hubbard first wrote Dianetics in 1950, this was before Scientology came along a couple years later, right? So in 1950 when he wrote Dianetics, it wasn't a spiritual endeavor. It was supposed to be a mental health, a science of mental health. So as of that time, the earliest engram you could have was the incident of birth. Being born-

Lex Fridman 5:43 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 5:43 ... was an engram. And, uh, technically in Dianetics, he said you could have prenatal engrams, like when you're still in the womb. But there was no concept of past lives as of 1950 version of Dianetics, right? And so the idea there was that...... uh, the reactive mind is essentially a stimulus response mechanism, uh, created through evolution millions of years ago to protect the individual from things that would harm them. In other words, things that would bring about pain and unconsciousness. So you have these recordings of things that hurt you-

Lex Fridman 6:15 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 6:16 ... create a pain and unconsciousness, and in present time, these things will react upon you, in a way, to cause you to avoid similar things reacting upon you in a, in a subconscious, unconscious way.

Lex Fridman 6:28 So the reactive mind protects you from the trauma that is inside your subconscious mind.

Aaron Smith-Levin 6:34 Yes, and the idea is we've now, as human beings, evolved to a state where it no longer serves us beneficially. It only serves us negatively.

Lex Fridman 6:43 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 6:44 This was Hubbard's theory, and he said, "So you can get rid of these engrams by, you know, basically recalling them and going over them again and again using Dianetics auditing therapy, and if you get back to the moment of birth and erase the earliest engram, all the other subsequent engrams on the chain would vanish."

Lex Fridman 7:01 Oh, nice. So there's a chain.

Aaron Smith-Levin 7:03 Earlier similar, earlier similar, earlier similar, earlier similar. Okay, so that gives you a pretty good understanding of how L. Ron Hubbard thought of the mind because that carries on, has applicability later on in Scientology.

Lex Fridman 7:16 I mean, that's a pretty powerful model of the mind. I mean, Freud had similar conceptions that a lot of our traumas are grounded in sort of, uh, poor formulation of sexuality or imperfect formulation of sexuality in early childhood or something like this, and then we're trying to figure out the puzzle, whatever we formed in early childhood.

Aaron Smith-Levin 7:38 Right.

Lex Fridman 7:38 I mean, it's similar, similar kind of-

Aaron Smith-Levin 7:40 It is similar. That's probably what Hubbard took it from. Um, in the early days of Dianetics, before he decided psychiatry was evil-

Lex Fridman 7:47 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 7:47 ... uh, he actually credited Sigmund Freud with some of the shoulders he was standing on-

Lex Fridman 7:52 Sure.

Aaron Smith-Levin 7:52 ... in writing Dianetics.

Lex Fridman 7:54 So s- the, so he still admired psychiatry at that time. So that's an-

Aaron Smith-Levin 7:57 Yes.

Lex Fridman 7:57 ... interesting moment of Dianetics. So what else? You mentioned Dianetics auditing was there too. So if we just, before Scientology, what, what are the ideas that formed what we know as Dianetics?

Aaron Smith-Levin 8:09 As I've just described them, that is the fundamental.

Lex Fridman 8:11 That is-

Aaron Smith-Levin 8:11 Like, that is pretty much the nuts and bolts of Dianetics.

Lex Fridman 8:14 Was it applied? Was it applied often?

Aaron Smith-Levin 8:16 Oh, yeah. No, that's what Dianetics, in the early days, was all about, was just auditing. Auditing is the process of the one-on-one counseling, recall a moment of pain and unconsciousness, run through the engram over and over and over again, find something earlier similar. That is Dianetics auditing. One of the main things that changed with Scientology is that birth or prenatal engrams were no longer the earliest engrams on the chain.

Lex Fridman 8:35 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 8:35 The idea is you have to get the earliest engram on the chain for the later ones to blow, which is erase.

Lex Fridman 8:39 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 8:40 And so, but all of a sudden now, with the, uh, addition of an immortal spiritual being into the equation, well, now the earliest incident could be trillions of years ago in other galaxies and universes.

Lex Fridman 8:52 Other universes, so before the opening-

Aaron Smith-Levin 8:54 Oh, yeah.

Lex Fridman 8:54 ... of this universe?

Aaron Smith-Levin 8:55 Yes.

Lex Fridman 8:55 Is there a model of physics integrated in any of this?

Aaron Smith-Levin 8:58 No. The model is you have the physical universe, and then above that you have the theta universe. So we used the word thetan earlier.

Lex Fridman 9:06 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 9:07 So in Scientology, they also use the word theta. (sighs) I don't know. Theta is just basically thetan power, thetans collectively. So Hubbard would say you have the theta universe, which is senior to the physical universe and creates the physical universe. And remember I said, I said native god-like potentials. So we're not talking about the god who created the Earth. We're just, like Scientologists don't believe in a god, but we'll get into that later. Uh, we're talking about cre- just creating universes. Like just think of like Matrix. Like just-

Lex Fridman 9:36 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 9:36 ... when I say creating a universe, essentially just creating different thetan simulations.

Lex Fridman 9:40 But it sounds like a little bit more like the ideas of Plato, which is there's these platonic forms. There's abstract forms that are bigger, more general than our particular reality here, and those forms are used to construct the reality.

Aaron Smith-Levin 9:56 Well, I grew up in a cult, so I'm not familiar with the works of Plato. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 10:00 You can't use that as an excuse for everything.

Aaron Smith-Levin 10:03 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 10:03 I would like to, you know, non-jokingly-

Aaron Smith-Levin 10:06 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 10:06 ... steel man the case because a lot of philosophies, a lot of religions, a lot of even scientific endeavors are a little bit full of, uh, uncertainty. You can call it bullshit, but they're, you're n- on sturdy ground because we're surrounded by mystery, and you have to take these ideas somewhat seriously and see where those ideas go wrong. This is the, happens with communism. This happens with capitalism. These ideas sound beau- beautiful in their ideal forms, and then they somehow go wrong, and some go more wrong than others. And so I don't think sort of it's easy to sort of caricature and make fun of the ideas. I think if we take them seriously, you'll start to understand, like when you're in it, it was serious. Uh, it can be very convincing. It's, you know, the, the devil is going to be a charismatic person. He's not going to be a caricature, a ridiculous person. So that, that helps us understand which ideas, uh, will sound appealing but will become dangerous.

Aaron Smith-Levin 11:06 I totally agree. In fact, it's one of the (sighs) thrusts, uh, I have on my channel is wanting to talk about Scientology in a way that would actually resonate with current Scientologists-

Lex Fridman 11:19 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 11:19 ... not just resonate with former Scientologists. I want people who are still in to be able to hear how I talk about it and go, "Wow, he's being really fair-"

Lex Fridman 11:27 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 11:27 "... and really accurate."

Lex Fridman 11:28 Right.

Aaron Smith-Levin 11:28 "He's not just a hater." You know what I mean?

Lex Fridman 11:30 If you look at the, you know, let's t- take one of the worst places on Earth is North Korea. Uh, you have Kim Jong-un, and the reality is there's a lot of citizens of that nation that deeply love the leader because they've grew up in that way and you, I mean, through fear, through all kinds of manipulation, through propaganda and so on, they're not allowed to love members of their own family. They're not allowed to have romantic love. They're only allowed to have love for the leader, and to reach those people, you have to empathize with the fact that, in their eyes, in some sense, this is a great man. This is a god, a messianic figure. You can't just make fun of...... the ridiculousness of the situation, that there's this pudgy person, uh, waltzing around creating propaganda. Like, how is this the-

Aaron Smith-Levin 12:13 (laughs) With a funny hair cut.

Lex Fridman 12:14 With a funny hair cut. Like, it's so easy, Hitler too, to make fun of, to make a caricature of the person, but this is a real person, a real person that influenced the minds of millions of people. In the case of Hitler, uh, you know, tens of millions of people, and, and created a huge amount of suffering, not because of, um, the caricature version, but because he was a charismatic leader. He was somebody that people deeply, deeply loved, and that just over ti- I mean, with, uh, the abuse of any kind of ideology, this s- this happens over and over, and so, yeah, it's, it's interesting because Scientology is so close to the, uh, to, to, to the core of what is America because so many Americans are involved with it, so it's interesting to study the, the beauty and the power of the ideas that underlie it and where things go wrong.

Aaron Smith-Levin 13:05 Yeah. And I'll just say, it's interesting to note, you would never get a representative of the Church of Scientology to sit down and have a conversation with you and even be as fair and accurate about Scientology as I'm going to be, which is, which is noteworthy.

Lex Fridman 13:20 Do you honestly, deeply believe that's the case? There's not going to be a high level official that would sit down for a conversation?

Aaron Smith-Levin 13:29 No.

Lex Fridman 13:30 I disagree with you.

Aaron Smith-Levin 13:31 I hope you're right.

Lex Fridman 13:32 Because I think that given the current dynamics of what's happening, I think in order to sa- from their perspective, in order to save the, the Church of Scientology, they have to, uh, be transparent and authentic, basically steel man their case, but better.

Aaron Smith-Levin 13:47 You would think so.

Lex Fridman 13:49 Well, we'll talk about the other ways you could do that, which is through manipulation, through propaganda, through controlled media, and all that kind of stuff.

Aaron Smith-Levin 13:54 They paint themselves into a corner of not being able to send a representative out into the world to speak honestly about it because you're literally not allowed to. So when faced, you know, if you're s- just sitting down with an entertainment journalist-

Lex Fridman 14:07 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 14:08 ... a representative might be able to fudge their way through an interview, but sitting down, uh, for a long form format-

Lex Fridman 14:14 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 14:15 ... interview with someone who is gonna ask them about Xenu and the body thetans and Leah Remini and Lisa McPherson, that's a no-go zone. So, so I, I'm representing why it will never happen, but shit, I would l- I would tune in for that interview. I mean, I-

Lex Fridman 14:30 You c-

Aaron Smith-Levin 14:30 ... hope you do get someone.

Lex Fridman 14:31 You don't think David Miscavige would sit down for an interview?

Aaron Smith-Levin 14:34 I would love to be wrong.

Lex Fridman 14:35 You know, in general, journalists in these kinds of situations can be, um, can attack in a way that doesn't empathize and doesn't come from a place of deep knowledge and understanding, and I think it's possible to have serious conversations with people like that in an empathetic way, but it's also in a challenging way. I think there's a huge amount of trust required, and obviously, for a s- uh, very secretive organization, the amount of trust, yes, might be too much, uh, required.

Aaron Smith-Levin 15:04 Yes. Anyone over there, if they've done their homework knows, you're gonna be as fair as anyone in the world's going to be. And yet, there's simply things they're not allowed to talk about, and they're not even allowed to say, "I'm not allowed to talk about it."

Lex Fridman 15:16 So that's a fundamental part of the Church of Scientology, is the secrecy.

Aaron Smith-Levin 15:20 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 15:21 So that's where you're trained as you go up through the ranks is secrecy, secrecy.

Aaron Smith-Levin 15:25 It's not even a matter of training. It's that there's an entire, the entire upper half of Scientology's bridge is simply confidential. Uh, I mean, and I never even did those levels when I was in Scientology. I didn't learn what Scientologists actually believe on those upper levels until after I got out of Scientology, and I was fricking born and raised in it.

Lex Fridman 15:42 Let's go there. Let's go to your personal story. So you've spent 30 years in Scientology?

Aaron Smith-Levin 15:47 Yeah, I was four years old when my mom got in.

Lex Fridman 15:50 And then about seven years ago, uh, got out.

Aaron Smith-Levin 15:53 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 15:53 And you're on, what YouTube channel now? And you're an educator.

Aaron Smith-Levin 15:57 So I was four years old when my mom got introduced to Scientology.

Lex Fridman 15:59 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 16:00 And she got in really fast, really quick. Um, so, but, uh, I was 12 years old when I was taken out of school and started officially full time working for Scientology.

Lex Fridman 16:09 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 16:09 Okay, so, um, in various capacities, I worked with them from the ages of 12 to the age of 26.

Lex Fridman 16:15 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 16:16 Okay. So, and then I was 34 when I officially parted ways with Scientology, uh, which was really more them officially parting ways with me, but, uh, we can get into all that later. That's just kind of how Scientology does it.

Lex Fridman 16:29 And what do you do now in terms of Scientology?

Aaron Smith-Levin 16:32 So now I run Growing Up In Scientology the YouTube channel, but what I primarily do is I help run an organization that helps people who are escaping from Scientology. I'm the vice president of The Aftermath Foundation, and, um, we created the foundation after the television show, Leah Remini: Scientology in the Aftermath.

Lex Fridman 16:50 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 16:51 And there was such an outpouring of support from non-Scientologists all over the world, "What can we do to help people leave Scientology?" that, uh, we decided to create a foundation, and, uh, it's been incredibly successful. We've helped people escape from all regions and echelons of Scientology. We, we, we've accomplished, what we've accomplished is far beyond what we actually envisioned would be possible. It's been a huge success.

Lex Fridman 17:16 So we'll talk about the, the negative aspect, the abuses of power, but let's just explore the ideas a little bit more.

Lex Fridman 17:22 Um, so the, the public facing three fundamental truths of Scientology, maybe correct me if I'm wrong, uh, man is an immortal spiritual being, like we said with thetans. His experience extends well beyond a single lifetime, so infinite memory backwards. His capabilities are unlimited, even if not presently realized. The capabilities are unlimited. Are-

Aaron Smith-Levin 17:45 Yeah, God, so that when I say godlike, I really just mean, you know, Thanos, like unlimited. Scientologists don't believe in a god, so when I say godlike, I just mean the most powerful entity, the creator, the, the prime mover unmoved, except we are all that. Uh, you know, a thetan in definition, uh, uh, in Scientology, a thetan has no position in space or time. A thetan does not actually exist in the physical universe. It might choose to locate itself in the physical universe, right, and then forget that it made that decision and then sort of get caught and trapped in the physical universe, but that once the thetan is, uh, restored to its native...... powers. Um, everything you see here in the physical universe is just a thetan playing a game. Like liter- we are in a simulation right now of some thetan. So like physics doesn't have to make sense when we're talking about it this way. Like technically, you're a thetan, I'm a thetan, we're here. But it could, this could also all be another thetan's game.

Lex Fridman 18:40 So thetans all the way down.

Aaron Smith-Levin 18:42 Yeah. It's just thetans everywhere, thetans, it all comes down to the thetan.

Lex Fridman 18:46 Is there an idea of a god? 'Cause I read there's a kinda, there is a sense of a supreme being.

Aaron Smith-Levin 18:52 (inhales deeply)

Lex Fridman 18:52 Is that basically the thetan that's at the core, at the bottom of it all?

Aaron Smith-Levin 18:56 Yes.

Lex Fridman 18:57 What, not per- not defined. Undefined.

Aaron Smith-Levin 19:00 Correct. Scientology has this concept of the dynamics. L. Ron Hubbard breaks life into eight different dynamics, and the a, uh, dynamic, meaning a thrust towards survival.

Lex Fridman 19:09 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 19:09 So he would say, you know, "The first dynamic is you, yourself. Second dynamic is your family. Third dynamic is any other group that you're a part of other than your family. Fourth dynamic is all humankind. Uh, the fifth dynamic is plant and animal life, all non-human life. Uh, sixth dynamic is the physical world. Seventh dynamic is sort of like spirituality, collectively. Thetans. Us as thetans."

Lex Fridman 19:30 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 19:31 "Uh, and the eighth dynamic," L. Ron Hubbard says, "Scientology doesn't deal with the eighth dynamic, but we recognize that people have this idea of a supreme being, and so Scientology says you can call the eighth dynamic the supreme being dynamic, but we call it infinity." Just the all-ness of everything without having to define it. And then they sort of do a little dance and they're like, "Scientology, the purpose of Scientology is to get you to the point where you have your own understandings or realizations about the nature of the eighth dynamic. We don't tell you what you have to believe about that." And technically speaking, that is true.

Lex Fridman 20:05 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 20:05 Technically speaking, that is true. There's no point in Scientology where they sit you down and say, "You're now required to revoke your belief in a supreme being." It's just that everything in Scientology is i- is inconsistent with a belief in the supreme being. You can still find Scientologists who, through cognitive dissonance, will tell you they believe in a supreme being. Mostly they're lying to you.

Lex Fridman 20:23 How's this inconsistent with a supreme being? 'Cause like thetans could be d-

Aaron Smith-Levin 20:26 Because thetans have created everything, not God.

Lex Fridman 20:29 Okay, so thetans created everything. The- they, they're also a creative force. They're not just the force that runs everything.

Aaron Smith-Levin 20:34 Right.

Lex Fridman 20:35 But can't those be just the fingertips of a god?

Aaron Smith-Levin 20:38 Sure. The only way you could reconcile a supreme being is if you say a single supreme being created all theta.

Lex Fridman 20:49 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 20:50 Like the spiritual big bang.

Lex Fridman 20:51 Yep.

Aaron Smith-Levin 20:52 But that's not what most people think when they s- when they talk about God. They're talking about a creator of...

Lex Fridman 20:58 The physical universe.

Aaron Smith-Levin 20:59 Yes.

Lex Fridman 21:00 So there's no theta.

Aaron Smith-Levin 21:01 Right. I mean, even as I've described Scientology so far, none of what I've said is something I even subject to ridicule. This is pretty common sense stuff, actually. I mean, if you believe in spirituality or spirits at all, there's nothing I've described so far that's crazy.

Lex Fridman 21:15 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 21:16 You know. Believing in past lives isn't particularly unique or special.

Lex Fridman 21:20 Right.

Aaron Smith-Levin 21:21 Um, the fact that Scientology does this little dance of pretending to believe in a god, I mean, it's even like a PR line. Scientology representatives will tell you, "You can be a Christian and be a Scientologist." Well let me tell you what. Christians don't believe in past lives, and lives on other galaxies and planets and universes. They, but, and Scientology knows that. Scientology knows you can't be a Christian and be a Scientologist, but they will say that. It's just an example of sort of the fundamental baked-in dishonesty.

Lex Fridman 21:46 Because it's so important to Scientology on the organization level to have tax-exempt status, I wonder, how do you, do you know the process of what it takes to prove that some, that an organization is a religion?

Aaron Smith-Levin 21:58 While going through that process with the IRS, for the second time by the way. Scientology actually had tax exemption in the early days, and the IRS pulled it, and then they got it back in 1993. While going through that process again, the IRS actually took issue with the fact that Scientology was claiming you could be a Scientologist and a member of another religion. The IRS actually said, "Pump the brakes there."

Lex Fridman 22:20 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 22:20 "If you're gonna say that, we're gonna say you're not a religion."

Lex Fridman 22:24 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 22:24 And they actually in- put in writing to the IRS, "No, no, no, no, no. That's not what we meant. That's not what we meant." (laughs) "It, uh, we meant in the beginning you can be both, but eventually-"

Lex Fridman 22:35 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 22:35 "... you just have to be a Scientologist."

Lex Fridman 22:37 So you mentioned the eight, the eight dynamics, but you also mentioned survival. So that seems to be a core principle that, that human existence is about survival. Can y- can, can you elaborate what is meant by survival? Are we talking about the survival of the human species, survival of the individual humans, survival of the, the manifestation of thetans in human form? What, what do we, what's survival?

Aaron Smith-Levin 23:01 So it would be all of that because survival is the pr- uh, the dominant force across all the dynamics. That, I mean, L. Ron Hubbard, it was either Dianetics or science of survival. He, he, he says he discovered the principle upon which all life exists, and that is all life, no matter what it is trying to do. Are you ready, Lex?

Lex Fridman 23:23 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 23:23 It's trying to survive.

Lex Fridman 23:25 That's pretty powerful. That's pretty powerful.

Aaron Smith-Levin 23:27 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 23:28 H- here's a-

Aaron Smith-Levin 23:28 Is it?

Lex Fridman 23:29 Here's, no, I, I gotta tell you. I gotta-

Aaron Smith-Levin 23:30 You might get me back in, Lex. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 23:32 No, I'm not, I'm not trying to get you back in. I'm trying to take you, uh, get you to take seriously the power of the ideas behind Scientology, because-

Aaron Smith-Levin 23:39 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 23:39 ... I think those ideas are not bad ideas. Uh, they resonate with a lot of ideas throughout philosophy, throughout religions, throughout the history of human civilization. The interesting aspect is how it goes wrong.

Aaron Smith-Levin 23:52 But here's the thing, Lex. Here's the thing. It is consistent with prior efforts-

Lex Fridman 23:57 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 23:57 ... or studies. It's just that L. Ron Hubbard said this was a watershed breakthrough, that it was being discovered for the first time. That's kind of what I'm mocking, really.

Lex Fridman 24:04 Yeah, but you can mock Nietzsche for saying, "Man is will to power." You can mo- mock Freud-

Aaron Smith-Levin 24:09 But did he claim to be the first person to ever say it?

Lex Fridman 24:11 Well, Nietzsche is, had a bit of an ego, so...

Aaron Smith-Levin 24:13 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 24:14 Like, and he's full of contradictions, but I'm pretty sure the, the implied thing is that he was the first to-... first to say it.

Aaron Smith-Levin 24:22 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 24:22 There's a lot of scientists. There's, uh, one of the people I really admires is Stephen Wolfram, who, uh, wrote the, uh, a book called A New Kind of Science that explores, uh, com- complex systems and cellular automata and these mathematical systems that have been explored before. But he boldly kind of defined, "I am presenting to you a whole new way to look at the world." And if you just set a little bit of the ego behind that aside, there's actually beautiful ideas in there. They have, of course, been done before and explored before. But sometimes people declare-

Aaron Smith-Levin 24:53 Sure.

Lex Fridman 24:53 ... "This is the coolest."

Aaron Smith-Levin 24:54 That's the only thing I'm really mocking is-

Lex Fridman 24:55 Yes.

Aaron Smith-Levin 24:55 ... he said, "This discovery that life is trying to survive is greater than the discovery of fire." Okay. I mean, it gets a little silly, but that's fine. We can agree that the fact that life is trying to survive has meaning and is meaningful and can be, is valuable and, and it's true. I mean, life is trying to survive.

Lex Fridman 25:10 Also, there's a non-trivial definition of what is life here. So this idea of a thetan, the thing that permeates through lifetimes-

Aaron Smith-Levin 25:18 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 25:18 ... through people. There's some, some fabric that is bigger than individual biological bags of meat. That's a philosophically an interesting idea. Of course, if it's not grounded in a little bit more, uh, of physical reality, then it becomes, uh, a little too woo-woo.

Aaron Smith-Levin 25:35 And the way L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology define survival is very much intertwined with how they define ethics. Ethics, anything, you know, to be ethical is pro-survival, to be unethical is counter-survival. But we were talking about just the concept of the dynamics, like what does survival refer to? And it actually does refer to all of them, but just keep in mind, when it comes to the seventh dynamic, thetans collectively, um, involved in here is the idea that a thetan cannot die. There's no such thing as killing a thetan. A thetan can only, can only survive. And so, um, anyway, uh, this concept of the dynamics is one of the most fundamental and important concepts in Scientology. But, but because I mentioned that it also gets tied up with ethics-

Lex Fridman 26:16 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 26:17 ... and this probably speaks to what you're just talking about is you can have the ideas and the concepts and you can have how do they go wrong, because they hold that Scientology, applying Scientology, getting people into Scientology is the key to basically saving every spiritual being in existence.

Lex Fridman 26:36 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 26:37 When you're analyzing what is ethical, it becomes whatever is good for Scientology becomes, by definition, ethical, because anything that's good for Scientology, which is a third dynamic, is inherently good for all the dynamics. So, that's where you get the ends justifying the means to do any- anything possible and use any means necessary to afford the aims of Scientology.

Lex Fridman 27:00 That's kinda where a lot of, uh, Soviet implementation of communism went wrong, is the ends justify the means. The equality, the justice for the workers, uh, if we have to kill, murder, imprison, censor-

Aaron Smith-Levin 27:14 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 27:14 ... in, in the name of that, then it's, it's for the greater good in the long term to achieve the, the ideal of communism.

Aaron Smith-Levin 27:21 In some respects, Scientology created a near-perfect communist experiment in its Sea Organization. What is it? From everyone according to their ability, to each according to their need, or something like that. Scientology Sea Organization is damn near a perfect communist experiment. Coming from someone who doesn't necessarily know what the perfect communist experiment really is, 'cause I'm not, grew up in a cult, Lex.

Lex Fridman 27:40 You can't keep-

Aaron Smith-Levin 27:40 But if you... (laughs)

Lex Fridman 27:41 ... using that as an excuse. (laughs)

Aaron Smith-Levin 27:42 It's a funny tagline to use in my videos.

Lex Fridman 27:44 Yeah, I like it.

Aaron Smith-Levin 27:44 But like, it, it is interesting that an organization that is so hyper-capitalist and so money-hungry and is known to be very wealthy, at its core, is run by this group of Sea Org members that live a communist lifestyle.

Lex Fridman 27:58 We're gonna jump around.

Aaron Smith-Levin 27:59 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 27:59 Let's go, what is Sea Org? What is Sea Organization? What is this organization?

Aaron Smith-Levin 28:02 The Sea Organization is the most dedicated version, the most dedicated brand of Scientologists. So, there's three, like, echelons of Scientologists. There's public, who just live normal lives in the real world and they pay to do Scientology courses and auditing.

Lex Fridman 28:17 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 28:17 Then there's staff members, who also live in the real world, uh, but work on two and a half year contracts or five year contracts at their local Scientology organization, and then once they finish their contract there, their debt is paid or whatever. And then there's the Sea Org members. These are the guys who sign the billion-year contracts.

Lex Fridman 28:33 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 28:34 They don't have lives in the outside world. They don't own property. They live in Scientology-provided housing. They eat Scientolo- they eat in Scientology-run cafeterias. They-

Lex Fridman 28:41 Is there an actual contract that says a billion years?

Aaron Smith-Levin 28:44 It's symbolic, but yes.

Lex Fridman 28:45 Okay.

Aaron Smith-Levin 28:46 Like, no, it's not a legally enforceable contract. (laughs) They haven't succeeded in enforcing it in any, uh, sub- uh, subsequent lifetimes yet.

Lex Fridman 28:54 Marriage contracts should be like that.

Aaron Smith-Levin 28:55 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 28:55 A billion years. 'Cause then it'd make, not until death do us part, but a billion years-

Aaron Smith-Levin 28:59 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 28:59 ... it really makes it very concrete of what you're signing up for.

Aaron Smith-Levin 29:02 Yeah. Those are the billion-year guys. You hear a lot about the billion-year contract, the billion-year contract. That's the Sea Org. And, and, uh, all of Scientology management, international management, middle management, continental management, and even some lower level service orgs, are one, composed 100% of Sea Org members. You're not allowed to marry or date someone who's not in the Sea Org. Uh, you're also not allowed to have children.

Lex Fridman 29:27 With anybody outside of Sea Org, or in general, you're not allowed to have children?

Aaron Smith-Levin 29:29 Sea Org members are not allowed to have children unless they leave the Sea Org. If you, they're, you're expected to, uh, have an abortion and stay in the Sea Org, 'cause it's the greatest good for Scientology. If you accidentally get pregnant.

Lex Fridman 29:40 Interesting, 'cause it distracts from the focus of the work.

Aaron Smith-Levin 29:42 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 29:43 What about sexual relations?

Aaron Smith-Levin 29:45 Only once married, but that's why people get married after like three days. You know, like, "Hey you, you look-"

Lex Fridman 29:50 You, are you-

Aaron Smith-Levin 29:50 "... you look all right. Let's get married." (laughs)

Lex Fridman 29:51 Are you allowed to have divorce?

Aaron Smith-Levin 29:53 Yeah. You get divorced a lot in the Sea Org. Uh, I've known people who get married and divorced three times b- by, like, by the age of 25.

Lex Fridman 29:59 Oh, wow. Okay.

Aaron Smith-Levin 30:00 Because g- in the Sea Org, getting married is practically like dating.

Lex Fridman 30:03 Right.

Aaron Smith-Levin 30:04 Also, unless you're married, you're living in dorms with a bunch of other people. So, in order to get your own room, you also have to get married. So, there's many benefits.

Lex Fridman 30:12 Oh, wow. Okay. So, uh, you mentioned communism. W- in which way, 'cause there, is there a hierarchy inside Sea Org? Is there a redistribution of, um...... influence, position, money, power inside a Sea Org?

Aaron Smith-Levin 30:28 Everyone in the Sea Org makes $50 a week.

Lex Fridman 30:30 Everybody?

Aaron Smith-Levin 30:31 Except David Miscavige, but ...

Lex Fridman 30:33 Right.

Aaron Smith-Levin 30:33 And, and some, uh, some posts might have a cash bonus incentive structure, but fundamentally, their pay is $50 a week. So, so even the head of a big Scientology organization is getting 50 bucks a week.

Lex Fridman 30:49 Are celebrities also part of Sea Org, or no, not usually?

Aaron Smith-Levin 30:51 Mm-mm.

Lex Fridman 30:52 So this is really the management layer.

Aaron Smith-Levin 30:53 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 30:54 (sighs) So what's the idea behind $50 a week, is that basically live a humble life?

Aaron Smith-Levin 31:00 They don't have to give you anything at all. It's just cons- Oh, you mean, like, what's the idea behind not paying?

Lex Fridman 31:05 Yeah, basically not paying.

Aaron Smith-Levin 31:07 Everything you need is already being provided for you. You're not here for the money. You're working all the time anyway. It's not like, you don't have days off. I mean, you're, you're, you're working all the time. There's, there's not, it's, there's no concept of the weekends. There's no, "Ooh, thank God, it's Friday." Friday's just another day.

Lex Fridman 31:21 And how are the position, the tasks, the jobs, uh, allocated within the Sea Org?

Aaron Smith-Levin 31:26 What do you mean?

Lex Fridman 31:26 Like, like what kind of tasks you're doing, what kind of ...

Aaron Smith-Levin 31:29 Mm.

Lex Fridman 31:30 ... stuff you're doing?

Aaron Smith-Levin 31:30 It's very similar to just any other, um, business, as far as you can have your human resources, you can have your sales, you can have your accounting, your operations, your quality control. It's just that in Scientology, your operations is delivering courses and auditing. So ...

Lex Fridman 31:44 Got it.

Aaron Smith-Levin 31:44 Your operations and your quality control are where most of the activity occurs as far as delivering Scientology, and then you've got your, you'd call it business development, but that's just bringing in new members, right?

Lex Fridman 31:56 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 31:57 So the, the, the function of a Scientology zor- organization is very, uh, very comparable to a, a normal business in the normal world.

Lex Fridman 32:08 So let's talk about the products of this business, auditing and courses. So what's auditing?

Aaron Smith-Levin 32:13 So auditing is, uh, so we described earlier Dianetics auditing. Scientology auditing is, um, very similar to that.

Lex Fridman 32:19 So at first glance, it, it looks like psychotherapy, a kind of therapy.

Aaron Smith-Levin 32:24 All Scientology auditing is going to look like that. It's one-on-one talk therapy. Uh, you're in a, a room by yourselves, no distraction, no noise.

Lex Fridman 32:35 One-on-one?

Aaron Smith-Levin 32:36 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 32:37 So like this?

Aaron Smith-Levin 32:38 Yeah. But, and in Scientology, they have what's called an e-meter. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 32:42 Right.

Aaron Smith-Levin 32:42 Almost all auditing employs the use of an e-meter.

Lex Fridman 32:45 What's an e-meter?

Aaron Smith-Levin 32:46 So an e-meter is a device that just measures the resistance to a small electrical flow.

Lex Fridman 32:53 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 32:53 Except Scientologists believe that this e-meter can be used to simply direct the progress of an auditing session, to determine whether, uh, the auditing has reached a good, satisfactory conclusion.

Lex Fridman 33:07 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 33:08 Uh, all auditing sessions have to end on a satisfactory conclusion. Like, that's the job of the auditor. There's, you don't just, it's not like, "Sorry, the session sucked. See you next week." It's not like that. Every auditing session has to end, um, on a positive note. And if it doesn't, uh, there's corrections to be made. So ...

Lex Fridman 33:27 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 33:27 Um, the e-meter ...

Lex Fridman 33:28 What does it look like, visually? Like ...

Aaron Smith-Levin 33:30 Oh, you can pull it up. Pull up Mark VIII, e-meter Mark VIII.

Lex Fridman 33:35 So there's a few dials.

Aaron Smith-Levin 33:36 Yep.

Lex Fridman 33:38 There's, uh, basic information about time and duration, I would presume, and then a dial that just goes zero to something.

Aaron Smith-Levin 33:45 Okay, so let's say that the meter's in front of me, and you're the one holding the cans.

Lex Fridman 33:49 I'm holding the cans. So you're inter- you're doing the auditing of me?

Aaron Smith-Levin 33:52 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 33:53 Okay.

Aaron Smith-Levin 33:53 Okay.

Lex Fridman 33:53 I'm holding the cans. (laughs)

Aaron Smith-Levin 33:54 No, literally, in the beginning of an auditing session, when you're calibrating the sensiti- s- sensitivity of the e-meter, you do a, a can squeeze. So I go, "Squeeze the cans, please."

Lex Fridman 34:01 Okay, so I'm just like squeezing the cans.

Aaron Smith-Levin 34:03 Yep, and I'm just changing the sensitivity, 'cause when you squeeze the cans, I wanna get about a one-third of a dial drop on the needle. The idea is you don't want, if the needle's too sensitive, then every time you shift around in your chair, the needle's gonna bounce all over the place. So you're trying to set the sensitivity of this thing. And that's all, the, the, the knob there on the bottom to the left, that's the sensitivity knob, and that determines just, uh, how much, how sensitive the needle's gonna be. And the, the bigger dial is called the tone arm, and that is changing, uh, I wanna say voltage or current, but I'm not, and ten- I'm gonna get, one of those words is wrong, right?

Lex Fridman 34:36 But it is a real device.

Aaron Smith-Levin 34:38 It's a real device.

Lex Fridman 34:39 That you can actually calibrate, uh, to probably, you know, get an outcome that you want?

Aaron Smith-Levin 34:46 Yeah, so here's even how just, how a Scientology auditor believes it works.

Lex Fridman 34:50 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 34:51 You're holding the cans. There's a tiny little battery in that e-meter that's sending an el- you're completing this circuit when you pick up the cans, right? So you got a little thing going there, and that needle will respond to your physical movement, but that's not what we want. We want you to sit the hell still so that we can read this thing when I'm asking you questions. Okay?

Lex Fridman 35:07 So you're sitting there still, very still.

Aaron Smith-Levin 35:10 As still as you can.

Lex Fridman 35:11 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 35:11 Comfortable, right? And I'm gonna go, "Is there something you're withholding from me?"

Lex Fridman 35:15 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 35:15 And what I'm looking for is, right when I say, at the end of "me," I'm looking for the needle to dip to the right.

Lex Fridman 35:20 Having a needle, even if it's kind of random, can really be like, um, a catalyst for a conversation.

Aaron Smith-Levin 35:27 That's what it's used for, except it's an enforced conversation.

Lex Fridman 35:30 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 35:30 So I'll give you a really good example of this. So you're holding the cans. I say, "Is there anything you're withholding from me?" And I get an instant read, and I go, "Is there anything you're withholding from me?" You're gonna go, "I don't think so."

Lex Fridman 35:44 And I don't see the needle as-

Aaron Smith-Levin 35:45 No, you don't see the needle.

Lex Fridman 35:47 Okay.

Aaron Smith-Levin 35:47 And I go, "Well, what did you think of when I asked you the question?" Now, if you've already had a lot of auditing, you know how this goes. It means I got an instant read, and we're not going ...

Lex Fridman 35:55 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 35:56 ... to move on until this question gets resolved. Okay, so you're gonna go, "I don't know what I was thinking of." And then I'm gonna, I'll be like, "Well, take a look," and I'll help you out here. I'll try to steer you. Okay, so I'm looking to get roughly the same read while you're thinking about whatever.

Lex Fridman 36:09 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 36:09 I mean, what was that? What was that right there?

Lex Fridman 36:11 And you can start digging to what? You can start ...

Aaron Smith-Levin 36:14 I just want an answer to the question.

Lex Fridman 36:15 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 36:16 Okay?

Lex Fridman 36:16 And I can go to memory?

Aaron Smith-Levin 36:18 Yeah, and you can give me any answer you want. There's no way for me to know if you're giving me the right answer, but I want you to give me something.

Lex Fridman 36:23 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 36:24 If you say you can't give me anything, I'm gonna keep using the e-meter until you give me something.

Lex Fridman 36:27 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 36:28 Okay, so let's say you give me something.

Lex Fridman 36:29 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 36:30 I'm gonna get all the details about that, and until, like, time, place, form, and event, I wanna know everything that happened. I wanna know all the details. And by the way, I'm writing all this down, so I'm taking notes of everything you're telling me that's a bad thing that you did that you haven't told me about, okay? So I'm keeping notes. When you represent to me that you've told me everything there is to tell, I'm looking for the needle to give, like, a smooth back and forth motion like this.

Lex Fridman 36:52 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 36:53 And Scientology calls that a floating needle. That means, in Scientology land, we're done with that. So now, I might go back to check the question. "Okay, good. I'll check the question again. Is there anything you're withholding from me?" Ooh, if I get another read, we gotta go through the process again. Okay. If you tell me, "I've told you everything," and I don't get a floating needle, I've gotta go, "Okay. Is there an earlier similar thing? Have you basically done an earlier similar thing? Is there an earlier similar time you haven't told someone something, or is there an earlier similar thing that, that you did to the thing that you just told me?"

Lex Fridman 37:22 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 37:23 We're gonna keep going earlier similar, earlier similar, earlier similar until I get a floating needle. And that's where, um, how, explaining it this way, you can see how, no matter what the specific auditing session happens to be about, there's still the potential in any auditing session that you're going into past lives.

Lex Fridman 37:39 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 37:40 Just because you have to go earlier similar until you get a floating needle. Okay. Now, here's how Scientologists think the E-meter actually works, meaning, why does the E-meter work? So we, we talked before about these, um, these mental pictures, right? These recordings.

Lex Fridman 37:56 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 37:56 Okay. Well, we spoke about engrams, just recordings of pain and unconsciousness. Well, Scientology would hold the, the bad recordings aren't the only recordings that you have. Those are just the recordings in your reactive mind.

Lex Fridman 38:09 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 38:09 You also have an analytical mind, which is just your conscious memory, conscious recording of everything from present time to the last 76 trillion years.

Lex Fridman 38:17 Yep.

Aaron Smith-Levin 38:19 And Hubbard would say that these memories are actually a perfectly detailed recording. I think he says, like, 56 perceptions or something. And that it's perfect, and you can access that information. You just have trouble doing so. Okay, so he says that these recordings, these mental pictures, have actual electrical charge and mass. Now, you asked before, is there any actual physics in this? I don't know. Where are you supposed to store the pictures of your last 76 trillion years that have charge and mass? I don't see it. But Hubbard says it's there. Okay. So he says that these things have mass, and when you recall them or put attention on them, you create an electrical flow, which maybe through magnetic fields or whatever, impinges upon the electrical flow of the E-meter.

Lex Fridman 39:07 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 39:07 And it shows up as a read on the needle. That's how Scientolo- that's how Scientologists believe that's why the needle reads.

Lex Fridman 39:14 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 39:15 Now, cynics would say the needle only reads on palm sweat and movement. Well, I know that's not true.

Lex Fridman 39:22 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 39:23 Right? I can't tell you everything the needle does read on, but I can tell you it's not just moving your hands and sweaty hands.

Lex Fridman 39:31 It does correlate to thoughts probably.

Aaron Smith-Levin 39:33 Some way, somehow.

Lex Fridman 39:35 'Cause if it didn't correlate to thoughts, then this process would be way, (laughs) way too inefficient. 'Cause you would, it would be too... There, there, there's going to be a bunch of people who are just not...

Aaron Smith-Levin 39:44 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 39:44 You're not gonna get the, what is it called? The floating needle. Like, no matter what.

Aaron Smith-Levin 39:49 I can't explain to you how you get a floating needle, but it sure as hell isn't hand sweat, and it sure as hell isn't squeezing the cans.

Lex Fridman 39:56 Right, so you eventually, most people will get to the floating needle, and somehow-

Aaron Smith-Levin 39:59 You get floating needles.

Lex Fridman 40:00 There's, like, a feed-, there probably is a feedback mechanism that you, each person realizes how their mind and body...

Aaron Smith-Levin 40:08 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 40:08 'Cause you want a resolution, right? It's probably-

Aaron Smith-Levin 40:10 You want your needle to float.

Lex Fridman 40:11 For both people.

Aaron Smith-Levin 40:12 Yes.

Lex Fridman 40:13 And it's probably a great experience when you're like, "Yes."

Aaron Smith-Levin 40:15 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 40:15 It's like a gamified feeling, right?

Aaron Smith-Levin 40:17 Well, when you're training on how to use the E-meter, there are drills where you practice g- generating with your mind-

Lex Fridman 40:23 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 40:24 ... various needle reactions. So you know, there is a drill where you sit there and you consciously try to create a floating needle by recalling happy thoughts.

Lex Fridman 40:31 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 40:31 Go to your happy place. And at the end of every auditing session, you actually have to go to an, uh, a third party, sit down in front of an E-meter, and verify that your needle's floating.

Lex Fridman 40:39 Nice.

Aaron Smith-Levin 40:40 Every single auditing session not only has to end on a floating needle, but then, you have to go to someone else and have the floating needle verified.

Lex Fridman 40:45 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 40:46 Any Scientologist who's, uh, a seasoned recipient of auditing knows how to make their needle float at the examiner. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 40:53 But I gotta be honest though, this process, again, sorry to be sort of going there, but, um, it feels like this is a very, uh, rigorous talk therapy session. Is there good aspects to this?

Aaron Smith-Levin 41:08 Sure. A lot of people find auditing very helpful. I mean, I've heard some describe it as quite thoroughly addictive.

Lex Fridman 41:14 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 41:14 Me personally, I never enjoyed getting auditing. That's probably more a function of having been raised in it, and it was never something I wanted to do.

Lex Fridman 41:21 Sure.

Aaron Smith-Levin 41:21 It was something that was forced on me as a child, you know? And also, I was never... I don't like talking about private secret stuff.

Lex Fridman 41:26 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 41:26 Like, you kinda, you kinda have to want to be an open book-

Lex Fridman 41:30 Sure.

Aaron Smith-Levin 41:30 ... to, to honestly and thoroughly participate in an auditing session.

Lex Fridman 41:34 'Cause there's not necessarily a belief that this is gonna be private.

Aaron Smith-Levin 41:38 There's no expectation of privacy, but there's no expectation that your stuff's gonna be leaked for blackmail either. I mean...

Lex Fridman 41:44 You kinda...

Aaron Smith-Levin 41:45 You trust the people in the organization.

Lex Fridman 41:47 Even despite rumors and stuff like that? But the rumors are coming from people that are lying to you, essentially.

Aaron Smith-Levin 41:54 If you're a Scientologist and you're participating in an au- participating in an auditing session, you know that anyone in the organization is, has the ability to know the stuff that you talk. It's not like, "Oh my God, I'm only telling my auditor 'cause I think no one's ever gonna know."

Lex Fridman 42:08 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 42:08 You know that people know.

Lex Fridman 42:09 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 42:09 But you also trust the organization.

Lex Fridman 42:11 How quickly does it go to past memories?

Aaron Smith-Levin 42:14 For people who are seasoned, like, they actually like going past life.

Lex Fridman 42:19 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 42:19 I, I hated it. I would make sure... I was really good at making my needle float. I didn't wanna have some auditor... 'Cause I never believed in the p- past life memories.

Lex Fridman 42:26 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 42:27 So I didn't wanna be in that impassable s- you know, reach an impasse in an auditing session where I was being asked for something I couldn't provide, 'cause I knew this auditing session has to end on a good point.

Lex Fridman 42:35 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 42:36 But Scientologists enjoy...... for the most part, going, they call it whole track. Whole track is past life. Going whole track. Your time track, they call it the time track, is your whole memory.

Lex Fridman 42:45 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 42:45 But whole track refers to anything past life.

Lex Fridman 42:48 Okay.

Aaron Smith-Levin 42:48 So going whole track or deep whole track with high reality, meaning it's not like, "Oh, I have a fuzzy memory and I'm not sure if it's real." Like your real seasoned Scientologists are like, "Oh yeah, I was on this planet."

Lex Fridman 42:59 Oh.

Aaron Smith-Levin 42:59 "At this time, circling this star."

Lex Fridman 43:00 So before the-

Aaron Smith-Levin 43:01 "And this is what I was eating for breakfast."

Lex Fridman 43:02 Fascinating. Before the origin of life on earth, or bef-

Aaron Smith-Levin 43:05 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 43:06 So w- so billions of years ago, on a distant planet, what you were eating for breakfast.

Aaron Smith-Levin 43:11 Or other universes.

Lex Fridman 43:12 I wonder if there's an e- nice shortcut to sneak up to actual trauma that happened to you, as a therapy device. I just f- so putting Scientology aside, it's just, I'm thinking about, as a technique for therapy, discussing, basically, you know, some people have trauma, and one of the things you do with therapy is like bring the trauma to the surface, that's stuff that happened to you in childhood. Maybe it's a more convenient thing to do to kind of map that in directly onto a fictitious telling of what happened to you, something like that trauma on a distant planet elsewhere.

Aaron Smith-Levin 43:47 Uh.

Lex Fridman 43:47 Could be, could be a nice way to sneak up to it.

Aaron Smith-Levin 43:49 Yeah. And it goes both flows there, not just things that have happened to you, but things that you've done.

Lex Fridman 43:53 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 43:54 So, you know, you could be being asked for, you know-

Lex Fridman 43:57 Sure.

Aaron Smith-Levin 43:57 ... you'd be going back to in, "I, I wiped out a civilization. I, I-"

Lex Fridman 44:00 Oh, wow.

Aaron Smith-Levin 44:00 "... committed genocide on, uh, this race on this planet."

Lex Fridman 44:03 Oh, wow.

Aaron Smith-Levin 44:04 Oh, yeah.

Lex Fridman 44:05 So you can actually take on a whole new guilt?

Aaron Smith-Levin 44:07 Oh, yeah.

Lex Fridman 44:08 So I, uh, okay. All right, you might actually take on a lot more guilt than let go of. (laughs) 'Cause if you feel like that self-critical aspect of the brain, boy, 'cause I'm, my brain is really self-critical, so I could see myself manufacturing, if I was forced to over time-

Aaron Smith-Levin 44:25 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 44:26 ... some kind of story where I did genocide a whole population of like Pluto or something in a diff- distant, somewhere in Alpha Centauri.

Aaron Smith-Levin 44:33 Yeah, so I mean-

Lex Fridman 44:34 Now, and now I walk around with that guilt.

Aaron Smith-Levin 44:35 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 44:35 "Wait, I'm actually a horrible person."

Aaron Smith-Levin 44:37 So imagine, though-

Lex Fridman 44:38 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 44:38 ... if you had, not only are you looking at, you know, if, so, if someone's being self-critical, trying to identify destructive patterns of behavior in your present life, but what if you really internalize the fact that, "I haven't only been this way for 40 years."

Lex Fridman 44:51 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 44:51 "I've been this way for 40 trillion years."

Lex Fridman 44:53 Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 44:54 But Scientology would argue that, as a thetan, you're inherently good. All thetans are basically good. So the, the goal of the auditing procedure there would be essentially to figure out, find the moment, find what it was that caused you to make that shift as a being, to dramatize, you know, evil intentions and stuff like that. So even if you're going whole track, looking at all the horrible things you've done, the goal is to find like, "Well, what happened just prior to that? What was like the prior confusion, and what, what did you misunderstand just before that?" And whatnot. So the goal is basically, so Scientologists, after a lot of auditing, are also convinced that they have fixed-

Lex Fridman 45:37 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 45:38 ... the reason for any non-optimum conduct.

Lex Fridman 45:42 And underlying this is a belief that, at the core, we're all good.

Aaron Smith-Levin 45:46 Yes.

Lex Fridman 45:47 There's a lot of really powerful ideas in Scientology.

Aaron Smith-Levin 45:49 It's true.

Lex Fridman 45:49 Which is so interesting that it goes wrong.

Aaron Smith-Levin 45:52 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 45:53 Okay. Uh, what about the training? You mentioned the, the training of the auditor. That's really interesting.

Aaron Smith-Levin 45:57 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 45:57 So what's, how lengthy is that process?

Aaron Smith-Levin 46:00 It can take years.

Lex Fridman 46:01 I mean, one of that question I wanna ask is, are people in Sea Org, like as an auditor, do you believe everything? How much, um, is there a crisis of faith that creeps in? In religion, you have a crisis of faith when you start to wonder, like, does God even exist? So in this case, how often do you start to doubt that some of the core beliefs of Scientology are false?

Aaron Smith-Levin 46:26 Scientology would say that Scientology is not about beliefs. It's about a- application of the techniques of Scientology auditing to improve someone's spiritual awareness and ability. So the belief level of Scientology is pretty much the stuff we've already discussed.

Lex Fridman 46:42 The effectiveness of the auditing process.

Aaron Smith-Levin 46:43 So the effectiveness of the auditing process, this is one of the things Hubbard says, is that standard tech, standard Scientology, they call it the tech, the technology of how to deliver auditing, standard tech-

Lex Fridman 46:53 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 46:54 ... works 100% of the time when applied 100% correctly. Well, that's kind of unfalsifiable, right?

Lex Fridman 47:01 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 47:02 'Cause anytime it doesn't work-

Lex Fridman 47:03 It wasn't applied correctly.

Aaron Smith-Levin 47:04 Exactly. That's a nice little, uh, escape hatch to pull on having a crisis of faith. "Well, it didn't work." "Well, then obviously it wasn't applied correctly."

Lex Fridman 47:14 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 47:14 That's where quality control comes in. Their job is to nitpick, and you can always find one thing that wasn't done correctly.

Lex Fridman 47:21 Communism, uh, didn't work because it wasn't implemented correctly. It's the, it's always, it's always, it's always an escape hatch with ideologies.

Aaron Smith-Levin 47:29 That's right.

Lex Fridman 47:30 For sure.

Aaron Smith-Levin 47:30 That's right. I would probably argue that auditors, um, are not in a position of having many crises of faith, 'cause actually, they're usually seeing people, for the most part, improve in some ways i- through the process of auditing. Now, auditing can create like a state, somewhat of a euphoric state. You feel great. You're just blown out of your head, you know? You feel f- you're on top of the world. I've had that in some of my auditing.

Lex Fridman 47:56 As an auditor, sorry, or as an auditee?

Aaron Smith-Levin 47:57 No, as the person receiving auditing.

Lex Fridman 47:58 Okay.

Aaron Smith-Levin 47:59 And so my point is that as an auditor doing a lot of auditing, you know, you're gonna have someone in front of you called the p- the pre-clear is the person in front of you who's getting the auditing, called the, the PC or the pre-clear. They see over and over and over again these PCs having these sort of euphoric states and floating needles and, "I feel great and fantastic. Oh, thanks, you saved my life," and da-da-da-da-da. Like, uh, I've always said, if Sciento- if people didn't find Scientology helpful, nobody would ever stay in Scientology.

Lex Fridman 48:23 Right.

Aaron Smith-Levin 48:23 Right? And so auditors are pretty much the ones doing the heavy lifting of what it even means to be a Scientologist. Th- tho- those guys aren't the ones that you end up, um, having crisis of faith. I mean, doing Scientology auditing, it doesn't require that you belie- just have faith that you believe something. You just have to go through these motions. And Scientologists, one of the reasons Scientologists think this is all scientific is 'cause it's like, "I don't care if you believe why this works. I care how you feel at the end of an auditing session."

Lex Fridman 48:50 Mm-hmm. And empirically speaking-... you, like anecdotal data is it actually seems to improve people's lives within the context. So taking the outside world out of it, within this particular organization, you're actually measurably seeing improvement.

Aaron Smith-Levin 49:07 Yes.

Lex Fridman 49:07 Is that, so is that to some degree real? Because like if you look at a book like Animal Farm, where the pigs start to rule the other animals, and over time, the life of the animals gets worse and worse and worse, while the pigs keep saying that it's actually getting better and better and better. Again, communism, same thing. The, the rationing was getting worse and worse and worse, less and less food, but there's constant reporting, uh, that there's more and more food. "We're, we're winning," hashtag.

Aaron Smith-Levin 49:34 I would argue that what you've just described, it, it could be an identical description of what it feels like and what it means to go up Scientology's Bridge to Total Freedom.

Lex Fridman 49:42 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 49:43 Y- you are reinforcing to yourself that everything's getting better and better and better, and, and you'd be like, " (inhales sharply) You don't spend time with your family anymore."

Lex Fridman 49:51 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 49:51 You're broke, even though you make a lot of money. You're always stressed. You, you're at the beck and call of these people who seem to run your, run your lives. Like how a Scientologist feels about their own life is, um, it's very interesting to compare that to how that person's life looks to their non-Scientology family members.

Lex Fridman 50:11 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 50:12 I get contacted by a lot of people who've never been in Scientology.

Lex Fridman 50:16 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 50:16 But they're like, "I got a family member who's, who's really deep, and I just ... Can you help me understand some things? Why is this person's life like this? Why is this person's life like this?" So, um, I, I don't wanna say that Scientologists do not actually ... I don't wanna say, "Oh, it's all in their heads. They think they're being helped, but they're really not." That doesn't feel honest, you know? But it's this thing where if Scientology was just getting auditing when you wanted, about the subjects you wanted, and you could take it or leave it, that would be fine. It's, it's the fact that it's part and parcel to this entire organization and this entire experience that has, as a part of that experience, taking everything from you, demanding everything from you, controlling who you can speak with, con- controlling who you can have relationships with, who you have to erase from your life. This is where ... And it's hard to, it's hard to place one pinpoint on, "This is where Scientology goes wrong." It's really hard to do that, because the good parts of Scientology and the bad parts of Scientology are all just Scientology.

Lex Fridman 51:24 Yeah, so there is definition of what is bad for you, and it's probably, in the beginning, is bad for you. Um, y- this almost just sounds like a template of a toxic relationship. You know, you, there's a bunch of stuff in this world that are just not good for you, so the, uh, the authorita- the authoritarian says like, "I'm just protecting you by blocking you off from those negative things." And they're probably neg- they are probably negative things, but then this like, uh, this freedom starts closing in to where you can't no longer speak freely, think freely, act freely, and there, there's some ... I mean, that's why sort of power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The person doing the controlling actually starts getting that like dopamine rush of the controller that's exciting, and it's a vicious negative cycle.

Aaron Smith-Levin 52:12 Right.

Lex Fridman 52:12 So you start out as a ... It starts out good, 'cause you're trying to do good for the person. Um, but then it somehow goes to shit.

Aaron Smith-Levin 52:21 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 52:21 So what, what, uh, what are the aspects that just, that are often controlled about, about a person who's in Scientology, especially Sea Org?

Aaron Smith-Levin 52:29 Well, information control, access to the internet, access to any information critical of Scientology.

Lex Fridman 52:35 Is some internet access allowed?

Aaron Smith-Levin 52:38 Public Scientologist has no restrictions to their access to the internet. They're just not allowed to read anything critical of Scientology.

Lex Fridman 52:48 Oh. Okay, so they're self- they're supposed to self-control what they read or not. And what's the explanation? Is, is it always assumed that anything critical of Scientology is a lie?

Aaron Smith-Levin 52:59 Mm-hmm. They really push this thing that, uh, unless you've been in a Scientology organization yourself, or unless you've actually been a Scientologist, you couldn't possibly know the truth about Scientology. If you're only getting information from people who aren't members or former members, then you couldn't possibly be getting the correct information. Now, they, they don't realize the math there doesn't make sense.

Lex Fridman 53:23 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 53:24 If you can find out the true information by becoming and being a Scientologist, then that means you can get the correct information from a former Scientologist because they traveled that path and they got the correct information.

Lex Fridman 53:34 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 53:35 So they still create this un- well, they try to create this unfalsifiable loop, where unless you are personally doing it, you don't have correct information. And you go, "Well, what about the people who did personally do it, got the correct information, left, and are now sharing that with others?" "Well, no, those are lies." "Well, okay, so, so just anything you don't like is a lie, then?" And you go, "Yeah, pretty much. That's kinda how it, that's kinda how it works."

Lex Fridman 53:58 So what about the control of negative information on the internet?

Aaron Smith-Levin 54:02 Uh ...

Lex Fridman 54:02 What, like the actual operations? I, I, I, I've, you know, preparing ... I, I should admit, I don't know too much about Scientology, and I was doing a bunch of reading, and the Wikipedia page on Scientology, interestingly enough, is not that negative about Scientology. Um, so like it made me ask ... You know, you have to be a little bit careful how you consume stuff from Wikipedia. You have to consider, because money can buy things there, there's, there's certain special interests and so on. But like it made me wonder like, like with a lot of controversial topics, what is true, and where do I look? Uh, where do I go for truth? So like how much sort of deliberate action is there to control what is true on the internet by Scientology?

Aaron Smith-Levin 54:43 Well, these days, they've pretty much, I think, thrown in the towel, but-

Lex Fridman 54:45 They have.

Aaron Smith-Levin 54:46 ... the Scientology middle management was (laughs) editing Wikipedia so often from IP addresses that were traced back to the Scientology buildings that, uh, Wikipedia locked them out from a- any IP addresses associated with Scientology from being able to edit it. It's like ...... is Scientology was so infatuated with trying to control the information, and in the early days of the internet, they had a, a certain degree of success with that. They just, it's just hopeless these days.

Lex Fridman 55:10 It's the scale, the scale is not there.

Aaron Smith-Levin 55:11 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 55:11 But actually, I'm very surprised how, uh, bot farms, how effective they can be at a very small scale.

Aaron Smith-Levin 55:17 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 55:17 If you just pay 100 people to sp- spread narratives. Uh, but the, the, the, the bad stuff, the, the reason that's effective is you can kind of create conspiracy theories that create chaos and nobody knows what is true, that, bot farms can do. But actually really nicely control a narrative is hard.

Aaron Smith-Levin 55:38 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 55:39 So to create chaos, it's easier to do. To c- to basically say, like, um, you know, do PR control is very hard. Yeah, so the, especially, uh, on the internet, especially when the critical eye is there.

Aaron Smith-Levin 55:53 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 55:53 The internet s- can smell bullshit, which is one of the really, really powerful thing about the internet.

Aaron Smith-Levin 55:57 And I gotta tell you, it- it's one of the reasons I do my YouTube channel. It's one of the reasons I, I decided to upload every day. I've uploaded every day for the last six months.

Lex Fridman 56:04 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 56:04 I just wanted there to be a nonstop flow of information of any kind and any variety, as long as it's fair, and balanced, intelligent, interesting, that Scientologists who stumble upon the internet will go, "Oh, look. Someone's talking about my thing. Let's see what they got going on." And, and, "Oh, uh, I know this guy." The fact that Scientology crushes so much information, uh, before, before YouTube, before, like, I have the only, like, big Scientology channel, and that only got big in the last six months.

Lex Fridman 56:36 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 56:37 Okay, so before that, there were channels, there was things, but it's almost like it took a lot of, uh, like people felt like it had took a lot of bravery and courage to, like, say something o- on the internet about Scientology. And so people would pop up, and there weren't very many voices, and I was like, "I want this to be prolific." I want, I wanna be prolific. I want to have 30 or 40 other channels being prolific so that Scientology couldn't possibly successfully control the narrative about it.

Lex Fridman 57:04 Have you been personally attacked?

Aaron Smith-Levin 57:05 AaronSmith-Levin.com is a website created by the Church of Scientology. Have you seen it?

Lex Fridman 57:10 No. What kind of content is on there?

Aaron Smith-Levin 57:12 Oh, Aaron's ab- abusive father, and a horrible husband, and the worst staff member we've ever had, and-

Lex Fridman 57:18 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 57:18 ... um, oh, I openly talk about it, because I think the fact that Scientology even does things like that is fucking hilarious.

Lex Fridman 57:25 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 57:25 And, uh, anything they try to do to me, I'm, uh, I, I, the way I think about it is you know you're just giving me an opportunity to turn the mirror back on you and show everyone how horrible you are.

Lex Fridman 57:35 Does it stick?

Aaron Smith-Levin 57:36 No.

Lex Fridman 57:37 So you find that they're as ineffective?

Aaron Smith-Levin 57:39 It's completely ineffective. They're so over the top, and, um, well, I'll tell you how the website even came into being.

Lex Fridman 57:45 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 57:45 So I was on the first season of Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath. Every single person who participated in that show got a website. (laughs) It's just that everyone else's website is, like, whoismarkheadley.com, whoismikerinder.com. Well, I bought whoisaaronsmithlevin.com, but I was too stupid to buy Aaron, I didn't buy aaronsmithlevin.com. So I'm actually the only one who has a website in their name.

Lex Fridman 58:11 Oh, nice.

Aaron Smith-Levin 58:12 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 58:12 (laughs)

Aaron Smith-Levin 58:12 And I'm like-

Lex Fridman 58:13 Dot com.

Aaron Smith-Levin 58:13 ... could probably get a lawyer to, to get it back for me, but I'm like, "Why?" I want everyone to see what a nasty, petty, disgusting organization that this is, and nobody believes anything Scientology says anyway.

Lex Fridman 58:24 Does the general public know that it comes from Scientology?

Aaron Smith-Levin 58:27 Pull it up. It says right on the bottom, "Copyright 2000," whatever, "Church of Scientology International." Like, they didn't even try to hide it.

Lex Fridman 58:34 So aaronsmithlevin.com?

Aaron Smith-Levin 58:36 Yeah. "A man with-"

Lex Fridman 58:37 That-

Aaron Smith-Levin 58:37 "... no moral compass."

Lex Fridman 58:39 "Aaron Smith, who is he really? Aaron Smith-Levin: a man with no moral compass. Read about Aaron Smith-Levin's, an angry man spreading hate from, from the internet's shadows."

Aaron Smith-Levin 58:51 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 58:51 "Open mouth shot." And you're saying, like, at the ba- wow, there's a, there's testimonies.

Aaron Smith-Levin 58:56 Oh, there's videos from former coworkers.

Lex Fridman 58:59 "The slightest thing just sets him off, and he just goes totally nuts." Well, that one is true. I- I didn't understand why you slapped me before the interview.

Aaron Smith-Levin 59:07 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 59:07 I felt that-

Aaron Smith-Levin 59:07 Love that it's got links to everyone else's website on the bottom. It's so funny.

Lex Fridman 59:11 Who is, okay, Leah Remini-

Aaron Smith-Levin 59:13 But look, like, "2021 Church of Scientology-"

Lex Fridman 59:15 ... Aftermath.

Aaron Smith-Levin 59:15 ... "International, all rights reserved." Here's an example of just Scientology's complete lack of self-awareness.

Lex Fridman 59:19 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 59:20 So me and Mike Rinder, we went halfsies on, like, a house flip project, right? You know, we were ki-

Lex Fridman 59:23 Wait, Mike Rinder?

Aaron Smith-Levin 59:25 You know Mike Rinder.

Lex Fridman 59:26 Do I?

Aaron Smith-Levin 59:27 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 59:27 You gave me a, a bobblehead of the guy. Um, I don't, I don't know him. I was just, uh, I would like to talk to you about him, but this, uh, there's a very fine gentleman here with a bobblehead.

Aaron Smith-Levin 59:39 The reason we cre- did the bobbleheads-

Lex Fridman 59:40 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 59:40 ... is because on Mike Rinder's hate site-

Lex Fridman 59:42 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 59:43 ... Scientology created a, a jif or a gif. How do you say it? What's the right way to say it?

Lex Fridman 59:46 The correct way is gif.

Aaron Smith-Levin 59:48 Gif, good.

Lex Fridman 59:48 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 59:48 Scientology created a gif of Mike Rinder as a bobblehead. They, it was an insult, like, "Oh, all he does is sit next to Leah Remini and go, 'Yes, Leah! Yes, Leah!'" And so they, they made a gif of him with a bobblehead.

Lex Fridman 59:58 I see.

Aaron Smith-Levin 59:58 So we were like-

Lex Fridman 59:59 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 59:59 ... "We're gonna make Mike Rinder bobbleheads, and we're gonna sell him on thespshop.com to raise money for The Aftermath Foundation."

Lex Fridman 1:00:05 I love it.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:00:06 Yeah, and now that I've got-

Lex Fridman 1:00:07 So go out and buy (laughs) a Mike Rinder-

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:00:09 (laughs) Yeah, go to thespshop.com and get yourself a Mike Rinder bobblehead.

Lex Fridman 1:00:12 Oh.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:00:12 Now, look, now that my profile's getting a little higher, this head was made to bobble. Like, this-

Lex Fridman 1:00:16 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:00:17 ... this smooth, shiny head, uh-

Lex Fridman 1:00:19 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:00:19 ... needs its own bobblehead now. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:00:20 It does. It 100% does. I can't believe it doesn't exist.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:00:23 So, but let me show you.

Lex Fridman 1:00:24 Okay.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:00:24 So here's what's happening here. We just hired some day, day laborers off of, what, like, Craigslist or something?

Lex Fridman 1:00:29 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:00:31 So what Scientology did was they had a private investigator stake out the, the house flip project.

Lex Fridman 1:00:38 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:00:39 They were clearly running license plates of anyone who visited the property, because otherways- otherwise, how would they find out the laborers' names, look, do background checks on them-

Lex Fridman 1:00:48 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:00:48 ... to find out they had criminal records? And they publish this as if it's gonna nec- reflect negatively on me.

Lex Fridman 1:00:54 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:00:54 "Oh, we hired someone to do work who had a criminal record?" Who gives a shit? Do you know one of the biggest problems people with records have is finding employment?

Lex Fridman 1:01:02 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:01:02 There's nothing bad about hiring someone who's got a criminal record to, it doesn't reflect negatively on me.

Lex Fridman 1:01:07 But-

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:01:07 But it shows you what they think about those people. It shows you what they think about people who are trying to put their lives back together, and maybe, you know, actually work for a living, and it also shows that they're surveilling us. Like, the, like, they don't realize that putting this up, they're publishing information that they could only have if they're surveilling me and Mike, and it doesn't occur to them, "Maybe we shouldn't put that out."

Lex Fridman 1:01:29 Just the general process, sad to say, of journalism, where they're looking for any kind of dirt, and it's, they're trying to conjure up a story, and there's something about drama and negative stories that get clicks and so on, so this is a general process. The more, especially the more of a celebrity you become, the more these kinds of attacks come, and they, they look for any kind of thing that could be, you know, it doesn't even have to be facts. It could be just asking, "Who is he really?" seems to have traction on the internet.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:02:00 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:02:00 What is the actual truth of the man you, you keep claiming you are, of the good man you keep claiming you are?

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:02:08 Right.

Lex Fridman 1:02:09 It's fascinating. Uh, but sometimes, that can be effective, uh, but I think if you're being transparent and authentic and just putting yourself out there completely and your story completely, then that's the best way to fight it.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:02:20 That's the other reason to be prolific on the internet, right? The reason Joe Rogan can't get canceled is because anyone can watch thousands of hours of the authentic Joe Rogan. You can't misrepresent him 'cause he's spent thousands of hours representing himself genuinely.

Lex Fridman 1:02:35 Yeah. The nice thing, when you're representing yourself genuinely, you should be a good person. So if you're, if you're a good person, then the internet will know.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:02:44 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:02:44 They can smell out the bullshit.

Lex Fridman 1:02:46 Who is David Miscavige? Let's, let's even, like ... 'cause y- you said L. Ron Hubbard founded Scientology.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:02:51 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:02:53 Let's go to the story of how we transition from that to David Miscavige.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:02:58 The current leader of Scientology, uh, he was actually not selected by L. Ron Hubbard to take over, but ended up usurping power and taking over.

Lex Fridman 1:03:05 This sounds like Stalin and Trotsky and communism.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:03:07 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:03:08 Similar story. It's the, it's the person, oftentimes in these situation, uh, it's not the natural s-successor to power.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:03:18 Mm.

Lex Fridman 1:03:18 It's the one that takes power.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:03:20 Right. I think the quote, sometime it gets attributed to David Miscavige, is, um, "Power, power is not given, it is assumed."

Lex Fridman 1:03:28 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:03:28 Something like that. The last six years of L. Ron Hubbard's life, he was off in a seclusion, essentially hiding from lawsuits. Now, by the time Hubbard went off into seclusion, Miscavige had sort of already risen up through the ranks of the Sea Organization. Now, Miscavige was, like, a teenager, either, like, 11, 12, 13, or something like that. Miscavige was not born into Scientology, but he was a young, a young boy when his father got into Scientology.

Lex Fridman 1:03:52 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:03:52 Okay? So, um, Miscavige did start working as a Sea Org member. So there's one organization that existed to essentially serve Hubbard directly.

Lex Fridman 1:04:01 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:04:02 And to represent his interests, and that was called the commodore. He was the commodore of the Sea Organization. The Commodore's Messengers Organization, we're gonna call it the CMO. Miscavige started working for the CMO, um, pretty early on in his Sea Org career. By the way, as did Mike Rinder.

Lex Fridman 1:04:15 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:04:16 Mini Mike. Okay? (laughs) And so, uh, he just became n-known as a, as a doer, like a, a guy who'll get it done. No excuses, no stops. You know, get it done. So he had made a name for himself in the CMO around the time, by the time Hubbard went off into seclusion. Now, when he went off into seclusion, he took two other CMO, or I'm gonna call them messengers, right? Commodore's messengers.

Lex Fridman 1:04:41 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:04:41 He took two other messengers with him, Pat and Annie Broker. Now, it has been said by people, Mike, Mike Rinder has told me, he goes, "The reason Pat and Annie went off with LRH isn't necessarily because he desperately wanted them to, but partly because we could afford to let them go. We didn't necessarily-"

Lex Fridman 1:05:00 Sure.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:05:00 "... need them."

Lex Fridman 1:05:00 Sure.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:05:00 Okay. And between the two of them, Annie was the one who was, like, a really compassionate person, intelligent person, caring person.

Lex Fridman 1:05:08 Was there a possible trajectory of this world where she was the one that took over?

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:05:12 Yes. In fact, uh, Pat and Annie Broker were the two people that were supposed to take over.

Lex Fridman 1:05:18 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:05:18 Okay? But because Pat and Annie were with Hubbard in seclusion, Miscavige basically had the complete run of the operation without any oversight from Hubbard. The only way any information would get from Scientology world to Hubbard-

Lex Fridman 1:05:36 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:05:36 ... is Miscavige and Pat Broker would meet at a confidential location-

Lex Fridman 1:05:39 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:05:40 ... and Miscavige would give Broker any information he wanted to go to LRH. So if Miscavige wanted to get rid of somebody, all he had to do was feed LRH false information that this person was doing, had been caught doing something treasonous.

Lex Fridman 1:05:51 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:05:52 And then, he would get, in response, some order from L. Ron Hubbard to get rid of this person, having to ... So are, are there so many similarities between various communist regimes-

Lex Fridman 1:06:03 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:06:03 ... and fascist regimes?

Lex Fridman 1:06:04 Well, H-Hitler did the same thing when he, uh, became the supreme leader. He had to take power, yeah. He had to wait for the president to die, but the whole, the whole time, there's a control of information, and, and a slow aggregation of power. Of course, with nations, it's different, 'cause if you control the military, you control a lot, so there is, you have to also get g- the generals on your side and so on, but I'm sure, in this situation, there is similar kind of dynamics. You have to get certain people on your side, control the flow of information, uh, let the original founder, the original leader die off.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:06:36 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:06:37 And make sure that you are the one that's left with the power.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:06:39 Right. So whereas Pat and Annie are off with LRH, all of Scientology's attorneys and accountants and lobbyists and whatever, they all know Dave. Dave's the one they deal with.

Lex Fridman 1:06:51 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:06:52 So, you know, LRH passes away. Pat and Annie make this appearance. Nobody knows Pat and Annie. Everybody knows Dave. And so, he ended up getting rid of Pat and Annie. This is a very short, perhaps slightly bastardized version of it, of Miscavige basically ... They had been, they had been, um, ushering just suitcases of cash-... to L. Ron Hubbard during this time, and you know, Pa- like so you have Miscavige handing boatloads of cash to Pat Broeker. (sighs) Pat would do crazy things like hide the money in the walls of houses and dig pits and everything. So, uh, Miscavige basically threatened to turn Pat Broeker over to the IRS for tax evasion. That's par- Pat Broeker is still alive.

Lex Fridman 1:07:36 Is he a Scientologist or no?

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:07:38 No. He basically went away and kept his mouth shut.

Lex Fridman 1:07:41 What about Annie?

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:07:41 She died a handful of years ago. She stayed a loyal Sea Org member until the very end.

Lex Fridman 1:07:46 Okay.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:07:46 But literally, like M- M- Miscavige put her on menial tasks, like, like she had no authority whatsoever. She was just put on menial tasks. I, I mean, uh, w- washing dishes, but not really. Groundskeeper. Just, just stupid low level assistant, paper pusher stuff. She never, uh, she never operated with any actual authority, even though she was supposed to be the one to take over, her and Pat.

Lex Fridman 1:08:08 So David Miscavige, difficult question, but can you make, uh, both the case that he is a good man who is misunderstood, and the case that he's not a good man?

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:08:21 First of all, I believe that Miscavige is a true believer in Scientology. I do believe that.

Lex Fridman 1:08:25 That's a really important, uh, question.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:08:26 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:08:26 D'you think he believes in all the thetans and, and all of that?

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:08:30 He definitely believes in that. I think he believes in Scientology, but in a different way than all other Scientologists, because he's aware of a lot more information.

Lex Fridman 1:08:41 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:08:41 Damaging information about L. Ron Hubbard and the true story of Scientology than most people, so his version of belief is different. I'll give you one example here. So Scientology's bridge to total freedom goes up to what they call OT8, Operating Thetan Level 8.

Lex Fridman 1:08:53 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:08:53 Okay? Scientologists have all been told that L. Ron Hubbard, before he passed, finished, completed putting together OT9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15.

Lex Fridman 1:09:03 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:09:04 It's just sitting in the vault waiting to be released. This is part of the Scientology belief system, because remember, I said going up Scientology's bridge to total freedom is how you're supposed to get back to your native godlike state.

Lex Fridman 1:09:15 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:09:15 Well, all the Scientologists in the world who have already done OT8 know that they haven't gotten there, but they still believe in Scientology because they're told, "There is more. But wait, there is more."

Lex Fridman 1:09:24 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:09:25 Miscavige knows there is no more. So Miscavige knows the fundamental promise of being able to achieve full operating thetan is a lie. He knows L. Ron Hubbard didn't accomplish that, so therefore, no one else is going to accomplish it as well. If L. Ron Hubbard had accomplished it, Miscavige knows, well, he didn't write it up, he didn't, uh, leave instructions for how anyone else would accomplish it. So no matter what, Miscavige knows that the fundamental promise that Sci- what Scientology is saying they will be able to deliver to mankind is a lie. Now, it's gonna sound like I'm contradicting myself, 'cause it sounds like I'm saying, "Well, he knows it, it's bullshit." I think he believes that L. Ron Hubbard just failed to finish his work.

Lex Fridman 1:10:14 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:10:15 And he's kind of hoping L. Ron Hubbard's gonna come back to finish the job. 'Cause L. Ron Hubbard did tell the people at International, the International Management Base, at least a core of them, that he was coming back. Now, we know that David Miscavige believed this, because right around the 21-year mark, he was supposed to come back like 21 years after he died.

Lex Fridman 1:10:33 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:10:34 Right around the 21-year mark, David Miscavige was getting busy putting some things in place that had to get done in case L. Ron Hubbard came back. So we know he at least believed to that level.

Lex Fridman 1:10:43 Did he believe that like, uh, L. Ron Hubbard can sort of enter his own body?

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:10:49 No. That's not how it works in Scientology.

Lex Fridman 1:10:51 Okay. So you can't have a transfer of thetans?

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:10:55 If you were full OT, you could.

Lex Fridman 1:10:58 Can you, uh, describe the OT again? So O- OT levels, OT1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to the 8, what, um, what are they? What's, how do you get to level 1?

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:11:06 I'm gonna answer this question by first connecting some dots.

Lex Fridman 1:11:08 Yes.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:11:08 Okay. Um, we spoke earlier in the interview about achieving your native godlike-

Lex Fridman 1:11:15 Yes.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:11:15 ... state. That, in Scientology, is called native state. Okay. Native state and full operating thetan mean the exact same thing.

Lex Fridman 1:11:23 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:11:24 Okay? Because at native state, you are a fully operating thetan. Oper- you know, operating meaning operating in your full capacity. So OT means operating thetan.

Lex Fridman 1:11:34 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:11:35 So the upper confidential half of Scientology's bridge are called the OT levels, the Operating Thetan levels, and these, and remember, they're confidential, so most Scientologists have not done these levels. They don't know what's on them. It is on these levels that you learn about the Xenu and the body

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:11:52 thetan story.

Lex Fridman 1:11:52 Can you describe Xenu, please?

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:11:54 We spoke earlier about how, at the lower, non-confidential levels of Scientology's bridge, Hubbard is saying that, "What's wrong with you is your reactive mind."

Lex Fridman 1:12:01 Yes.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:12:01 Okay. Well, in Scientology, once you've gotten rid of your reactive mind, that is what's called the state of clear.

Lex Fridman 1:12:08 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:12:08 Okay, so after you finish state of clear, the next thing on the bridge is the OT levels.

Lex Fridman 1:12:12 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:12:12 Well, if you've already gotten rid of your reactive mind, what the heck are you supposed to do now? Well, now L. Ron Hubbard says, "Okay, first, what was wrong with you was just your reactive mind, but now, the next thing you have to resolve, the next thing that's wrong with you, is you actually have tens of thousands of s- of thetans stuck to your body, and they all have their own reactive minds."

Lex Fridman 1:12:33 Oh, wow.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:12:34 You have to audit the thetans.

Lex Fridman 1:12:39 How do you audit the thetans? Is, are these like different shades of your inner mind, and you just have to try to access them somehow?

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:12:47 You use the E-meter, just like we spoke about, except now, you've got a divider that separates the cans so they don't short circuit, and you hold both cans in one hand.

Lex Fridman 1:12:55 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:12:56 And you have the E-meter in front of you, so now you're auditing yourself. You're telepathically talking to the thetans that are stuck to you. You are thinking the commands instead of saying them out loud, and you sort of do drills where you practice looking for E-meter reads at the instant you have a thought.... you're telepathically auditing spirits that L. Ron Hubbard says are stuck to your body.

Lex Fridman 1:13:21 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:13:22 Does this sound like a recipe for a mental breakdown?

Lex Fridman 1:13:24 Or a heck of a mental journey, wherever that leads. It's, it could lead anywhere. It, it probably lead to a very bad place, right?

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:13:32 Very often does. And you combine that with the fact that Scientology is against any forms of mental help or health outside of Scientology, and you have a recipe for disaster. Now, you might go, "Where did all these spirits come from that are stuck to your body?" This is where Xenu comes into play.

Lex Fridman 1:13:49 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:13:49 So Hubbard says that 75 million years ago, Xenu, uh, was basically, um, a dictator at, uh, the Galactic Confederation is like 70-something or 80-something planets somewhere in the Milky Way.

Lex Fridman 1:14:02 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:14:02 And, uh, Xenu was like, uh, a dictator, an overlord, for either one of these planets or the whole system, and they had a population problem. And Xenu was like, "We need to get rid of, like, half the people. So we called them all in for tax audits..." L. Ron Hubbard didn't like the IRS, so of course, the story has to do with tax audits. 'Kay. Called them all in for tax audits. Said, "Psyche, bitches!" Froze them in glycol, loaded them up on space planes, flew them to Earth. Remember, the story has to be Earth because the story is what's wrong with us. Flew them to Earth, dropped them in volcanoes, blew them up with hydrogen bombs, and then captured them with, like, spirit magnets. I'm making up words 'cause, okay.

Lex Fridman 1:14:43 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:14:43 Um, and these disembodied spirits of these people that got blown up have just been blowing in the wind here on Earth, and they attach themselves to things, and they can be in the environment, and they stick to bodies and everything. And so, and they all have reactive minds.

Lex Fridman 1:14:59 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:14:59 So at Scientology's upper levels, if you get sick or you have cancer or there's something wrong with you, Scientology will say, "That's one of your body things. You need to get some auditing to fix the body thing."

Lex Fridman 1:15:10 So this story, uh, you do it with a kinda, bit of a chuckle, but when done seriously... So it's just told in a serious way, like, to, like... Or written down-

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:15:22 It's written down.

Lex Fridman 1:15:22 ... and you, and you read it.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:15:23 By most accounts, Scientologists struggle when they read this for the first time, because this is not consistent with what Scientologists are hoping for is on the OT levels. They're hoping for some real life-changing magic.

Lex Fridman 1:15:35 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:15:35 The way these things are described and sold, they're... Uh, remember, they're hoping that these OT levels are gonna make them, uh, give them the ability to go, like, completely independent of their body at will.

Lex Fridman 1:15:44 Yeah.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:15:45 Exteriorize from your body, go back into your body, you know, like, uh, have some real-

Lex Fridman 1:15:49 S-

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:15:49 ... spirit powers.

Lex Fridman 1:15:50 So first, it's kind of a shock. This is... But then, you still probably believe, you hope-

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:15:55 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:15:55 ... and you might be, might turn into, on yourself, self-critical that this is, "I'm just not strong enough yet."

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:16:02 Yeah. 'Cause also, part of the Scientology, remember, it works 100% of the time when used 100% correctly, and if it doesn't, it could be because something's not being done right. But it also could be because you're n- you're doing bad things that you're not telling people about. Like, if you're committing present time overts crimes, sins, Scientologists will be like, "That's part of the reason auditing isn't working on you is 'cause you're committing criminal behavior that you're not being honest about." So every Scientologist is sort of incentivized to, to make auditing work on them. Okay?

Lex Fridman 1:16:36 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:16:36 Now, Lex, this is where it gets a little crazy.

Lex Fridman 1:16:38 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:16:38 On OT3, you learn about the OT, the, the body things for the first time. When you finish OT3, you attest to having achieved the state of having no more body things.

Lex Fridman 1:16:47 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:16:48 And then you start OT4, and he's like, "Psyche! You got more! You got more BTs, except those other BTs, th- they had drug problems, and that's why you couldn't find them the first time. So we're gonna do a little, something a little different here, do something a little different there. Gotta get rid of these BTs that were addicted to drugs." Okay? Then you finish OT4, and you're thinking, "Man, I hope we get to the good stuff soon." And then you get to OT5, and he's like, "Psyche! You got more BTs! You couldn't find these BTs 'cause they were all bunched up together in clusters, and first, you have to break up the clusters, and then you can get rid of the BTs." And you're like, "Okay. Gotta do that."

Lex Fridman 1:17:22 And this was all L. Ron Hubbard approved.

Aaron Smith-Levin 1:17:25 Yeah, this is from L. Ron Hubbard. And then after you finish OT5, you get rid of all the BT clusters. OT6 is just a training course to teach you how to audit OT7. Well, OT7 is now more BTs, except it's in, in the environment stuff. You're trying to locate BTs. You can find them on your body, but it's just more BTs. Okay, and then OT8 is... Remember, we talked about in all these auditing sessions throughout the entire Scientology bridge, you have people who've run hundreds or thousands of past life whole track