>> from politics & prose in d.c., lawrence wright reports on the church of scientology. the author who interviewed former and current scientologists recounts its history of profiles its founders, the science fiction writer. this is about an hour. [applause] >> well, thank you, bradley. thank you overcoming. this bookstore is a great institution and i've been here many times, spoken many times that my son used to be of the reset as a matter of fact. we have a lot of old ties to politics & prose.

you know, i would type of a centile g, but here i am in wash 10, that is a unique roadside koji's and had better talk about how washington plays into scientology. ron hubbard was born in 1911 and when he was 12, his father was stationed here in the navy. so little raunchy through the panama canal with his family and that was a memorable trip for him because i'm not ship with a figure who would change his life and his name was lieutenant commander steve thompson. many people say that and didn't really exist, that he did. he was a real figure and part of

his assignment in the navy -- he had been a spy in japan and he was also a cat financier. he was responsible for introducing burmese cats. he actually trained cats. he had a trained cat named psycho, which anyway, john ron hubbard was coming through the panama canal on his way to washington and sneak thompson had been to vienna to talk to freud and he was a great team and account for the navy. it had to do with the mental health of veterans and serving military personnel. he had gone to show a dealer and drove some of this into a very impressionable, avid young man. so when they arrive in washington, a couple things

happened. hubbard is a boy scout who claim to be the youngest eagle scout ever. regardless of his merits in that regard, he met calvin coolidge at the white house and while he was here, he went to the library of congress and read up on freud and he helped them through it. i was a turning point in his career, happened right here in washington. that is appropriate that we meet here also in a bookstore when we're talking about scientology because if there was every movement in a way a way has a book behind it. stick to what has written a book, has changed the world. for l. ron hubbard that first

insight mannix, which came not in a. and it dominated "the new york times" bestseller list in a way that i hope to emulate. [laughter] there's so much so that sort of set the category for self-help books and became so popular after the war. this year he is that you can heal yourself. you don't need to spend a lot of money. i you need to do is get at the root of your problems, which are in a section of your mind called to react design. the fear is you recall them and lead them of their energy, and rely entirely these.

if you clear your state you look on clear. that book sold millions of copies. hubbard made millions of dollars and boston as well. he then lost the name for a time and decided there is another way -- i jumped ahead of myself. i missed a valuable part of washington history. his father wanted him to be an engineer and he really wanted -- he had another life in mind for him so. he was president of the gliding club and was quite an adventure is scared her. but he didn't finish ew. he was a miserable student of

the yachts and completed his education here and not really wasn't sure. but he did go on and after that, he invented the religion called scientology. well, what is scientology exactly? there's a lot to know about it. it's a very eccentric worldview, created by a writer whose specialty was science fiction. so there's many elements of scientology does sound like science fiction because they were written by somebody who would very similar to much of his fiction. in scientology, the idea is you are an immortal soul that is called defeat any of the e4 and you live again. they can help you remember this

past lifetimes and achieve your salvation. this is great news to a lot of people. in the course of therapy that scientology has this code auditing. the auditor, between you and auditor is a device and it's called in emea to. you hold toucans. in the old days they used to be campbell soup kids with the label scraped off. there are wires connect in a three-meter and a small amount of electricity passing those wires. it's one part of a lie detector that measures your cosmetic skin responses in this adventure upholster restoration. but it gets to something. so when you are talking your auditor, bonito is constantly registering. they think it measures the mass

of the earth sized. you can see the movement as they disaggregate an old painful memory might show up in the meter and if you continually go through this thought entering of his painful qualities, bonito will slow down and pretty soon it no longer affects your behavior. if you have that happen to you, the next he might be an earlier event in your life that was like that, say an argument with your wife. some other moment in your life that resembles that moment. you might say yes, my mother once said the same thing to me when i was about 10. i will never forget it. it is a vivid memory of us talk about it. recent homestand and you go back further and further. another thing that happened

during the time that hubbard moved to washington d.c. in 1957, with the right in dupont circle, and sure many of you noted one of the historic churches of scientology, one of the most beautiful buildings in this neighborhood was one of the original churches of scientology and went right around the corner. so much of his theology was in bed two-tier. during that period of time, people began to have memories in the womb. this is a controversial experiment in the history of scientology because you really remember that far back. you remember arguments your parents had while they were having or something like that because people will produce fish

memories. they have members of previous lifetimes. he began to resist that, but eventually, he endorsed wholeheartedly. now let's imagine you've had that argument with your spouse. you remember the argument with your mother. now suddenly in your auditing you might have an image. the auditor says stop right there. what do you see it quite soon i i seahorses, straw, walk outside of my tc. it imagines what france looks like the 17th century. bear in mind the emu there may be this is true.

this is real. and if you believe that, it adds validity to this image that is then amplified into what feels like a real memory and that becomes a past life. for many people, this is as real ballot is that their memories of their current existence. the thing comport that would be that yes i did that again and therefore i am immortal. another thing that happens oftentimes in these circumstances is people have the experience of leaving their body scientology is called going exterior. they sent me a floated away away. they can look around time of, go to other planets. i'm not trying to denigrate the experiences people have in scientology or other religions, but if you've had such an

experience, what other people say about scientology, the criticism they might launch against the church isn't going to reach them. they've had a transforming experience, information they find valuable and advice and really is not going to reach them. there's a couple questions people often ask me and i am going to treat some kind of quickly, but i think they are important. one was was covered creasy? he's often seen that way and he did have concerns that he expressed about his own mental health. he wrote to the veterans administration for some assist in, for some kind of psychological assistance that we don't have any record that he ever caught that. many people have given me their diagnoses. some professionals have weighed

in with malignant narcissism, paranoid schizophrenia. and certainly if you look at his behavior and his thinking, he does show signs of a lot of the same. nobody in history has ever mapped his own mentality quite as hubbard, meticulously examining every detail, just as a writer and here we are in our bookstore. i have to take my hat off to him. he holds the guinness book of world records for the number of titles he published, more than a thousand. so he continually wrote and mostly what he wrote about inside college he was his own interior journey that is the scientology really is and when

you enter the church of scientology, it is like a brick or trail into his mind. the further you go into the church, the deeper into sunday's minute. one way i look at l. ron hubbard, if we were in another culture, same operational culture, anthropologists sometimes look at schizophrenia as the shaman disease. people who have these experiences, sometimes in our culture would say they are crazy and need to be on medication. in other cultures and other times, people who have extraordinary mental breakdowns are journeys come back and feel they heal themselves and they are the people that people go to to be healed.

their mission is to heal their friends and community. i think l. ron hubbard somehow saw himself that way. he had a theory of his life that he propagated as the truth. he said that he was a heroic veteran of world war ii. he said after the war he was so badly injured that he was blinded and crippled and medicine couldn't help him. so he developed his own take is that healing those are techniques that involved into dianetics and became the root of scientology. but the record shows he was never injured in the war. there was nothing serious around with them. but the idea of the shaman's journey is buried in the legend he created about himself.

now, with viacom and? this is probably the most common perception of l. ron hubbard. i think if you really work on an at some point in sap would've taken the money and run. he never did that. he spent his entire existence for the most part alone with those cans in his hand, selling activator, trying to find what was going on inside the vast universe inside his mind. that is how he passed all of this time in creating bureaucracy to support this amazing theology he had come up with. now l. ron hubbard died 27 years ago today. he was succeeded by a young man named david savage, who is 25

years old when hubbard died was not the designated competitor. he purposely took control of the church. his one great legacy also took place here. when l. ron hubbard died, he made a decision to not pay his taxes for the church of scientology. by 1993, the church of a billion dollars to the irs. it didn't have a billion dollars. it was an existential moment. thes. it was an existential moment. the church had to get a tax exemption and in order to do that, how to get the irs to recognize it as a religion. there's only one agency in the country that can determine whether you are a religion or

not and that is the irs, organization. ill-equipped to make this distinction. [laughter] so how did the church of scientology go about acquiring that exemption? they began by launching a series of lawsuits against the irs, 2400 against the irs and individual agents. they hired private is to follow them to convention and see who is drinking too much or fooling around on the road and he would write about their episodes in their own magazine, intimidation , forceful response is to the irs and the irs is brought to it is. it is really overwhelmed by this cascade of lawsuits. but there is the problem the church still had.

it out of the dollars. so both of these entities were loggerheads. one day, david miss cottage the current head of the church now with having lunch with gerald pfeffer, one of the attorneys in washington with his wife, monique, who represent the church of scientology. they were having lunch at the bombay club. here is his deputy, marty rathbone and suddenly said to pfeffer, look, i've had enough of this. we are going to go to the irs and talk to the irs commissioner right now. the lawyers were kind of stunned. but indeed they jumped in a cab and went to 1111 constitution avenue a block and said we are

from the church of scientology and we want to see the commissioner. well, the commissioner wasn't available that very moment, that he quickly was. they had an interest in getting this resolved as well. there may be good merit for the reason the irs made the distinction that the church of scientology is a bona fide religion. i don't know. what standards they use to determine a religion. but in any case, the trade-off was that this stopped in the exemption was granted and once that happens, these vast privileges and protections of the first amendment guarantees the villages surrounded and protect you until this day. so those events alteplase in

washington d.c. and i thought it would give you a little historical background before inviting you to respond to some questions. thank you. [applause] >> good evening. thank you so much for coming. can you speculate to the future of this cabinet. she seems to be such an abusing person with people in hierarchy and some ordinary people look out for 70 years. >> i'd be happy to talk about that. i am not the first to talk about this, but i've had 12 people tell me he physically assaulted them. i had more than 20 witnesses. he wasn't the only one who was beating people up, but he was the head of the church and is

quite remarkable to think that kind of behavior can go on. moreover, some of the people who are eaten and others were confined. their reeducation camps of rehabilitation progress in different locations, but especially in this desert compound in southern california called the code base, where the clergy of scientology has its headquarters. a 500-acre compound. there are two double wide trailers buried together. at one point, decided he was going to start sending some of his top level executives they are for a kind of reeducation. all the furniture was taken out. they slept on the floor and sleeping bags. they were only allowed out once

a day for a shower in the garage. during that period of time, they are supposed to each other about what their crimes are, what's going wrong. i'll tell you what went wrong. there was a lot of physical confrontation, more than 100 people at one point, really the top tier of management was confined in this. this has gone on for years. the nominal president of the church, my friend could tell you stories of having interviewed him years ago. perhaps because of the way he treated john, he's been locked up for seven years. now i speak as an amateur about tax law, but by understanding of the 501 t. three is on the

church is giving with layers of accountability. one entity is accountable to the next. if you have one individual who can put other individuals into a double wide trailer for years on end, i don't you can say there's who has any power inside the church of scientology. i think the church is that a crisis point in its future and is headed for a reckoning. if he's not willing to come forward and confront his accusers, deep of the church have a responsibility, a moral responsibility to address these abuses and i particularly charged the celebrities with that duty because nobody else has done more to bring people into scientology.

they have a definite responsibility to understand what is going on there. >> in 1989, the u.s. supreme court ruled that the basic form of fundraising, the fixed donation was not an income tax to lie down. in october 1993, evidently it has been alleged independently of the exempt organization of the irs, which are really give tax exemption, overruled the u.s. supreme court and gave them that tax deduction. how in the world can the irs overrule his judgment of the u.s. supreme court? >> are obviously better qualified to answer that than i

am. would make is that exemption, they also were to the church the power to determine which of its own entities are tax exempt. i have been seeking that power myself. hubbard wrote innumerable novels. those of us are tax exempt. they have nothing to do with the church of scripture, but according to the irs is capacious judgment given to the church. all of that falls under the jurisdiction of religious literature. >> before he disappeared, indicated publicly they had spent $1 instigating the irs before that was given. who follows up on some unlike that? >> you know, i think first of all when you have a situation like that, it's an ideal place

for an investigative reporter to go when in ca have many of the same questions that everybody has about scientology. i think the windows need to be opened and i've tried is much as i possibly can to crack them open. i got very little cooperation from the church's outcome of that awareness of the public and in its public officials that we know more about it are called for. emily, please. >> have you personally been in to the data by scientology? this may be apocryphal you may know. hired 15,, 20 years ago come a time reporter had to change its name because his life became so intolerable. i know they presented the publication of your book in and

grab. the second part of my question is talking about people disappearing and being hunted against their will, where is the justice department and other branches government looking on? >> you have to remind me if you don't hit every point here. i've just had innumerable legal letters. i have not inundated by then. and i spoke was about al qaeda. [laughter] al qaeda doesn't have any lawyers. and if they did, they'd be a really dangerous organization. the u.k., yes it's true, my british publisher backed out. it shows several tanks. one is that my american

publisher has a lot of courage and is willing to withstand all these kind of shots across the bow we had missed the. i am very grateful to have that kind of support. i've been asked by penn, the international writers are nation took her to talk to members of parliament and ministers of justice about their laws, which are foreclosed in many cases, the flow of information to people who might really need the information about organization that could be the dangerous. so i understand the stance of the bright on this kind of the team, but were going to do what we can to change it. ..

>> people being held against their will, children being recruited into that organization at really young ages and taken out of school and pushed into heavy service and impoverished. these are all questions the fbi had. but the court ruled in one of the notable lawsuits that these are religious practices, and this is religious discipline in terms of the church. and so the fbi ran up a white flag, but they got as far as, according to one of my sources, they were thinking of doing a raid on the gold base which is a

pretty, it's got high fences and motion detectors and pretty formidable. but they're going to break and go in and open the door unemployment rate everyone. some of -- and he got so far, david would try to escape on tom cruise's airplane. [laughter] they got the tail numbers on tom cruise's airplane to make sure he didn't go away. but what my sources tell the fbi, if you were to break open and open the doors and say you are free, people would say, we are here of our own. and that's why the subtitle of this book is the prison of belief. because it's there will that holds been there more than any other thing. >> i was wondering if in your research you came across a dollar amount that hubbard put out of what will be needed to defeat the lord?

i think there's always money coming in but it doesn't go anywhere. >> now. there is a lot of money in scientology. when hubbard left the church they didn't have that much money. he had a lot of money. a lot of money was transferred to his individual account. but when they had that huge liability to the irs, they just didn't have that much money and their coffers. now that you. they do have according to former members of billion dollars in liquid assets in offshore accounts. now, the irs -- the catholic church would have a hard time coming up with a billion dollars in cash. that's a lot of money for a small organization, a testament to the devotion of the members to be able to amass that amount of money. whether or not they had money, or lawyers, what they really need is members.

and the future of the church is going to depend on its ability to actually bring people into the church. and nothing in that regard they are really failing. >> very interesting. i want to know are there other movie stars other than tom cruise that have become involved in this? and any sources at why movie stars might be attracted to? in many years ago, growing up in another country i had a friend whose brother disappeared into a ship, a boat. you know, i don't -- do people still disappear into this organization? and is there no legislation at all to try to stop these guys? >> let me start with the ship. in the mid '60s, hubbard created a little scientology armada, and they sailed the

mediterranean and then caribbean. and the young people that he hired to be their crew, you know, young scientologists, were called the sea organization that became the clergy. if your friend went into that, he probably became a member of the sea org, and may have gotten closeted in one of their compounds. they are not encouraged to deal with the outside world, so that might be what happened. now, as for celebrities, the church of scientology was designed for celebrities. it was founded in los angeles. the celebrity center is there in hollywood. it's one of the major landlords in all of hollywood, and early on the church published a list of prospective celebrities for the church of scientology.

hubbard wanted exemplary figures who would be pitching in for his religion. and the names on the list were like uphold, walt disney, marlene dietrich. at me, there was a long list of some of the most notable people in america in the '50s. and people did go in. gloria swanson, for instance, former silent movie star who then came back in such glory on sunset boulevard. she joined the church of scientology. rockets and made a brief appearance -- rockettes and made a brief appearance in the early days. there's other names, stephen boyd, karen black. but the big fish, the one that would be the transforming figure alluded capture. the first of the biggest fish was john travolta.

and his is an exemplary study in -- story in itself. he was a young, troubled young actor who was doing his first movie in mexico. and he became friends with an actress, and she decided to give him a copy of dianetics. she was into scientology herself and she gave him some dianetics therapy, and he went. he had an out of body experience. this was made a huge impression on him. and then when he came back to los angeles he started going, taking courses at the celebrity center. and one day he told his teacher that he was trying out for a role in welcome back cotter. so the teachers everybody in the class, if you can imagine, orient themselves for abc

studios and allopathic we send the message, john travolta is right for the part. and he got the part. so after that he always said that scientology put him in the big time. i have some concerns about travolta brings up a story that i think is also an important one to understand that one of my sources, delightful woman joined the church when she was a young teenager. and because of her charm and her bubbly nature, she was assigned to help young actors. and one of the young actors was john travolta who is just beginning to have his first offender and it was hard for him to handle. and spanky helped into the emotion difficult period. and his mother died in, you know, he really leaned on her. now, spanky had a little girl,

and she was pregnant, and a friend of hers was dying and she felt the church wasn't taking good care of her and she got angry and she was sent to the rpf thing in this old hospital that's on the edge of hollywood, a big blue building that many of you seem with the big yellow sign of scientology on it, looms over the district. it's an old hospital as i said, and there were so many people crowded into patient rooms that spanky was put up on the roof with a soggy mattress. she's pregnant. she's eating slop out of a bucket. she's in hollywood. look around and you can see sunset boulevard and all the sort of thing. just imagine the contrast. and her baby is taken from her to a scientology childcare place where there's only one woman overlooking dozens of children.

at one point, spanky with over to see her baby, vanessa, and vanessa had whooping cough, in her crib was soaking wet and her eyes were glued shut with mucus. and spanky thought she had died. moreover, when she was pregnant and she was losing weight, she thought she would lose her baby as well. so she was really, really scared. and at this point members of the church came to her and asked if she could get a print of saturday night fever from travolta. and the deal was, you know, she agreed to call travolta's assistant, and he said he would give for this print. it was the only copyleft, his personal copy, but the deal was she could -- he hadn't heard from her for months and he did know what was wrong with her, but i think you must have suspected. he said the deal is off want to

have dinner with you. so okay, the scientology executives agreed to do. they get the print. they showed the movie and then they're taken and forced to call travolta and for the date. and he sent her flowers that were taken up to in the rpf. but i have to say, what did he know? what do you know about his friend who had taken care of him? she finally made an escape, calling travolta's assistance to come pick her up as she was going to supposedly take her daughter for medical treatment. then she jumped in the car and fled. but i still wonder, you know, when people like john travolta and tom cruise and others stand up and say what a great place scientology is, if every member those occasions, if they acknowledge the kind of abuses that are taking place right under their noses. >> thank you for being here. you're passing. i love your writing. >> thank you.

>> number one, why aren't there any of these reports like this other woman asked about all the abuse when people take their passports away, don't have any money, they can't escape, nowhere to go. there was a show on tv about a pregnant woman who was forced to watch a live in a parking garage while she was pregnant. why don't these people, after they defect, why don't they report this? and number two, why do people stay even though they are cheated? >> these two questions are tied together. let me put you into the mind frame of someone who, say someone has been abuse on this old base in the desert compound. and it could be that supposed to join like many of these people when you were a child, or maybe

you were born into it. let's say that probably, you know, many other family members or maybe all of them, are members of the church. your whole society is composed of people like you in the scientology, and probably in the sea org. you don't have any education to speak up. yeah, you're impoverished, you pay $50 a week when she become a member of the sea org your given t-shirts and to their fans and that's your lifetime allotment. so everything that you, you know, all of your other needs him out of that money. so you don't have very much contact with the outside world. you were taught to be very suspicious. non-scientologists in scientology is called lots. it's an old ethnic slur the brits had for south asians.

wag justice in one of those things you would never do. say you've been physically abused, or some other reason would cause you to want to leave the church. you could go through the front door. it would mean turning her back on all of your family and friends into a society that your very ill-equipped to go into. but if you did make that choice you would also be given a bill. it's called the freeloaders ta, and it's a bill for all the services you might of been getting during the period of time or whatever else they want to add. and typically this is hundreds of thousands of dollars. your bank account probably is not that flush. and you're also made to sign a concession -- confession of crimes that you supposedly committed. indication of us had anything

against the church, they will have this document, as i've seen such documents come to be used against you. if you decide, on the other hand, to send to run away and are able to get out side the get out side the gate and i can escape, as a number of people i've talked to have been able to, they will go after you and try to bring you back. and the way -- i talked to the guy that was in charge of that. is really chilling. they are able to call airlines and persuade them that their relatives and medical emergency, find out what flight you are on. they will send people out to set up side your relatives houses and monitor them. it's out in the desert so they usually get you before you get very far. but one guy, they know so much about you, they have all their financial information on everything you had to confess. but one guy, what really got him is he was well-known for his love for baseball and depicting

a at a san francisco giant parking lot. so you see that this is a total mistake universe and it's very difficult to break away. yes, sir. >> let me -- follow the money and the need for plaintiffs who are inside, want to bring suit. and just recently, a couple named the garcias filed suit in district court in florida for fraud for $400,000, naming the various scientology organizations as well as established by name this way. and supposedly with a contractual basis for their suit. to what extent would this be a way for the organization to face a new reality, where it's not coming in, an individual, someone trying to break free but someone going after the money, something which is important to

scientology and the strategy? >> well, as i said earlier this is an organization is really lawyered up. and i talked to one of the lawyers who created the architecture, this bureaucratic architecture of scientology, after so many discrete compartments that it's impossible to break the bank. each one of them is isolated from the other, and i've met luis garcia and his wife. i wish them well but, you know, i think it's a formidable task to take down scientology. it has to take itself down. it has -- you know, somebody inside, there aren't really -- the reason i tickle the celebrities and assigned them this was possibility is the other executives have been locked up for such a long period of time, they have no power.

the only power that anybody has been a church of scientology to really affect change are those front man that you constantly see. and they are the ones that are charged with changing this. >> how much valid he is there in the movie sequels well, i loved the master a lot of people don't agree with me. and maybe it is very obscure and maybe because of my reading of so much about ron hubbard's works, it was more interesting to me than -- i thought the performances were really compelling. and i thought hoffman was a very plausible reincarnation of l. ron hubbard in many respects, and you could kind of see the charisma and the contradiction in his personality that makes hubbard such a charismatic and compelling figure a really great figure to write about.

there were actually bits of dialogue in the movie better in my book, not that i wrote but that someone else, you know, the resources that are used that turned up in the lips of some of the characters in that movie. so yes, it was fidelity in that way but it's a loose. it doesn't intend to be an exact depiction of the search of scientology, but just the other of powerful personality like that. >> are you aware of any meaningful serious efforts to challenge the 501(c)(3) exemption? >> no, i am not. spent my question is about a set of abuses, alleged abuses you mention in your book. you say that the scientology organization does not believe that it's a leadership, women should have babies.

but it does not tonight you, any pregnant woman to have an abortion. but your book also says that members of pregnant women said to you and others that they have been pressured by scientology organizations to have abortions that they didn't want to have. so can you explain, how specific are the allegations of the pressure on the one hand, have specific are the denial to the particular contentions? and have you drawn the conclusion? >> i've talked to a lot of women that said that they had abortions and that they were told to have abortions. and man who said their wives, nina, pushed to have abortion. it's not just women that feel the loss. and some of those people are out now and will never have family.

you know, they miss that opportunity. so it's a really tragic thing. the leverage that the church uses used to be there were children in scientology. they used to be on board ships. they cause a lot of trouble. and hubbard have a theory that children are not different from adults, they are just small. and, therefore, they should be treated as you would treat an adult, and so when a child misbehaved, he came up with one of his punishment was to put them in the chain locker. that's where the anchor chain is stored, and it's cold and dark and dank. and they would be fed but they were not allowed out to go to the bathroom or go to sleep or anything. just put in there for days and some of them for weeks. he actually put -- a deaf girl

in the hopes she would regain her hearing. so the treatment of children became huge issue early on and finally, it was decided we can't have them. we can't have kids here because they had a ranch were children, and the children essentially built their own dormitories and gave themselves going and so on. very, very little adult supervision. so it came to pass that the decision was made no more kids, which meant that if you get pregnant you have a choice. you can leave the sea org with all the consequences i told you about losing your ties to your family and so on, and having very little to look forward to, and the sense of losing your eternal salvation. or you can wash out of the sea org and he set off to some remote location as a staff member. in the face of that, a lot of

people chose to have the abortion. and what they do is they go to county health and charge it to the taxpayer. >> my question is, whether the allegation pressure to have the abortion, get your wife to have the abortion? are the specific, times and place? and how about the denial? if that person was not in scientology or the wife wasn't in scientology or the person doing the pressure wasn't? are the -- >> the allegations of the abortions our individual, person by person. women or husband would tell me this happened to me and you see sometimes in court suits with a specified date selected. the church has denied categorical we don't do that. >> i've read a couple of your articles and another book about

scientology, look forward to reading your book in whole, but she comes across as a terrible malevolent figure, including the way you push this way to leadership. but my question is, has he really been -- [inaudible] in an evil way, are what -- from the principles instilled by l. ron hubbard? >> well, david and no one hubbard are different in one way, which is that david growth in scientology and l. ron hubbard did not. you can't say that david is not a creation of scientology because he joined it when he was a young teenager. he joined the sea org when he was 16 after dropping out of high school. is entire adult life, and most of his entire life has been

lived inside this organization. so he is -- said he is a manifestation of a. although many ex-members think that he has taken the church away from the original teachings of l. ron hubbard. every religion faces an existential moment when the founder dies. and whether it's brigham young or paul, after christ or whoever. it's going caching is the religion is going to survive because of the success or it's going to perish because the charismatic founder is now gone. david miscavige did save scientology when he got the tax exclusion to the church would not exist if it weren't for the. however, the church is in disarray now, in part because of his behavior that he's exhibited

according to many of my sources. so i think that it is now time for the church to examine that. thank you. last question. >> now, i'm wondering if you talk about their hatred of psychiatry and the things they've done in bowling that? >> psychiatry -- in dealing with it. >> you could say psychiatry drives them nuts. [laughter] no one hubbard, when he wrote dianetics, he was under the illusion that he was going to be acclaimed by the american psychological association and the american psychiatric association come he sent the manuscript to them, and they laughed at him. in the viewpoint of scientist, this is like psychological folk art. you know, who would take this seriously? where are the studies he is siding with is not evidence that

they exist. his intuition that he drew upon to imagine human behavior with something that, in the field of psychiatry, was seen as incredibly naïve and disturbing. so ever after that, hubbard took the opportunity to -- he left no opportunity to attack psychiatry. but he was more than that. he alleges that psychiatry is at the root of all humans, and every, everything, terrorism, racism, genocide, psychiatrists. when tom cruise jump down matt lauer's throat about brooke shields and said, you don't know the history of psychiatry, matt, i do. what he's referring to is that.

he's referring to hubbard's belief that 4 trillion years ago, which is in the scientology calendar about when the universe began, psychiatrists were their -- [laughter] and, you know, when zenu, the evil galactic overlord who was responsible for so much of the damage, he was surrounded by psychiatrists, and day, they came up with a plan, because they were overpopulated in the galaxy at the time, to bring in the surplus population, supposedly for tax audits. [laughter] freeze them, send them in rocket ships that resembled dc-3's to

the prisons planet, which is earth, and drop them in volcanoes and blow them up with nuclear bombs and then capture their disembodied spirits, and re- educate those spirits by putting them in front of movie screens and showing them images of england. it talks about jesus and the catholic church and so on. so that's where we all kind of come from. but it's psychiatrists that are behind all this. so in brief, that's the relationship of the church of scientology and psychiatry. thank you very much. [applause] >> for more information, visit the author's website, lawrencewright.com. >> here's a look at some of the

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